Assemble is a London-based collective of around 16 to 20 members who work across architecture, art, and design. Founded in 2010 by friends, many from Cambridge University's architecture program, it started with the Cineroleum, a self-built cinema in a derelict Clerkenwell petrol station, followed by Folly for a Flyover under a motorway.
The group operates cooperatively from Sugarhouse Studios in Bermondsey, a retrofitted school building shared with 13 businesses like carpenters and architects. They manage additional workspaces, including Domeview Yard in Greenwich and Fabric Floor in Brixton. Revenue splits half to the collective, half to project workers.
In 2015, Assemble became the first architecture studio to win the Turner Prize for Granby Four Streets in Liverpool's Toxteth, where they renovated 10 early-1900s terraced houses with residents, added a winter garden, and launched Granby Workshop for local crafts.
Recent projects include the 1000m2 Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (2018), transforming a Grade II-listed Victorian bathhouse in New Cross with preserved cast-iron tanks, turquoise concrete cladding from corrugated cement board, and a double-height event space. Others encompass Kamikatz Brewery in Japan (2019), Atelier LUMA in France with rammed-earth structures, and House of Annetta in Spitalfields, a resource hub in an activist's former home. They also run community sites like Baltic Street Adventure Playground in Glasgow and Blackhorse Workshop in Walthamstow.