Organising the emergence of creativity. How to shape a creative space to preserve balance between creation and exploitation

Research on creative industries has long observed the specificities of cultural production and its spatial anchoring. In this sense, creative places are caught in diachronic tensions: they must remain in the middleground, i.e. keeping a balance between exploration and novelty (underground) while progressively gaining visibility and legitimacy (upperground). Thus, the organisation of material environments contributes directly to the circulation of ideas and the formation of shared representations. Analysing the design and evolution of creative places through a sociomaterial lens helps illuminate the ways in which such spaces sustain—or fail to sustain—their creative role over time. Based on the study of a moving Parisian creative territory with observations and about 30 interviews, this article demonstrate that the material design of creative places is both a product of strategic organisational choices and a vector of creative outcomes over time. The findings thus extend sociomaterial approaches to creativity by highlighting the critical role of longitudinal design and spatial adaptability in sustaining a balance between underground creativity and upperground recognition.