UCL Repair Cafe

Gath­er all your broken, beloved belong­ings — the UCL Repair Café is back! Join us at the Insti­tute of Mak­ing Strat­ford this Novem­ber to start mending. 

Bring your hole-rid­den clothes, broken elec­tron­ic devices, cracked ceram­ics, dam­aged house­hold items and more, and bring them all back to full work­ing order with expert fix­ers from the UCL com­munity. Come ready to learn and leave empowered to mend! 

Every­one is wel­come and invited to this free event. Even if you don’t have any­thing to repair, you’re wel­come to join us to ask repair-based ques­tions over tea and bis­cuits. Drop into the Repair Café between 12:00 and 16:00 (last entry 15:30) by reserving a free gen­er­al entry tick­et via our website. 

The UCL Repair Café 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 and umbrel­las. You name it, they’ll help you fix it using 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. Book a slot for a one-to-one con­sulta­tion with the repair experts from Mech­space, loc­al repair busi­ness Sarasfix and UCL volun­teers. (Book­ing a slot is required. Lim­ited availability.)

Bike Repair and ser­vi­cing (advance book­ing required) Does your bicycle 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.)

Dec­or­at­ive Ceram­ic Repair Is your broken but beloved ceram­ic object col­lect­ing dust? Vis­it the Ceram­ic Repairs stall to cel­eb­rate and beau­ti­fy the breaks and tears in your 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 Repair Bring your cracked clasps, brace­lets, neck­laces 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 to new string for broken beaded neck­laces, as well as oppor­tun­it­ies to use tools such as mini met­al drills for your repairs. If your broken belong­ing is metal­lic, this is the place for you. (Drop in)

Plant Care and Repair Our green-fingered plant experts are here to help with all of your house­plant prob­lems, wheth­er you’re a plant par­ent new­bie or in need of spe­cif­ic spe­cial­ist help, from propagat­ing to repot­ting and much, much more. (Drop in)

Clothes Swap Rail In search of a new out­fit? Why not browse our clothes swap rail for a brand-new pre-loved piece? Bring in 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)

The Restart Project Join people-powered social enter­prise The Restart Pro­ject to learn how they’re work­ing to fix our throwaway eco­nomy. Through access­ible com­munity repair events that empower people to fix their own broken items, The Restart Pro­ject are help­ing to tackle the grow­ing prob­lem of e‑waste. Find out how to get involved and learn more about their work to make repair cheap­er, easi­er and more access­ible for every­one through their Right to Repair Cam­paign. (Drop in)

The Wash­ing Machine Project Join The Wash­ing Machine Pro­ject to learn more about how appli­ance repair could become more com­mon in the UK. Chat with their research­ers and explore how product design, com­mu­nic­a­tions, tech­no­logy and busi­ness mod­els can lower the bar­ri­ers to fix­ing appli­ances — start­ing with wash­ing machines. (Drop in)

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 us at events@​instituteofmaking.​org.​uk if you’d like to chat.