Year
2022

Type
Installation

A winter public installation examining the relationship between city spaces and emotional communication by inviting people to answer a simple question - What are you waiting for? The installation consisted of six pine trees selected from the NOMA tree nursery arranged in a circle to create a city centre glade of light and sound.

Year
2022 -

Type
Retail

Joe from SP has recently launched Yellowhammer. A pottery and bakery in Stockport in collaboration with Sam and Rosie from Where the Light Gets In.

Year
2021 -

Type
Gardening

A children's gardening gang, meeting weekly. Branding by Studio DBD.

Year
2022

Type
Gardening

A garden built with participants from our evening gardening club to create a terrain fit for the future. It incorporates gravel made from 100% recycled building waste and has been paired with plants that are fit for a dryer and warmer climate.

Year
2022

Type
Gardening

45 MMU students working with us and UFO to explore gardening through the widest possible lens.

Year
2021

Type
Event

We devised a studio retreat for Planit-IE. Taking 70 people camping, cooking and connecting to the landscape.

Year
2021

Type
Gardening

A winter installation in praise of dead things. We installed a christmas tree inoculated with different strains of mycelium in an attempt to rehabilitate the idea of death as part of the city.

Year
2021

Type
Gardening

We built a small roof garden for the Ministry of Justice to enjoy. Now nurtured by a team of volunteers.

Year
2021

Type
Retail

In late lockdown we built this small cafe to provide a friendly face and open door at an otherwise bleak time. Now trades onto Sadler's Yard as Pulp Coffee.

Year
2020

Type
Occupation

Painting Studio delivering engagement projects led by Neil for us. Ongoing? Maybe.

Year
2020

Type
Making

A floor for a nomadic performance space delivered through public workshops for the artist Joshua Sofaer.

Year
2020

Type
Event

Experimental running club / psychogeography project connecting people and places in a time of social distancing. An unusual project for us, but one we are really proud of.

Year
2020

Type
Gardening

A sketch of a garden delivered without permission in Manchester City Centre.

Year
2020

Type
Occupation

A free to use meeting space, designed, developed and delivered by SP currently in the Design Gallery at Manchester Art Gallery.

Year
2019

Type
Installation

An outdoor dance studio on an empty shop front to help to animate a space. This space is outside one of London’s most popular dance studios and we liked the idea of animating the space with the dancers queuing outside waiting for their lessons or auditions.

Year
2019

Type
Event

The success of our current economic model relies on infinite growth and consumption in a finite world. This system is confusing, worrying and, above all, boring. Stock exchange was an exploration of a more simple, enjoyable economic model - the barter system. Bring a thing. Swap a thing. Be nice.

Year
2019

Type
Installation

Playspace Co-design with school age children of Manchester for Mayfield. In close collaboration with Tim Denton.

Year
2019

Type
Retail

A weekly studio dinner served from The Old Bank. Dhal, daal, Dahl. Our Friend Joe Whitmore has taken this forward for us.

Year
2019

Type
Occupation

We occupied the first Co-Op Bank at NOMA as what can be best described as a village hall. People used the space for free for projects that are going to make Manchester a better place to be.

Year
2019

Type
Making

We made about 2000 tiles with 2000 individuals in 2019 with MIF. We also made a load of bells for Yoko Ono. Busy days!

Year
2019

Type
Installation

We were invited by The Whitworth to produce drawing tables for a John Ruskin Show. We delivered these whoppers.

Year
2019

Type
Making

We do a lot of pottery based projects, Standard Pottery is the name of our engagement potteries that pop up in unusual corners of Manchester. Sometimes led by Tom Longden who has been with us since the start.

Year
2019

Type
Installation

An atrium imagined as the third everest basecamp imagined as a screenprinting studio. Installation to launch a stunning building and an excuse to work with Tim Denton, Ben Hall and Charlie Kondras.

Year
2019

Type
Event

We took the usable stool camping to the Goodlife Festival. Whilst we were there we also gave a talk about ideas. The Goodlife is a very nice festival indeed.

Year
2019

Type
Product

This is a stool devised by Joe that anybody can make. We think there are now 600 of these in existence. They are a homage to Enzo Mari.

Year
2019

Type
Product

This is a project devised by Joe for sale in The Hepworth. A really simple evolution of a pulled handle and rolled Savoy Cabbage leaf. The idea is that this easy process could be taught easily by anybody. We had a cohort of Dutch mayors make these with us.

Year
2019

Type
Gardening

Small food growing project with MUD. We built raised beds and gardened them with Manchester Urban Diggers at NOMA. This is the first time we used gardening as a way to promote participation in place.

Year
2018

Type
Occupation

We took occupation of a terrace house in Harpurhey for a day and converted it into a pottery studio to encourage people to know their neighbours. Tea was drunk.

Year
2018

Type
Instalation

A goth dry cleaners that dyed your clothes black in support of Mind. Graphics by Easy Peel. Delivered by our friend Monty.

Year
2018

Type
Occupation

This was a 12 month project space we delivered for Mayfield in one of their arches. We made tiles, negotiated with rats and hosted Design Manchester.

Year
2018

Type
Fit Out

We are definitely not a fit out company. But we did do this. Work completed by us and Designmake install with you and I and shades by Cronshaw. We bullied the brewery staff into making stools with us to ensure that this project fitted into our ethos.

Year
2017

Type
Retail

A glowing shed, advertising and leading to a small temporary bar we ran in a Dutch brick modernist building.

Year
2017

Type
Making

We went to Blackburn and made what felt like hundreds of marker pens with children over two days. Pulling apart an industrial process and mimicking it is always fun.

Year
2017

Type
Installation

A national installation to encourage members of the public to make up their own games, sporf. Concept by us, executed brilliantly by our friends Easy Peel.

Year
2017

Type
Installation

A place branding project for a backwater part of Covent Garden, London.

Year
2016

Type
Making

We worked with Unit X students from Manchester Metropolitan University to design and build fanciful furniture for Manchester International Festival.

Year
2016

Type
Event

This is the catch all title for our cinema projects. As now showing club we have operated as a 500 capacity cult classic outdoor cinema and a tiny 16 seater documentary cinema showing 100 dogwoof titles.

Year
2016

Type
Installation

Automatic pottery. We attempted to provide a pottery that anybody could engage with at any point. It was a failure, but a fun one.

Year
2016

Type
Retail

We had a little coffee shop in the front of PLANT NOMA to make the place feel less confusing. We served coffee from our favorite roasters from a pair of SP9s.

Year
2016

Type
Occupation

This was a 12 month occupation of a beautiful 1930s modernist building at NOMA. We ran this project as what we called an 'open design studio' encouraging people to find ways to make their own city.

Year
2015

Type
Event

Every year since 2015 we have run a festival in Sadlers Yard, Manchester.The emphasis is DIY culture, encouraging the public to be active participants in place as opposed to passive consumers.

Year
2015

Type
Building

A year long programme of workshops resulted in The Pilcrow. Our co-designed version of a classic Manchester pub. Still trading under the name Sadler's Cat.

Year
2015

Type
Making

We explored how making could be used as a catalyst to build community, engaging 600 citizens from Manchester in friends studio spaces making things out of wood, clay and cloth.

Year
2015

Type
Installation

This is the first project we delivered. Working in collaboration with Hello Wood. A christmas tree assembled from our cutting list for all the timber elements of The Pilcrow.