London Hackspace

Sometime in the middle of last summer I was taken on an informal tour of the London Hackspace by a friend and immediately felt inspired and impressed by the concept. What is the London Hackspace? The official description on their website reads: The London Hackspace is a non-profit hackerspace in central London. We're a community-run workshop for people to come to share tools and knowledge. It is overseen by a group of trustees who are elected by members and make any long-term decisions, though on a day-to-day basis it operates in a messy - but mostly functional - cooperative manner.

Take a tour through the website and you can see the range of skills the Hackspace covers, from wood and metal work through to 'biohacking', laser cutting and a whole host of computer geekery. Located on Hackney Road, walking into the building feels like a cross between entering a student common room and a computer nerd convention. One member sits tinkering with what looks like the electronic entrails of a VHS player, another is working on intricate laser cut card stencils and many are engrossed in their laptops whilst distractedly sipping from beer cans. Downstairs in the subterranean wood and metal workshop polystyrene shavings scatter the floor around a man carving a giant skull in preparation of turning it into a mirror-tile-clad misshapen disco ball. He pauses and smiles at us musing "It keeps me out of trouble, keeps me out of the pub".

Fast forward six months and I finally sign up as a member a few days into the new year. I make my way on my bicycle loaded with wood pieces that I want to 'hack'. My project ideas mostly involve hacking Ikea furniture - customising it and turning it into something other than its original intended use (this website gives you a good idea of what I'm talking about: http://www.ikeahackers.net/). My ideas are all very lo-fi in comparison to the ambitious and technically advanced projects others are engaged in. Basically, I want to cut, drill and sand wood. Simple pleasures.

I find my way into the building through the rear entrance and accost the first person I see to get my entry card activated, something that any member can help with. He obliges and it works without a hitch. As I make my way downstairs to the wood workshop I feel like the new girl at school, out of place and foreign, a feeling heightened by the glaring fact that I haven't seen a single other female in the building - this is an unashamedly male dominated community. I remind myself this is the point of this blog, to not let myself be fazed by new experiences, and take a deep breath.

'The Dusty Wood Shop', an offshoot of the main workshop area, is in darkness. I try to figure out which light switch is relevant, in the process plunging the other three members who are working away into darkness. "Sorry!" I exclaim feeling very naively girly, thankful that no-one had been operating a heavy-duty saw or welding set, which might have resulted in my ditsy mistake getting me banned on my first day at the Hackspace. After a little probing, experimentation and inquiry I manage to do the woodwork I had planned to do.

Generally - and speaking from my limited experience - people are friendly, curious to know what projects others are working on and helpful with advice. There is an element of cliquishness, but no more than you would expect from any similar micro-society, it is surely inevitable. Mostly, members are introverted, quietly focused individuals and, most refreshingly for East London, the antithesis of the pretentious hipster. Working in the fashion industry, as I do, this comes as a hugely welcome antidote to what I am used to. The London Hackspace provides a platform for the enthusiastic, unique and often strange ideas of the unpretentious, non-trendy types of this city, and that is what makes it what it is.

My plan is to make regular visits to the space, learn to use machines that are new to me such as the woodwork router and laser cutter. I have signed up to the mailing list where dates for laser cutting training are regularly posted. In the meantime I am exposed to a barrage of posts from various Hackspace members - though they seem mostly to come from the same ten people who, to put it lightly, seem to have a lot to get off their chests. Email notifications stream into my inbox about storage boxes, machinery and most controversially, the recently-deceased microwave which seems to be the source of much angst, frustration and dispute. I suspect the most vehement posts come from the quietest, geekiest people I see milling around the building, but I'll leave that suspicion unconfirmed and get on with the simple pleasures of woodwork.