architectural practice
Morris+Company, 2022
215-217 Mare Street, E8 3QE
Morris+Company is an award-winning architecture practice based in Hackney, east London. We have applied circular economy principles to the retrofit of our own studio, gallery and café space on Mare Street, reducing waste, reusing materials, and designing for longevity. We place the creative ‘act’ of architecture onto the high street, reveal our practice to the public and engage local communities.
London Fields
277
Our main entrance is via the HOME Café - there is a small step to enter - however we have a side entrance with level access on request.
Our Mare Street studios place the creative ‘act’ of architecture directly onto the high street, engaging local communities through shared workspaces and a public café, gallery, event and exhibition space on the ground floor.
Occupying part of a late Victorian former factory and warehouse building, this transformational retrofit project has been designed using circular principles with sustainable strategies for re-use, recycling and flexibility.
Our current exhibition, Clay | Culture | Carbon, is a journey into the elemental, essential material that has shaped our cities — clay — and how it may continue to reshape them. We explore clay not just as matter, but as memory: local human and deeply cultural. In an age of climate crisis, biodiversity loss and housing emergency, we ask: what can this material teach us about sustainability, innovation and craft?
The café interiors were designed by Elly Ward Morris and Joe Morris. An exercise in adaptive re-use and minimal intervention, the interior design showcases sustainable materials, slow and low waste methods of construction and concepts of circular design. From cleaning products to waste management, throughout all business operations we strive for lower impacts, deeper knowledge and continuous creativity, and for opportunities to share such techniques and insights with others.
Walking tour
Join a guided walk through the former site of Loddiges Nursery to learn how their tropical plant trading transformed English gardens during the 1800’s. While visiting the now buried Palm House, we will hear of the migration stories of the plants themselves - how their ancestors were captured from wilderness homes across the world and transported by ship to this infamous nursery in East London.
