LifeLine Community Centre

On East London’s Becontree Estate, Assemble has converted a pair of former United Dairies warehouses into a new home for LifeLine Church and the charity Community Resources.

Rather than opting for the simpler, carbon-intensive path of demolition and re-build, the project is an adaptive reuse, stripping away a warren of dark, ad-hoc partitions to reclaim the original industrial volumes.

The design exposes the buildings' wide-span steel trusses and repairs its original brick arches, anchoring the project in the structural clarity of the existing building.

To handle the acoustic demands of its residential location, the fabric has undergone a thorough deep retrofit, introducing breathable insulation, natural ventilation chimneys, and an efficient heat pump system.