Projects
Cricklewood, in North West London, is a community on the borders of three boroughs, and thus tends to be civically ignored: it has no public space, no town hall, no library, not even a single bench.
In response, Spacemakers created Cricklewood Town Square, a mobile public space, which could roam across the area, reclaiming forgotten patches of land, and transforming them with a programme of events into civic space for everyone to use.
From a disused grass space next to B&Q, to an empty pavement outside the Bingo Hall, the project was a bicycle-powered Trojan Horse, aiming to set a precedent: to demonstrate to a neglected community (in a very pop way) how useful public space can be, and how vital it is in forming a community in the first place.
Cricklewood Town Square ran in September 2013. It was designed in collaboration with Studio Kieren Jones, funded by the Mayor of London's Outer London Fund and LB Barnet, and was part of a wider series of projects led by Gort Scott Architects. Photography by Theo Simpson.
Information
We create projects, publications and interventions to help make our cities, buildings and spaces work better.
We specialise in reactivating dead spaces; harnessing unused potential in a community; and getting inside the machinery of regeneration, and using its levers to come up with something more interesting.
We work with local authorities, private developers, architects and community groups. We believe regeneration should be useful, honest, simple and beautiful.
Spacemakers is led by Matt Weston and Tom James, and was founded by Dougald Hine. We're based in Brighton, London and Stockholm.
Website designed by Jon Cannon, built by Rich Cook.
Along with our project work, we have a strong history of consultancy.
We’ve been part of the Greater London Authority’s Special Assistance Team since its inception in 2011. During this time, we’ve worked with London boroughs on projects as diverse as public space, workspaces, local economics and identities. We’ve also worked nationally, advising on market squares in Basingstoke and university campuses in the midlands. And we’re part of NESTA’s New Radicals, a network of radical organisations changing Britain for the better.
We’re often brought in early on, to work out what the right strategy for a project is long term. We use the experience we’ve gained from our own projects to advise others on how best to bring their buildings, spaces and communities back to life. We’re honest, we give critique and we have ideas.
We do feasibility, problem solving and ideas generation, from a single day to an entire year. If you have a project that could do with some new thinking, please get in touch.
Unit 6, Level 6,
New England House,
Brighton,
BN1 4GH
+44 (0)7740 345828