UCL Repair Cafe @ Institute of Making Stratford

Call­ing all repair and reuse enthu­si­asts! The Repair Café is back, and this time, it’s at the Insti­tute of Mak­ing Strat­ford in UCL East. This event is free and open to all. 

Bring in your holey socks, elec­tron­ic devices, broken ceram­ics and dam­aged house­hold items and more to learn repair skills with expert fix­ers from the UCL community. 

Join us to learn how to mend your favour­ite objects for free, get involved in the repair and reuse pro­cess, and gain advice on the steps needed to bring your beloved belong­ings back to full work­ing order. With a bit of help from our UCL Repair Café volun­teers, you’ll become empowered to fix your device and mend your belong­ings. Come ready to learn! 

Every­one is wel­come and invited to this free event — even if you can’t bring any­thing to repair but want to come along to ask repair-based ques­tions. The UCL Repair Café triages and advises on a wide range of items to make treas­ured pos­ses­sions good as new — some­times argu­ably better! 

The event was run as part of the Eco­nom­ic and Social Research Coun­cil (ESRC) Fest­iv­al of Social Sci­ence 2025.

You can drop into the Repair Café between 12:00 and 16:00 (last entry 15:30) by reserving a free gen­er­al entry tick­et, linked below. 

The event will fea­ture the fol­low­ing activ­it­ies. Most are drop-in, but some require an advance book­ing (linked below): 

Tex­tiles and Cloth­ing Repair

Have you got holes in your jump­er, (unwanted) rips in your jeans, broken bag straps or trashed train­ers? Then drop in for an in-per­son guide to fix­ing tex­tiles with the Insti­tute of Mak­ing team! We’ll provide the mater­i­als, thread, needles and pins needed for you to patch, sew or darn new life into your beloved clothes, accessor­ies, train­ers and oth­er tex­tile items. (Drop in) 

Gen­er­al Repair

Vis­it the Gen­er­al Repair area with all of your mis­cel­laneous belong­ings, and meet UCL Mech­Space tech­ni­cians who are ready to assist and mend any­thing, from small pieces of fur­niture to spec­tacles or umbrel­las. You name it, they’ll help you fix it! With a wide range of tools and extens­ive prob­lem-solv­ing skills. (Drop in) 

Elec­tron­ics Repair (advance book­ing required)

Bring in any elec­tron­ic device in need of fix­ing — from smart­phones and laptops to small house­hold appli­ances like toast­ers and lamps — for a one-to-one con­sulta­tion with the repair experts from Mech­space tech­ni­cians, loc­al repair busi­ness Sarasfix and UCL volun­teers. (Book­ing a slot is required. Lim­ited avail­ab­il­ity.)

Bike Repair andSer­vi­cing (advance book­ing required)

Does your cycle need some extra love? UCL volun­teers will be offer­ing light ser­vi­cing, simple repairs and advice to help you get your bike up and run­ning smoothly again. (Book­ing a slot is required. Lim­ited availability.

Ceram­ics Repairs

Is your broken but beloved object col­lect­ing dust? Vis­it the Ceram­ic Repairs stall to cel­eb­rate and beau­ti­fy the breaks and tears in your ceram­ic items with sup­port from her­it­age con­ser­vat­ors from the UCL Insti­tute of Archae­ology. Learn tra­di­tion­al tech­niques for restor­ing ceram­ics and dis­cov­er how vis­ible mend­ing can trans­form dam­age into a fea­ture. (Drop in)

Met­al and Jew­ellery Repairs 

Bring your broken brace­lets, neck­laces, clasps and buckles to our Met­al and Jew­ellery Repair stand and learn to make your trinkets as good as new. We’ll have everything from screws for glasses and new string for battered beaded neck­laces, to oppor­tun­it­ies for mini met­al drilling. If your broken belong­ing is metal­lic, this is the place for you. 

Clothes Swap Rail

In search of a new out­fit that doesn’t cost the world? Then why not browse our clothes swap rail for brand-new pre-loved piece? Bring your old clothes for dona­tion and in return, take home an item to refresh your own ward­robe. Let’s tackle the impact of fast fash­ion togeth­er. (Drop in) 

E‑Waste Col­lec­tion Table 

Chat with staff from Incador about their e‑waste col­lec­tion scheme Tech for Treas­ure. They’ll demon­strate how pre­cious metals can be extrac­ted from broken tech and trans­formed into new products. 

About us The Repair Café is an inter-depart­ment­al com­munity event, sus­tained by expert volun­teers from UCL Con­ser­va­tion, the Insti­tute of Mak­ing, the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL Insti­tute of Archae­ology, Mech­an­ic­al Engin­eer­ing Research­ers Soci­ety and Sus­tain­able UCL. 

Every­one is wel­come in our spaces. We strive to make all of our pro­cesses access­ible, includ­ing attend­ing our events and work­shops, and using our web­site and book­ing sys­tems. Please mes­sage us if you have any ques­tions or require­ments, or need assist­ance using our plat­forms — we’ll be happy to help. We’re always inter­ested in feed­back to help us improve access to our activ­it­ies. Please con­tact Lydia at events@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk if you’d like to chat. 

Pic­tures cour­tesy of The Insti­tute of Making. 

Please let us know if you have any access requirements in order to attend this booking by emailing members@instituteofmaking.org.uk.

Contact events@instituteofmaking.org.uk if you have any additional questions.

We look forward to seeing you soon!