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)