Thecurrent home of London Hackspace, leased from Friday 15th March 2013, which thenmoved into on April 13th (London Hackspace, 2017). At first, it was originallylocated in Islington with more than 6500 sq. ft.
(600 m2) before itwas moved to 12000 square feet of space, over two floors, it’s nearly triplethe size of the old space, and also includes a large dedicated yard with loading bay,located at 447 Hackney Road, E2 9DY, London with latitude of 51.532141 and longitude -0.060806 (London Hackspace, 2017)London Hackspace can only be described as huge as the size of it is muchbigger than Nottingham Hackspace.
Though size not matters, the space itselfoccupies the entire ground floor of the A2E building as pictured, the equallylarge basement and the whole of the rear yard. Straight in through the door arethe communal chill out areas where it can be publicly used. With a display ofthings made in the space, comfy seating and the kitchen area featuring a repurposedfridge/beer cooler and beer on tap. There is also a sizeable maker’s library as well as a substantialclassroom area that can be access through a pair of double doors, with a TVused for presentations, gifted by a very generous donor. The classroom area canbe doubles as communal workspace for public used which can be more softwareoriented when it is not being used as a classroom. Just out of shot on the leftof the classroom is a passage way leading to the basement stairs and connectedto the yard door (Kirby, 2015).
The laser and handicraft area are separated with large rear yard by aroller shutter door. The yard is just visible through the windows of thehandicraft area and it is designed for a textile oriented projects, which,included with a good range of textile oriented machinery and facilities. Thereare a small quite room/meeting room in the corner. Despite there being so muchin the open ground floor area, the feeling is very light and spacious (Kirby, 2015). The electronics lab is located near the 3D printing area where, theelectronics lab is well appointed with a range of test equipment, solderingstations and a whole bunch of components in drawers. There was a large 16segment display made up from sticks of LED’s on the rear wall. London Hackspaceseem to use ‘internet relay chat’ (IRC) quite a bit for extended discussion outsideof the space. Access to the some limited and private space is via ‘Radio-frequency identification’ (RfID) (Kirby, 2015).
In the basement area, the biohacking lab is located and can only beaccess with appropriate certification. A large storage area with lines ofshelving full of storage boxes are available for donated such as things to hackupon and personal projects. Apart from the biohacking lab, this is where thedirtier and dust making work gets done. This lab is the first chain of enclosedareas leading from the main work area. The essential stash of PersonalProtective Equipment (PPE) also located in the basement. Storing the equipmentout of the main mess making rooms helps keep it clean and ready for use.
Asappears to be the norm with hackspaces, PPE is provided and it is the members’responsibility to select that which is appropriate for the task and use it (Kirby, 2015). The two messier work areas are workshop for metal bashing and forwoodworking where, the metal bashing area has a sub-area set aside for welding andcutting operations. This area can be curtained off with a heavy shade curtainto protect the other workspace users from the effects of welding arc flash andshowers of hot metal particles. The wood working area further along issimilarly well provisioned with things like planer/thickener, lathe band-sawand workbenches along with dust extraction equipment. The dust extraction was astandard blower and bag type set-up that could perhaps benefit from a vortexseparator (Kirby, 2015). In general,the openness, unstructured, and flexible purposes of London Hackspace with the conceptsin all its open-ended and flexible possibilities can be difficult for auditedand instrumentally driven institutions.
People do not come to consume knowledge,culture or services, as they do in libraries, arts or training centres, rather,these are spaces with tools that allow people to produce whatever they want (Sabine Hielscher, 2015). It was interesting to see how the social structurehad evolved and almost like ecosystem with groups making, which not just forthemselves but for the hackspace at large. They made up open spaces wherepeople could come together and try out different forms of living, working andwhatever people do when they want to do something (Hackerspaces, 2017)
