A bar, cafe and exhibition space for Southbank Centre for their Festival of the World this summer.

With more than 200 volunteers over 5 months we ran a participatory process in collaboration With Studio TILT where we designed, coordinated and transformed a previously disused space at Southbank Centre. We began the process by inviting volunteers to participate in workshops where we explored who might use the space , why and what it might look like.  

Incorporating and distillingthe ideas into a plan we coordinated volunteers over a series of 12 weekends to build the space, demolishing walls and designing and making everything from concrete furniture, two bars, a new front facade to the graphics and way finding.

With an intent to recycle and reuse material on site and in the locality we recycled over 5 tonnes of material destined for landfill.

Within this process we produced working drawings and liaised with the local authority for planning, licensing and building regulation approval and coordinated a social media campaign to build and engage over 500 volunteers to produce the project.

By the end of the project we had created a community which had taken ownership of the space and some of them now continue to work together on independent projects.

The project won several awards including the FX award for best Public Space Scheme in 2012.