Open Workshops in London
We were always wondering why there aren't more hackerspace-type organisations in London: social spaces where people come together to make things, share knowledge and skills, etc. When LHS started there was very little activity besides some long-running well-established orgs. Here's a list of some of the ones I've seen since, feel free to expand/amend. Some are old, most are new. Some are meet-ups, some are attempts at creating workshop spaces.
It's sometimes hard to delineate which orgs to include. I'd like to focus on non-profit maker-type communal workspaces, and *not* on orgs in more well-developed domains such as open source, computer security, the arts, commercial co-working spaces, incubators, etc; however sometimes those boundaries aren't very clear. Jonty defines hackerspaces more narrowly as "community owned and governed communal workshops with a focus on recreational use", but this list is not just limited to hackerspaces.
Early-Stage
- Buildin Bloqs
- East London Inventor's Club (long-running event series, now also looking for a physical space)
- Croydon Round Table of Inventors (Long-running event series, now also starting an "Invention Centre" in South Norwood; likely commercial.)
- UCL MakeSpace (opening in March 2013)
- Brixton Maker/Hackspace meetup, now called Brixton Tinkerspace
- Repair & Reuse parties (Billy mentioned these; can't find them online. Maybe he meant Repair Cafés?)
- The Remakery (Brixton)
Running
- Assemble & Join (Waterloo, inspired by hackerspaces; they have a CNC router! Not sure if they're commercial or non-profit.)
- Sugar House Studios (design/architects; commercial)
- Deckspace
- RARA (Clapton, non-profit member-run co-working-ish workshop)
Defunct
- East London Hackers
- Sphinx House in Grays Inn Road (squat)
Events, Conferences
- dorkbot london
- MzTek
- London MakerFaire
- Technology will Save Us (mostly a store-in-store, but they also do organise workshops)
- codasign (creative technology workshops)