Manchester Museum
The Top Floor
Manchester Museum’s Top Floor is a dynamic, community-centred space for action, sharing, learning and dreaming, used by a range of changemaking individuals and groups working across the city.
It’s a place where community organisers can come to access the museum’s resources, benefit from its wide-ranging research and make use of its collections.
Botany collections have been used to inform planting and pollution-combatting action in neighbouring Ardwick, and an installation of artwork created with displaced people in Manchester recalling memories of flora from places they have called home. Residencies and workshops with neurodivergent young people and artists have explored different sensory experiences of the natural world through mammal and bird collections.
The Top Floor offers flexible space to work and host workshops, meetings and community events. It is becoming a home for social enterprises, charities, activists and researchers working on issues including climate pollution and biodiversity loss, wellbeing and mental health services, inclusive access to arts and culture and new models for education.
The Top Floor gives groups a base where we can work, discuss plans and invite people – we’re always really welcome.
How they got here
In February 2023 Manchester Museum reopened following a once-in-a-generation transformation project, hello future, which allowed the museum to expand its building, develop more inclusive facilities, and rethink how it can achieve its mission in more ambitious, impactful and creative ways. This included interrogating the question:
How can the museum use its convening power to support collective action and positive change in Manchester in response to the climate and ecological crisis?
The museum hosted conversations with community and environmental partners to explore the its role and potential for supporting work across the city. This informed the creation of its experimental co-working space, which aims to support the existing network of ecological expertise and knowledge across Manchester and become a hub for others seeking information and connection.
Physical transformation of the Top Floor has improved facilities which now include a therapy room, co-working desks and a communal lounge – and upgrades to learning and workshop spaces with support from the Foyle Foundation.
In February 2024 the museum launched ‘Meet the Changemakers’, a seasonal event which opens up the Top Floor to public visitors and platforms the work of local organisations and activists. Partner-led activities ranged from drop-in art therapy and musical instrument taster sessions to climate justice zine-making, museum object handling, and stalls highlighting local campaigns.
I love the dynamism that the museum has started here; creating the space for people who are visiting and those of us who are trying to shape services to come together and start conversations.
Learning and legacy
The Top Floor has created a dedicated space in the heart of the museum for social and environmental change work across Manchester. It has required the museum to become more flexible and responsive in sharing its resources, working across sectors and disciplines, and inviting new and different forms of knowledge. It asks the museum and its team to be comfortable that the purpose, look and feel of the Top Floor will change and grow together with the people who use it.
The Top Floor hub is managed by the museum’s environmental action and social justice managers. These roles build external relationships, outreach and engagement, as well as working internally to help develop the museum’s strategic approach, consolidate work and support staff learning. Their work is helping to develop a shared understanding of how these values are reflected across the museum.
The Top Floor recognises that Manchester Museum has unique strengths and resources which can help build resilience and mobilise action for an equitable and sustainable future for Manchester and beyond. It reflects the museum’s values to create a more inclusive, caring and imaginative experience that invites participation and helps equip people to navigate the complex global issues of our time.
This work has been supported by the Foyle Foundation, Arts Council England and Savannah Wisdom.