Press

Excitingly Bloqs is featuring in some superb woodworking and industry titles thanks to the folks at Weinig UK, our superstar machine supplier. Articles in Furniture Journal, & Furniture & Joinery Production are joined by writeups on Furniture Production, Woodworking News, and Panel & Joinery Production. Friends like these mean good news Bloqs members. ...

“Making in this city is rich and deep-rooted. We can act as a gateway into understanding the richness that we celebrate” Addressing an audience at this week’s London Real Estate Forum, Al Parra, described the vision that underpins Building BloQs. Addressing City Hall directly, he urged that more support and creative thinking be deployed so organisations like ours can continue ...

Last week we were rather chuffed to welcome the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan for a visit to Building BloQs. The Mayor was in Edmonton to see Meridian Water starting to take shape - Enfield Council’s £6bn regeneration site which will see the delivery of 10,000 new homes and 6,700 jobs. Visiting BloQs, the Mayor was given a tour of the workshop by Al Parra. Meeting members and ...

Member Juan Junca and Building BloQs have been in residence at the New London Architecture's WRK/LDN exhibition which explores the changing patterns of work in the city. Set up in a window off Tottenham Court Road, Juan has been making a new dining chair design and settee from solid walnut. Read his interview and see him in action on the NLA's blog: Originally published on htt ...

Originally published in Hole&Corner Magazine Making Space: Building BloQs — In the last of our features on London making spaces, we talk about purpose, collaborative values and the power of community with Al Parra – one of the four founders of Building BloQs in Enfield, set to become the largest open access making workshop in Europe…  When and why was Building BloQs s ...

I’ve found the key to Britain’s recovery: an orange shed in Shanktown - Aditya Chakrabortty A return visit to the Building Bloqs initiative – in a suburb best known for stabbings and mini-riots – shows what social enterprises can do with proper support Originally published in The Guardian by Aditya Chakrabortty on 29th March 2016 Journalists are like pigeons: they all floc ...

The big orange shed that holds the key to Britain’s economic recovery Originally published in The Guardian by Aditya Chakrabortty on 6th January 2015, Illustration by Matt Kenyon Social enterprise start-ups like Building Bloqs are exactly what our broken economy needs. But politicians, bankers and investors must play ball. On an industrial estate on the northernmost outski ...