In a city where councils struggle to keep youth centres open, Nike and Palace have, almost by accident, succeeded where authorities haven’t. Known for hype drops and resale queues, the two brands have transformed a derelict Victorian bathhouse in South London into something cities used to build: a true civic space.
Manor Place isn’t just another pop-up playground or branded skate ramp. It is permanent, free, and oddly sincere. What began as a football-meets-skatewear collab ended up as urban design, as if a hoodie and a pair of boots somehow regenerated Elephant and Castle.
Entering Manor Place feels more like joining a scene than just stepping into a space. Morning light cuts through high windows. Skaters drop in with a low, hollow clatter, and the air holds the smell of concrete dust. By lunchtime, shouts and scuffed trainers fill the cage downstairs. In the evening, artists drift through side rooms, their paint-stained fingers half-charging laptops on borrowed plugs. The atmosphere is chaotic and communal in the best way.
The layout is clever. The old pool transforms into a skatepark that lifts to reveal a three-a-side pitch beneath—a fitting metaphor for the space’s shifting subcultures. The Front Room serves as both a gallery and a hangout, while The Residency provides six young creatives with free studio space for nine months. In a city where most “creative hubs” are rebranded offices with neon signs, this one feels lived in.
Details matter. The design nods to London’s underbelly: Southbank’s concrete, Stockwell’s corners, those chipped Victoria Benches skaters know. The football cage borrows its shape from estate courts and tarmac goals, locked up years ago. It’s a nostalgia trip, rebuilt for now.
For all the talk of authenticity in brand work, this one quietly earns it.
No slick campaign. Just a reminder that sport, style, and expression grow from the same cracked pavement.
London used to intentionally build civic spaces. Libraries, parks, and community halls. Now, after years of austerity and shrinking public space, brands like Nike and Palace are stepping in to fill the void that councils can no longer fill.
Maybe that’s progress. Perhaps it suggests that brands have become today’s true city planners.
When the next generation of skaters, artists, and five-a-side dreamers reflect on where they started, it won’t be the council they thank. It’ll be a swoosh and a P.
