Bloqs open-access factory in Enfield, North London, has won the Architects’ Journal’s Retrofit Award 2023 in the 'Workspace under £5m' category.
The judges commented:
“Bloqs, which provides makers with low-cost workspace and equipment as part of north London’s Meridian Water regeneration programme, won after impressing judges with its social and collaborative design approach and its contextual and ‘Continental’ flavour.
This hangar-like building – designed in close collaboration with client Bloqs – provides a huge array of facilities within 3,000m2 of workspace, a combination of new build and the adaptive re-use of a former vehicle-testing facility. One judge said: ‘It’s rather international in its approach. When we have to solve a lot of questions regarding how to make a denser, more urban environment out of brownfield land or leftover areas, it’s important not to disregard what’s already there."