Lockwood Way Industrial Estate Transformation

Public realm and building frontage improvements to support public-facing activity on a local authority-owned industrial estate with a cluster of breweries, fabricators and makers.

The project improves the Lockwood Way industrial estate in Blackhorse Lane, transforming the area into a social hub for local businesses and expanding much-loved tap rooms on the Walthamstow Beer Mile. It includes a canopy structure, movable ‘forklift furniture’ and building frontage improvements to provide a series of safe, sustainable, welcoming, and inclusive spaces to gather and enjoy the surrounding breweries, fabricators and makers.

Waltham Forest Council commissioned We Made That for the project following the successful delivery of the adjacent Blackhorse Lane improvements in 2014. It proved a fantastic opportunity to build upon the area’s heritage to support the new industries finding their way and help local up-and coming talents establish themselves. It also encouraged local businesses who are rarely asked to contribute to their neighbourhoods to be involved in a co-design process to help shape a more welcoming, inclusive, and sustainable place.

The £600,000 project unlocked a number of spaces and uses on the industrial estate, providing better amenity for both workers and visitors. Working with existing tenants, a hostile, car-focused environment was turned into a more family-friendly, open, and accessible space that invites the community in, unlocks new social functions and better supports economic activity.

Tenants’ input through shaping the direction of the project in terms of ideas – advocating for the removal of parking and introducing greening and communal street furniture to activate the yard spaces – and by getting ‘hands on’ - by providing materials or machinery and by fabricating some of the delivered interventions.

Proposals were developed in conversation with the business owners through group workshops and one-to-one conversations over a year. Industrial units have received new glazed frontages, wayfinding signage and re-painted facades; while public realm improvements include widening and resurfacing the footways to create an ‘amenity strip’ with space for new sustainable urban drainage, trees and street furniture. A communal canopy structure provides a covered space for events, plus the addition of pop-up power points in the external yard spaces, an illuminated ‘totem’ sign and an outdoor table and bar structure to support events.

Graphic designers Europa created a vibrant brand identity based on the mix of uses on the estate that is used for flank wall improvements at the estate entrance, unit signage and wayfinding signage, and printed brewery materials that promote Lockwood Way as a destination. The moveable events and activity furniture consisted of robust steel planters and seating that can be used by tenants to flexibly programme their yard spaces during events, and to ‘reclaim the road’ at the weekend when there are no servicing or delivery requirements on the estate. Other improvements included a new pedestrian route to the adjacent Walthamstow Wetlands, new wildflower planting, trees and softer paving materials. The tenants and businesses helped shape the direction of the project and proposals in a number of co-design workshops held on the estate.