As studies of (im)mobility seek the social binds that stunt personal movement, the lives of Scottish fairground workers, Showpeople, offer a distinct addition. Connecting the mobility hubs of KU Leuven, the cultural heritage networks of Una Europa, and the architectural forums of The University of Edinburgh, this research enters the environments of Showpeople to experientially detail the paradox of their culturally social, but socially restrictive travelling work.

Contributing to research on Showpeople’s fairground work, this project pivots to their living arrangements: ‘Winter Quarters’, ‘sites’ or ‘yards’, in which they have gradually settled while not travelling and conducting fairs. Collaboratively exploring this facet of their heritage looks to display struggles with (im)mobility, as well as clarify how their city-wide movement and habitation forms an overarching architecture within Glasgow. The observables sought are cultural, linguistic, and material, and will be approached by contextualising Showpeople’s mobile patterns in relation to the physicality of their living arrangements, identifying the civic entities that affect them, engaging those entities into a source of interactive study, and using data from that assemblage to measure past, present, and future compatibility. This will be done by building a public forum for research alongside Showpeople. As a collaborative hub with the potential of becoming its own architectural element, it will be used for observation, and as a reflexive tool to evaluate and interact with amidst challenges of (im)mobility.