Fleet Collective is a group of creatives who aim to work collaboratively on bigger projects than they could handle individually, whilst having the space to develop their own individual work. The collective – who rent space on a short or long term basis – is based in a Listed three-storey Gothic building, which has been lying unloved and empty for the last three years in central Dundee.

This is how we describe Fleet, the key word above is ‘aims’, as just now it’s all well-researched theory, that what we’ve created will work in the way that we’ve planned.

Monday 1st August is the day we open the doors and people move in. It’s been a long road to get here, the culmination of 4 years of thought and 6 months of hard refurbishment labour.

Fleet started life as a creative challenge, one which most cities have faced and many have answers to. In Dundee it’s still a problem. There are lots of small or individual creatives, mostly working from home or in cheap offices that aren’t ideal. We felt they needed a base to meet clients and collaborate with other creatives. Dundee, WASPS aside, has a severe lack of studio space for designers and artists in the city.

It’s sadly obvious that Dundee has lots of unused old beautiful buildings. I visited Groningen in the Netherlands a few years ago where I saw how they were dealing with similar creative space issues. De Puddingfabriek was the most interesting solution, an old pudding factory, given over to the creative community, which is now host to creative businesses and individuals sharing the space and working together. Organised and run by the tenant businesses, the creatives ensure that everyone has sufficiently different lines of work so that they are not in direct competition and to encourage open collaborations to happen.

Two years later, after the 2010 NEoN Digital Arts Festival, myself and my now business partner, Donna Holford-Lovell decided it was time to get on and do this ourselves.

So where do you start? We knew we had demand, having spoken to people for years about it… What we didn’t have was a space. We needed something that was fit for purpose, value for money and we needed an understanding landlord who ‘got’ what we were doing and would work with us to help make it happen.

I don’t know if it was serendipity but we came into contact with the ideal landlord through a mutual friend – he’d been trying to find a creative use for a building he had purchased, because ‘he liked it’ and wanted to preserve a historic Dundee landmark.

It was hard not to see the huge potential of the Chamber building and our landlord was happy to work closely with us to get it up to spec. So as he organised the required alterations, we looked at the interior space needs – our first task was to create shelving to separate each creative space and echo the structure of the building.

For this, we worked with the very talented product designer, Chris Alexander of Creo Design. Chris was keen to help out, designing shelving out of heavy duty cardboard as it was flexible, customizable, low-cost and easy to recycle. This has proved successful, the shelves have are very strong and the striking curves fit perfectly with the architecture.

The network infrastructure has probably been the most frustrating and time-consuming set-up challenge. Being based in an old building, unused for years, means you seem to fall off the system – ‘I’m sorry but that address doesn’t exist’ was a common response. After months of repeated requests to get a technician out to prove we did, the saga is finally over! We got our internet services just a few days after we moved in – now everyone has access to free WiFi or network points dependent on their space size.

All very technical and unglamorous stuff, but one of the many necessary evils, alongside business plans, furniture sourcing/removals, janitorial duties, dealing with rates personnel…. The list goes on!

We’ve had immense support from the creative communities in Dundee over the last 6 months. Our first members are moving in to form the foundations of the collective; and we already have a diverse set of skills representing: graphic design, illustration, web design, 3D/2D animation, video production and flash development. We’re now taking applications to fill the remaining spaces and we’re keen to find: game programmers, audio designers, photographers and businesses who compliment the skills we have, such as marketing, PR, journalism etc…

As I write this, we’re already seeing the theory being put into practice – with three multidisciplinary projects on our books and collaborations happening between members before they have even got their keys!

We couldn’t be happier with how it’s all gone, but we know there is a lot of hard work still to be done ahead.

As our creative community and collective grows, it’s indeed exciting times here in Dundee.

Fleet Collective is run by Lyall Bruce and Donna Holford-Lovell | http://www.fleetcollective.com | http://twitter.com/fleetcollective