DIY Music Cafe
Location: | Lewisham, London |
Type: | Recording / Writing Studios, Affordable Workspace, Café, Community Space, Venue |
Client: | House of Noise |
Collaborators: | Honestly Café CIC |
Duration: | 2018-Present |
Status: | Ongoing |
The project comprises a refurbishment of an existing council-owned building to comprise a café with affordable workspace, recording and writing studios. The café and workspace on the ground floor can be joined to form one large or kept as two smaller spaces, to facilitate community events, album launches, yoga classes and cinema outside of cafe / office hours.
A large rear garden can be enjoyed by building users and will be used for public events. We designed a replacement stair structure with tiered seating that acts as buttress to reinforce a structurally damaged façade, as a place to sit in the sun and an auditorium for theatre, cinema and music performances in the garden. A demountable stage can be built around an existing grid of pier foundations and assembled when needed. A space below the tiered stair structure can be used as a garden room, to house self-contained toilet cubicles for events or to host a pop-up bar.
Further planned community initiatives include provide music recording opportunities for the nearby Lewisham College and supporting former tenants of the building to use the space again.









