The Study Space and Exhibition
For one year, 2022-23, South College Street Church is home to the Edinburgh Futures Institute. In order to make the space more home-like, the EFI Creative Projects Team brought in a curated selection of artworks, photographs, commissioned signage, large-scale printed cloth banners, stickers and specially-designed wallpaper, and a selection of plants.
The majority of the artworks are created by University of Edinburgh students – people from Edinburgh College of Art and undergraduate students who took the Currents Course organized by Edinburgh Futures Institute. We hope that these will spark your interest in the work of EFI and will inspire you to take a creative approach to your studies. Others, like the large prints of photographs from the Isle of Skye are there to spark inspiration to explore Scotland outside Edinburgh. Finally, some, like the cartoons from Worry Lines in the Student Support Room are intended to be mildly uplifting when (or, indeed, if!) times get a bit tough.
Throughout the space, you will also notice a lot of greenery – both live and artificial plants. They were brought in to brighten up the space, which used to be uncannily white and rather lifeless. We hope that the presence of these plants will bring calm and a connection to nature for those using the building.
In the printed pictures and the ones below, you can see how the space looked in summer 2022, during the Creative Projects Team’s first visits to the building. Hopefully what you can see around yourself now looks – and feels – a bit different!
Following its short stay at South College Street, in Autumn 2023 the Edinburgh Futures Institute will move to its new permanent home in the former Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on Lauriston Place. It is expected that the new building will become an attractive hub for learning, events and various community activities. The building will be accessible to staff, students and the public, ensuring it lives up to the motto inscribed in stone over one of the building’s main entrances: “Patet Omnibus” which means “Open to All”.
The hospital operations stopped on Lauriston Place and were moved to the new Royal Infirmary building in Little France in 2003, and since then the building stood empty. The reconstruction work on the site started in 2017 and is currently in its final stages.
In the meantime, while the reconstruction work is still underway, you can take an online tour of the building here. Learn more about this fascinating restoration work here.
