Putting in a Shift – ideas from the public sought for new canalside community and business hub

Quay to the city: Philippe Castaing of Make Shift. Photograph: Hackney Citizen.

I met with Philippe Castaing, Community Director at Make Shift, on one of the River Lea’s more nondescript crossings, the small bridge that herds pedestrians from the Copper Box Arena in the Olympic Park to the backstreets of Hackney Wick.

For now, the view from the bridge is of some scrubby grass and the remnants of a car park – not the bucolic, nautical scene set by its name, Clarnico Quay. For Mr. Castaing however, this site represents an exciting next step forward.

Make Shift began making waves in the world of community hubs in 2015, with the opening of their Pop Brixton project. Since then it has had more people through the door than The Shard “and I know that,” Castaing tells me, “because I met with someone from there recently!”

Currently home to home to 53 independent businesses ranging from restaurants and street food traders to digital start-ups, a community barbershop, and even a youth radio station. the Brixton site is scheduled to remain in place until Autumn 2018.

With a similar project underway in Peckham, Make Shift at Clarnico Quay is their newest venture, the twinkle in Mr. Castaing’s eye.

Said eye (and presumably the other one too) first clapped on to the Olympic Park location last June, and he immediately fell in love with “the canal, the water, the orientation.” After much wrangling and the pulling-out of another prospective developer, things began to take shape.

An artist’s impression of how Clarnico Quay will look. Image: MakeShift.

The cornerstone of Make Shift’s business model is their Community Investment Scheme, which incentivises tenants who call a Make Shift location their home to put their specific skills – be they in the field of cooking, fashion, design; practically anything – back into the community.

“I love business for the ability to create something, [but I’m also] interested in how you marry this with creating and supporting social change”, explained Castaing.

This vision will be augmented by the design of the units. Shipping containers were used at Pop Brixton, and there will similarly be no actual ‘building’ at the Clarnico Quay site either, whatever happens. The whole thing can be shipped away at the end of the tenure, and used elsewhere.

Clarnico Quay is still, at this point in the ‘feasibility study’ stage, and Make Shift are keen to hear from interested parties (see the link at the end of this piece.)

He’s aware of the amount of work to be done before any potential opening day. For one thing, the pipe that ferries Canary Wharf’s water supply to all the parched city boys runs directly under the ground. If it ruptures, it’s “armageddon.” A mobile garden will have to be conjured out of the aforementioned scrubby grass.

This work will be driven by a core belief, that Castaing put to me as follows: “What we want is loads of different types of people, because that’s when things get interesting.”

If you wish to submit an idea for Clarnico Quay, please visit www.clarnicoquay.org