UCL Repair Cafe

Activities include clothing swap and repair,  bike/electronic/phone/jewellery and general repair, plant care & repair, decorative Cansugi gilding repair.  People will be encouraged to attend this free event, to ask repair questions, to see how broken things get fixed, to get involved in the repair process, and get advice on the steps needed to bring damaged objects back to full working order.

The Repair Café is a space for helping people to fix things, but also a space for people to come together and share stories, learn from one another, and delight in the unexpected. By repairing our ordinary things, we bring together what we need to remake our broken world, reclaiming what was lost in the ongoing survival of things as objects in the world.

 It aims to share satisfaction and confidence in the act of repairing and repurposing, rather than in disposing of broken things. Participating  enables people to break a barrier to active repairing, by giving confidence to participants to repair their own things. This aligns with participants drive to be more sustainable and environmentally conscious in their object ownership.

From a focus on repair and care, effects can extend from the individual, to our contemporary obligations to others, and beyond to our intergenerational planetary obligation to more-than-human future worlds.

The principle of volunteering, and the free provision of repair services, is at the very heart of the Repair Café movement as a community-based event. There is much to be gained in the development of positive interpersonal relationships that evolve from this loose association of participants.

UCL Institute of Archaeology/Institute of Making/Slade School of Fine Art/Mechanical Engineering/Sustainable UCL

The audience for this event is the UCL community, families from its neighbourhood, and volunteers from local Repair Café projects.

The UCL Repair Café has formed part of UCL's responsibility as a good neighbour to our local community in Camden. It is designed to meet the specific needs of its neighbourhood community, and therefore aims to provide support to repair the things that they value.

The popular appeal of Repair Cafés around the world suggest that this activity will have a broad appeal that fits closely with UCL’s commitment to sustainable practice.

Repair is a significant component in organising socially and ecologically just cycles of production and consumption. It helps reduce waste, passes on valuable practical life skills