ACTIVATIONS
How you activate spaces is as important as the work that goes into building them. People make places and creating a space that they want to visit and use is one of the most important parts of our practice.
Chronixx Appearance and Pop-Up Shop at Brixton Village (2018)
Internationally renowned reggae superstar Chronixx was scheduled to play a series of concerts at Brixton Academy, down the road from Brixton Village. We worked with his team to use one of the vacant shops in Brixton Village to operate as a pop-up merchandise store in the run up to and during his shows. We also brought him into the historic arcade for a one song performance and for a meet-and-greet with his fans. His support act Koffee also did an intimate gig from the shop.
During the activation, we ran a social media competition to win tickets to his last show in London.
Free Kids Play days on Broadway Market (2013-2017)
Our aim at Broadway Market was to always maximise our benefit to the local community, going beyond retailing. One of the ways we achieved this was by using the street surface for different activities on the days the market wasn’t operating. On Sundays during childrens’ summer holidays we worked with local charities, schools and community projects to create a streetscape that would be exciting for local children. We brought in soft play equipment and lined the street with it; we brought in childrens’ entertainment and activities, such as face painting, colouring-in, live music and circus performers; and we worked with the Hackney City Farm to bring farm animals down the road for the children to meet and learn about, a little nod to the market’s history as a droving route from the pastures surrounding London to Smithfield Market.
Special Markets on Broadway Market during the Olympic Games (2012)
During the 2012 Olympic Games we operated extra market days on Fridays and Sundays to serve the international visitors coming to East London for the sporting events, while generating additional trading opportunities for traders and additional revenue for the market to invest in its community projects.
The Michelin Star Market Stall: Nuno Mendes & Jose Avillez hosting a street food stall at Broadway Market (2010)
Broadway Market very quickly became a foodie mecca, with its mix of fresh farm produce and pioneering work at the forefront of London’s street food scene. We were always looking for ways to keep this cutting edge. We worked with ‘Taste of Portugal’, part of the Portuguese Tourist Board, and multi-Michelin star Portuguese chefs Nuno Mendes and Jose Avillez, to run a Portuguese street food stall on the market for one day. They served classic Portuguese street food dishes such as bifana, bolinhos de bacalhau and pastel de nata with a Michelin level twist. Needless to say the queues were long!
We received project completion for Hackney Bridge, from the construction team in May 2020. This meant that we were in the thick of COVID-19 lockdowns. We were able to deliver a significant proportion of the workspace under these rules, however the business model for the scheme was heavily reliant on the hospitality elements to be operational, the lockdowns made this very challenging.
As we were not able to deliver the planned indoor hospitality elements of the project we focused on how we could deliver safe, outdoor hospitality and create the buzz Hackney Bridge deserved. We had a central courtyard at the heart of Hackney Bridge that gave us approximately 4000 sqft of space that could be easily controlled and that provided access to the sun-trap terraces overlooking the canal. We bought in 5 food traders and built a full service bar with beer taps and cold room in a shipping container on wheels so it could be easily moved around. This generated on average £10,000 and brought 2000 visitors per week to the project over a 5 month period that would have otherwise been missed.
The culmination of the activation was a screening of the postponed 2020 Euros which we were able to hold in the yet to be fitted out food hall.
The Schoolyard Market at Broadway Market (2011)
We were approached by the local primary school next to the street market about using their playground as part of the market on Saturdays. At this point Broadway Market had a long waiting list for spaces, with traders waiting years for opportunities to take a stall and no scope for us to help start-up businesses try out ideas and get a feel for what trading on a busy market was like. We decided that the school playground space was a perfect place to be able to start an incubator for new businesses, to be part of the market, but in a space that didn’t have the pressure of the packed street market. We offered the newcomers workshops and mentoring from existing veteran traders to help them find their feet quickly. This created a pipeline of new, tried and tested traders for when prime spaces became available on the street market.
Former Roganic Chef, Ben Spalding, hosted an outdoor street food restaurant ‘Stripped Back’ at Broadway Market Schoolyard (2012)
We were approached by the local primary school next to the street market about using their playground as part of the market on Saturdays. At this point Broadway Market had a long waiting list for spaces, with traders waiting years for opportunities to take a stall and no scope for us to help start-up businesses try out ideas and get a feel for what trading on a busy market was like. We decided that the school playground space was a perfect place to be able to start an incubator for new businesses, to be part of the market, but in a space that didn’t have the pressure of the packed street market. We offered the newcomers workshops and mentoring from existing veteran traders to help them find their feet quickly. This created a pipeline of new, tried and tested traders for when prime spaces became available on the street market.
Brixton Kitchen Competition - Brixton Village (2018)
We wanted to bring the community into the leasing process at Brixton Village, and create more opportunities for individuals who might not normally feel able to take the risk of setting up businesses and become entrepreneurs. To achieve this we created the ‘Brixton Kitchen Competition’. We brought on renowned and respected chefs Claire Ptak, James Cochran and Jackson Boxer to be judges alongside our own Alistair Maddox and put out an open call for applicants to come and pitch their business ideas and cook some food for the judges. The response was overwhelming with over 100 passionate home cooks and fledgling food start-ups applying to win a 1 year, rent free residency at Brixton Village, with the runners-up receiving mentorship and support from the judging team. After weeks of eating, and seeing some phenomenal hidden local talent, we decided that it was clear we needed two categories of winner and runner up; one for the professional chefs and small start-ups and the second for the home cooks who had never stepped into a professional kitchen. We eventually whittled it down to two winners and two runners up: Adjoké Bakare, Ruben Dawnay, Budgie Montoya, and Will Murray and Jack Croft. These winners have all gone on to create sensational businesses that have lit up the London food scene, they are Chisuru, Ruben’s Reubans, Apoy and Fallow.
Brixton Village Shop Front Activations (2018)
One of the great things about Brixton Village is the muddle of traditional retail businesses and newer hospitality businesses operating alongside each other. However, this posed a problem. When the retail units closed in the evenings or weekends, they left a number of shuttered shop fronts which created a disjointed customer experience. This presented an opportunity; during the evenings we filled the gaps with high quality, branded, foldable tables and benches with QR codes on, allowing guests to order and pay for food from any of the restaurants and bars in the village to be delivered to their table. These tables and benches were then cleared away at the end of the night. On the weekends we also invited specialist market operators such as Crafty Fox, Urban Designers and Green Market to host markets in the Village trading on tables outside the closed shops.
‘Tasting Notes’ - Wine Tasting Events at Silver Lining (2021-2022)
Operating a specialist wine bar gave us the opportunity to come up with some very creative ideas to keep our guests engaged and attract new ones. One of the ways we did this was to host monthly wine tasting events in the earlier part of the week when the bar was quieter. The events focused on specific themes that our guests may not have come across before. We partnered with winemakers and importers to co-host and bring their unique experience to our events.
Spirit Masterclasses at Every Cloud (2016-2019)
Operating a specialist wine bar gave us the opportunity to come up with some very creative ideas to keep our guests engaged and attract new ones. One of the ways we did this was to host monthly wine tasting events in the earlier part of the week when the bar was quieter. The events focused on specific themes that our guests may not have come across before. We partnered with winemakers and importers to co-host and bring their unique experience to our events.
Lost in Brixton at Brixton Village (2018)
When we were looking around Brixton Village , it was clear to see what made it special and that it needed to be preserved and enhanced. This left us with the big question of how do we add value to this asset without a complete overhaul of the ground floor? The 4500 sqft service yard sandwiched between the back of the market and the railway arches at the rear couldn’t be developed as its function was essential to the operation of the scheme. The answer came from exploring the roofs of the historic market arcade. While the arcade roofs did not have sufficient strength to support anything additional, we had the idea to build a steel frame structure that created a double height platform. It instantly lent itself to a rooftop hospitality space. We added a retractable roof, staircases and a lift and partnered with Incipio Group to come in as an operator. The end result is a 450 capacity rooftop bar with a QR based ordering system that allows guests to order food directly from the food traders throughout the Village on the ground floor below.
