Our Journey: Grit Shed to Gig Space
Grit Shed
In 2018, our big corrugated metal romney shelter was once the home to thousands upon thousands (perhaps even millions) of little grains of rock salt. It was still full of grit when we got the keys, so the first step in this project was hours of scooping it into a wheelbarrow. It took a week of pressure washing the inside of the place. There were a few occasions in which members of the public came up still looking for grit to defrost their driveways.
We teamed up with The Piano Project CIC in early 2019 to start working on some tiered seating made of upcycled pianos saved from landfill. The idea for the structure comes from Edinburgh’s Pianodrome whose team we have been honoured to work with in both the design and construction stages of our project.
We started taking the pianos apart piece by piece. Pinblocks, soundboards, strings, keys, actions, pedals, hammers, harps and decorative outer casing all soon occupied the space, along with surplus wood that seemed to hold everything together.
The construction stage started before the design stage was finished - we hadn’t yet fully decided on the final shape of the seating or layout of the room. Instead we tried out different things, judged how they looked and adapted. It was something of an iterative process. We had the clear goal in mind to build a unique venue that the community can be proud of and to create a destination within the area that gives people a new reason to travel to Glasgow’s last Great Victorian Park.
In 2021, things took a leap forward. Springburn was once an area with three cinemas of its own. Eager to bring film back to the area, we worked together with New Rhythms for Glasgow and local artist Thomas Abercromby to install a cinema screen and projector, expanding the uses of our space and allowing us to become home to art film screenings and monthly cinema nights.