The Whisky Bond: Meet the studioholders

We take a tour around The Distillery in Glasgow's Whisky Bond to meet some of the freelancers and organisations who make up the building's creative community

Feature by Adam Benmakhlouf | 19 Nov 2015

Outside The Whisky Bond is a fledgling community garden, and new moorings where barges will next year be set up as living spaces. These are only the peripheral developments that are taking place around the gradual upward spread of TWB into newly refurbished floors. Talking now to the longer-term residents like product design company Fearsome and one of TWB’s first tenants, digital fabricators Flux, this former industrial building is well-known as a hub of creative activity and a growing community. Across the board, the tenants have committed to an atmosphere of idea exchange and an exciting and committed work environment.

Within The Whisky Bond is The Distillery, an open plan, flexible, coworking space. In one of the two adjoining spaces there are fixed desks and in the other a selection of which blend into hot desking. These are essentially ready-made offices, with a stylish design (designed and fabricated by Glasgow-based designers and makers) and a strong community of freelancers and small start-ups from all disciplines within the creative industries. All the members share a large kitchen space, and the shelves full of different jars, cereals and loaves of bread are a subtle sign that this is a space for early starts and full and concentrated working days.

Creative businesses

Euan Robertson, in one of the fixed desk spaces, starts by 8.30am at the latest. Running his own business as a photographer and filmmaker, discipline is an obvious priority. Ewan worked from home for four years before he made the decision that he needed a dedicated space. “Initially I thought I’d do it for a few months for a bit of a break, but I’m a long-termer now.”

In the beginning, there was a lot of appeal for him that the space is rented on a month to month basis. Spaces outside The Distillery, the larger whole office units are “on a more fixed-term basis. The Distillery is a nice way to break yourself in and see if it works for you,” he says. Speaking of the kind of atmosphere he finds beneficial, it’s as simple as “just coming in and having a cup of tea and chatting to people. There are a few other photographers that work in here as well. It’s really good for bouncing ideas off of each other, and talking through really dull techy things. You can ask the questions online, but I don’t think that’s a substitute for sitting down and being able to chat to people.”

The Whisky Bond has grown over the past few years on strength of word of mouth, events, and recommendations between friends and communities. One of photographer Euan’s friends Alan Parks now rents a space on the strength of Euan’s experience. Alan is himself a commissioner for bands and musicians, providing them with artwork and photography. Last week Alan and Euan completed a photoshoot together of Chloe Leone, a musician from Birmingham.

The Whisky Bond workspace – a professional alternative to your kitchen table.

Alan’s own experience follows a common thread in conversations with The Distillery members, that at a certain point working from home becomes an untenable set-up. “I was spending all my time at the kitchen table and it was driving everyone at home nuts. I’m not in every day but a few days a week. You can separate things a bit better that way. Sometimes I’ll have meetings here and they can come in and have chat.” There’s a productive buzz of activity around The Distillery, with enough quiet to stay concentrated. Coming to each different user of the space, in a sign of mutual consideration they all suggest moving to one of the more social areas to talk.

A recent commissioner of Euan’s is just a few desks over. David McGinty, who makes up half of the digital and creative agency Walnut Wasp, was working on a project with his photographer business partner Gail Kelly. For this project, she was shooting video, so for the photographic element they needed an extra hand. As well as acting as commissioners, Walnut Whip also helped Fearsome, a business across the hallway with their rebrand. He’s aware of the other creative businesses and arts practitioners spread throughout of the building through, for example, the internal Show and Tell events when different tenants from around the building present their work. It’s clear that for all the different members up and down the entire building, that there is a strong network of mutual interest, engagement and support.

The Whisky Bond Cafe. Cheese-free sandwiches are available. 

David speaks of the “incredible value for money” of the space, and has watched first-hand as it’s filled up over the last year and as the entire building’s expanded into the fourth, fifth and sixth floors. For him, The Whisky Bond is important in itself as a place of inspiration, and he’s been allowed in the past the flexibility to shoot photography within some of the other spaces in the building. He also gives a shout out to the ground floor cafe, that have been very accommodating at making some dietary requirement-friendly cheese-free sandwiches for him.

While some of the tenants use the space on a more permanent basis, software and app developer Craig Champion makes the most of its dual flexibility and continuity. Often working on more intensive contracts elsewhere, he uses The Distillery TWB as a base. “I’m back for a couple of months. It’s the flexibility that I need. I might be away for a few months, then come back. The other option is that I need to endlessly sort out a new place, or that I work from home. But I like coming somewhere.” He also highlights the meeting rooms available, which for him are very important because in general “people don’t like endlessly meeting at different places.”

Contemporary design

Lisa Pasquale uses her dedicated desk space for her business 6 Cylinder Limited, specialising in building performance. She explains, “I work with architects and engineers to design the lowest energy buildings.” She works for herself, which is appropriate for her field. “There’s only a small handful that do what I do in the industry.”

Lisa has only very recently relocated to Glasgow from London, and having built stable professional relationships decided to find her own space. “I was also hitting the point where I was getting up in the morning and tripping over reports. My dining room table had receipts all over it. I needed an out.” Coming from an architectural background and education, Pasquale was immediately interested in coworking spaces. “For what I do, even though it’s quite technical, I actually find it very helpful to be around people that are creative. Otherwise I’ll just spend all my time looking at spreadsheets and numbers. It’s sort of like small children when they do parallel play. They do totally different activities next to each other. This is the adult version of that.” 

Available on a month to month basis, The Distillery makes the creative community of The Whisky Bond accessible to self-employed professionals and independent creatives. Speaking to companies like new start-up Hectares, who make “sweet potato chips and absolutely nothing else”, they’ve just recently moved from The Distillery to a much larger space upstairs. Members of The Distillery enjoy the ideal set-up of flexibility and stability, with TWB matching the community’s strong ambition and aspirations by providing plenty of opportunities and room to grow.

Sponsored content