A London and Liverpool collective of architects, artists and designers that works with local people on community-led buildings and projects, and won the Turner Prize in 2015.
Assemble is a collective of architects, artists and designers working across London and Liverpool. It is best known for projects that involve local people in rebuilding or reusing the places they live. Its most famous work is Granby Four Streets in Toxteth, Liverpool, where it worked with residents to refurbish run-down terraced houses and bring back shops, planting and a market. A related social enterprise, Granby Workshop, makes and sells homeware with local artists and craftspeople. Other projects include a temporary cinema in a disused petrol station and a folly under a flyover in Hackney Wick.
The group began working together in 2010, when a group of recent graduates built a temporary cinema in an abandoned petrol station in Clerkenwell. In June 2015 Hackney Citizen reported that its aim was to address the gap between the public and the processes that shape places. In December 2015 it became the first architecture and design studio, and the first collective, to win the Turner Prize. The prize was announced by Tate and came with £25,000. Assemble does not seem to publish a single mission sentence on the pages we read, so this is based on reports and an article on Domus.
Domus describes Assemble as having offices in London and Liverpool, and Hackney Citizen described the group in 2015 as based in Stratford in east London. Its work has been mostly in the UK, including Liverpool, Hackney Wick, Walthamstow and Goldsmiths in south-east London, where it designed a gallery in a converted bathhouse. It has also shown work abroad, including at the Venice Architecture Biennale, where tiles made by Granby Workshop were used at the entrance to the Central Pavilion.
On culture, Domus says the collective brings together backgrounds in art, design and architecture, with a concern for better community spaces at its core, and thinks about reusing scrap materials in a circular economy. It describes a collective of about 20 named partners plus staff, and community-run enterprises that support its projects. The numbers given in sources differ (18 members in 2015 reports and 22 in Domus), so treat these as approximate and dated. Partners named by Domus include James Binning, Holly Briggs, Amica Dall, Alice Edgerley, Fran Edgerley and Anthony Engi Meacock.
The work involves architects, designers, makers, builders and community organisers, and the group has often taught practical skills as part of its projects, for example at Blackhorse Studios in Walthamstow, a space where the public can learn manual skills. If you like making things, drawing, or the idea that a building can start with listening to a neighbourhood, this is a different kind of architecture practice to learn about. For current opportunities, look at the collective's own website.
Website: assemblestudio.co.uk
PURPOSE helps school and university students explore 62 sectors and over 1,000 entry-level careers in the UK, then connects them directly with employers.
Explore PURPOSE