The Exchange NW1
The Exchange NW1 exterior on Lisson Grove
The Exchange NW1 logo

Annual Community Impact · Volume 01

A year inside
The Exchange.

32,000 sq ft on Lisson Grove. What was a dormant Job Centre is now a cultural and community venue serving Westminster's residents, young people, creatives, and community groups.

02A note from the Exchange Team
The Exchange team outside Sip Slow on Lisson Grove
The Exchange team · Lisson Grove

"We're not building a venue — we're building a movement that lives on for generations."

When we took on 24–26 Lisson Grove, we inherited a building that had been closed to the public for years — a dormant Job Centre on a high street that deserved better. We didn't want to just reopen the doors. We wanted to hand the building back to the neighbourhood it sits in.

A year on, that's starting to feel real. Over 10,000 people have walked through these doors. More than 100 events — youth workshops, community meals, exhibitions, classes, late-night gigs, quiet mornings of co-working — have happened under this roof. Most of them free, or close to it. All of them shaped by the people of NW1.

The Exchange isn't ours. It belongs to the residents, the young people, the makers and the community groups who have made it theirs. We're here to keep the lights on — and to build something that outlasts us all.

The Exchange Team

The Exchange NW1 CIC

03From Job Centre to Exchange NW1

A dormant doorway,
opened.

The transformation is the emotional anchor of this year. These pages are the receipt — a building reclaimed by the community it was always meant to serve.

Before
Frontage — Job Centre era
After
Frontage — Sip Slow, open seven days

The same stretch of Lisson Grove: shuttered Job Centre, now the Sip Slow storefront welcoming the street in.

Before
Ground floor — at handover
After
Ground floor — restored

Parquet relaid, columns lifted, ductwork made honest. The same room, awake.

Before
Ground floor — at handover, deeper view
After
Ground floor — daylight returned

The skylight reopened, the floor cleaned back to its original grain.

Before
This room — empty, strip-lit, forgotten
After
This room — a working tattoo & body-art studio

Blue carpet and ceiling tiles out. Original boards exposed, daylight invited back in, and a resident studio moved in.

Before
Basement — bare concrete and pipework
After
Basement — BPM-1 Studios, in session

A forgotten utility space turned into a working recording and listening studio in the heart of the building.

04What we are

The Exchange NW1 is a 32,000 sq ft cultural and community venue in Westminster — free or low-cost, by design.

32,000

sq ft venue

NW1 6TZ

Lisson Grove

CIC

Community interest

2024–25

Reporting period

05The year in numbers

What it adds up to.

One year. One building. A single, legible record of every door opened, every chair set, every plate served. The numbers below are taken from our internal attendance log — every line item, no rounding.

12,717

Total attendees

Across the year

106

Events & activities

85% free or low-cost

21

Distinct programme types

From iftars to runways

11

Months of continuous activity

Jun 2025 – May 2026

05.a — Partner impact

Thread Ahead did this from here.

Every distribution, every referral, every tonne diverted — run out of a room in The Exchange. The numbers are theirs. The space that made it possible was ours to give. Reported in their 25/26 Impact Report.

1,285

Adults supported

Across the year

253

Children supported

Across the year

143

Referral partners

Across London

12,736

Items redistributed

Diverted from landfill

121t

CO₂ diverted

Tonnes, est.

+159%

Year on year growth

Items distributed

Source — Thread Ahead 25/26 Impact Report

05.1

The eight moments that moved the most people.

Together, these eight programmes account for 8,516 attendees — two-thirds of the year, concentrated in eight days of work.

  • 01

    Known Source: Archive Is Technical

    Marketplace + cultural event

    1,679
  • 02

    Known Source: Archive Is The Future

    Marketplace + cultural event

    1,588
  • 03

    Known Source: Osti

    Marketplace + cultural event

    1,504
  • 04

    Ramadan at The Exchange

    Month-long faith programme

    1,200
  • 05

    FutureCultureX

    Cultural event

    950
  • 06

    Martine Rose SS26 Show & Marketplace

    London Fashion Week

    600
  • 07

    Unsung PR Dinner

    Private event

    500
  • 08

    BPM Collective One Room DJ Series

    8-night music series

    495

05.2

How the year distributed itself.

Cultural events and marketplaces did the heavy lifting, but the tail tells the truer story: a constant, weekly drumbeat of community, faith, music, mentoring and creative work.

  • Cultural events & marketplaces6,63652.2%
  • Community programmes & activations1,81714.3%
  • Ramadan / faith-led programme1,2009.4%
  • Music & creative networking1,0168.0%
  • Fashion shows & runway9507.5%
  • Private events5003.9%
  • Brand activations2151.7%
  • Workshops, mentoring & residencies2131.7%
  • Filming & photoshoots1701.3%

That's an average of 1,156 people through the doors every month — roughly 38 a day, every day, for a year.

06The space

One building.
Many rooms.

From the main hall to the studios, co-working desks and quiet rooms — a zoned floor plan designed to flex from a 500-person event to a six-person youth workshop.

Main hall — flexible event space
Event hall
Studios
Co-working
07In-house · Sip Slow

The heart of
the building
pours coffee.

Sip Slow is now embedded in the heart of The Exchange — open seven days a week, staffed entirely by people who live in NW1, and serving what we think is the best coffee in the area (alongside their signature Sand Coffee, not found anywhere else in London).

Sip Slow storefront on Lisson Grove at The Exchange NW1
Sip Slow interior — parquet floor, bar seating and regulars
Sip Slow counter mid-service with pastries on display
The orange entrance into Sip Slow at The Exchange NW1

75%

Customers within a 5-min walk

7

Days a week, open

100%

Staff within walking distance

A cafe was never going to be a side-room. From day one, Sip Slow was built to be the front door of the building — the first warmth a neighbour feels walking in, and the reason a stranger stays for a second hour.

Over 75% of Sip Slow's customers are within a five-minute walk of Lisson Grove. That is the measure that matters. Tourism is starting to lift as awareness of what Sip Slow and The Exchange are bringing to the area grows, but the base is, and stays, local.

Hiring Westminster residents first isn't a quota — it's the model. Every member of the Sip Slow team lives within walking distance of the door. Nine of the work-experience students from earlier in the year have come back on the rota here, which is the loop the whole building was designed to close.

The hot sand bed used to brew Sip Slow's signature Sand Coffee

"The best coffee in NW1, made by people from NW1, in a building given back to NW1. That's the whole thing in one cup."

08Flagship moment · In partnership with FutureCultureX

The night London's
creative class
came to NW1.

A one-night creative link-up with FutureCultureX — the London creative production agency behind campaigns for Foot Locker, Nike and a generation of culture-first brands — built to put the city's best creative network in one room, on Lisson Grove.

A seated audience of London creatives at the FutureCultureX × Exchange NW1 panel, FCX backdrop in view

1,000+

RSVPs in 72 hours

750

Attendees on the night

NW1

On the cultural map

Demand outstripped capacity within three days. Over 1,000 RSVPs landed in 72 hours — a signal of what NW1 can pull when it's given a stage. On the night, 750 people moved through the building: founders, directors, producers, designers, musicians, students and community members, side by side.

Panel talks with industry leaders sat at the centre of the programme — honest conversations about access, ownership and what comes next for London's creative economy. Around them: a network floor that made the introductions a year of emails couldn't.

Mete Coban MBE, Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy, attended in person — a direct endorsement that what's happening at The Exchange is being read at City Hall as part of London's cultural infrastructure, not just a Westminster local story.

Standing-room crowd watching the FutureCultureX panel at The Exchange NW1
Five panelists on the FutureCultureX panel, host with microphone in the centre
Guests networking on the floor at the FutureCultureX × Exchange NW1 event
The Exchange NW1 main hall lit pink and blue with guests gathered around lounge tables

"1,000 RSVPs in 72 hours. The Deputy Mayor of London in the room. London's creative class on Lisson Grove for the night. That's what a building handed back to a community can do."

09Sister moment · In partnership with Known Source

An archive market
on the parquet floor.

A weekend takeover with Known Source — the London archive and pre-owned fashion platform — turning the ground floor into a curated vintage and designer market: rails of Margiela, Helmut Lang and Prada Sport sat on the original 1950s parquet.

Crowded archive market on the ground floor of The Exchange NW1, rails of vintage clothing under exposed services

2 days

Weekend takeover

40+

Independent sellers

Archive

Margiela · Helmut Lang · Prada

NW1

On the resale map

Vintage jackets suspended from scaffolding rigs over the parquet floor at Known Source
Shoppers browsing rails of vintage outerwear at the Known Source market
Shoppers around a wire shelf of vintage Prada and archive sneakers

Known Source brought their archive and pre-owned platform offline for a weekend, programming the ground floor as a curated market with 40+ independent sellers — vintage specialists, archive dealers, footwear collectors and emerging resale brands from across London.

The mix on the floor was the point: rare Margiela and Helmut Lang hanging next to GORE-TEX hiking boots, Prada Sport runners and Marni totes. The crowd matched it — stylists, students, collectors and locals walking in off Lisson Grove together.

For Westminster, it's the same building doing a different job in the same week: a panel one night, a market the next. The Exchange as a piece of cultural infrastructure that flexes.

Womenswear rails and accessory plinths under the Known Source neon at The Exchange NW1
Close-up of a Prada Americas Cup archive sneaker on the Known Source footwear display
Black archive jackets suspended from overhead scaffold rigs at Known Source
Shoppers under the rear skylight at The Exchange NW1 during the Known Source market
Red display table loaded with vintage hiking boots and runners at the Known Source market

"A panel one night, an archive market the next. The same parquet floor, two different audiences, one venue."

10Programme highlights

Five moments from the year.

Model on the Martine Rose runway at The Exchange NW1 — plaid look, parquet floor, white draped set

Case study 01 · Flagship

London Fashion Week

Martine Rose — runway, then marketplace.

The Exchange hosted Martine Rose for London Fashion Week: a runway show staged inside the venue with bespoke ruffled-curtain set and bentwood chairs on the parquet, followed by an open marketplace the next day — bringing the collection, and the crowd, back into the building. A Westminster venue on the LFW schedule, on its own terms.

"It's a bit of a homecoming. When I think about what feeds the brand, feeds me, and what London has, above all other places, it's this very alive cultural life. There's a thriving independent designer network, but it goes beyond that. It's the market traders and record vendors who contribute to the cultural fabric without much fanfare. I'm happy to be home."
Martine Rose, in conversation with Vogue (Mahoro Seward)

LFW Schedule listing on Lisson Grove

Martine Rose runway set — white ruffled curtains and bentwood chairs lining the parquet runway before the show
Front row at the Martine Rose show, guests on phones around the draped white column
Martine Rose marketplace day on the upper floor of The Exchange NW1 — rails, balloons and shoppers
Two work experience students sitting on a couch with their hands under their faces

Case study 02 · Confirmed

Youth & education

Eight weeks. Ninety-six kids. Ten schools.

An eight-week work experience programme run inside the venue: 12 students each week, drawn from 10 schools across London, producing video and photography deliverables across The Exchange — shadowing the in-house production team and walking out with credited work in their portfolio. The cohort came from beyond Westminster, but the pathway out the other side is Westminster-based: nine of them have since come back on the payroll, picking up part-time shifts at Sip Slow and across The Exchange on Lisson Grove.

"I learned so much. I would love to work here when I'm older."
Student — work experience week

9 Now in part-time jobs at Sip Slow & The Exchange

Two students sat in front of the Known Source exhibition wall at The Exchange NW1
Two students working a shift behind the counter at Sip Slow inside The Exchange NW1
Student on the decks at The Exchange NW1, polaroid wall behind

Case study 03 · Community

Ramadan programming

A building open through the holy month.

A dedicated Ramadan programme run with and for the local Muslim community in NW1 — iftars, evening gatherings and quiet space inside the venue across the month. Westminster's most-used civic gesture of the year, hosted on Lisson Grove.

"There has never been anything like this in London — and the fact it's in the old job centre, near my home, makes this so much more incredible."
Community attendee, NW1

20 Iftars & evenings hosted across Ramadan

Gioele Corradengo standing in front of his skeleton-and-roses paintings at The Exchange NW1

Case study 04 · Culture

Debut gallery show

Gioele Corradengo — first solo, on the ground floor.

The Exchange hosted the debut solo gallery show for artist Gioele Corradengo: a first-time UK exhibition staged inside the venue, opening night to public run. New work, new audience, a Westminster venue choosing to back an emerging artist's first show.

"Extremely grateful to The Exchange NW1 for helping me debut my first exhibition in such a unique and meaningful space."
Gioele Corradengo, artist

1st Solo show — debut

Gioele Corradengo signing a skeleton-and-roses painting at his debut show
Queue down Lisson Grove for Gioele Corradengo's Garbage show at The Exchange NW1
Gioele Corradengo holding a 'How you feeling today?' canvas inside the empty hall before the show
Thread Ahead's distribution space at The Exchange — community room set up with table, chairs and exhibition photos on the wall

Case study 05 · Tenant

Tenant in residence — refugee support

Thread Ahead — dignity, from a room in the building.

Thread Ahead run their pop-up clothing distributions for refugees and asylum seekers from The Exchange. In 25/26 they supported 1,285 adults and 253 children, working with 143 referral partners across London, and diverted 12,736 items (121 tonnes CO₂) from landfill — a +159% year on year.

"It is an essential piece of the asylum support puzzle."
Cam, Micro Rainbow (referral partner)

1,285 Adults supported in 25/26

Read their full impact report →
11Community voice

In their words.

"The Exchange changed my life. Sip Slow wasn't just a coffee shop idea — it became a home, a livelihood, and a way to give back to the neighbourhood that raised me."

Sooran · Founder, Sip Slow

"I never thought something like this would ever exist in West London. My career as a filmmaker has elevated in ways I couldn't have imagined — all because of The Exchange."

Jayden Lampasi · Resident filmmaker

"After our previous meanwhile project in Mayfair, moving into The Exchange was the best thing that could have happened for our business. It's given us the room and the community to actually grow."

Known Source · Tenant business

"The Exchange has finally improved the area. We need more of this in Westminster — places that actually belong to the people who live here."

Local resident · Lisson Grove, NW1

"Where has The Exchange been all this time? Through the whole of Ramadan we had a safe space to come to, break fast in, and feel genuinely welcomed."

Yazmin · Event attendee, NW1

"I used to come to the Job Centre on this site to sign on. Now I come to The Exchange to work. That's a very good feeling — and it says everything about what's changed here."

James · Local tradesman, NW1
12Our partners

None of this alone.

With thanks to Westminster City Council and the partners who built this year alongside us.

City of Westminster
Nike
Amazon
BBC
Sony
JBL
Foot Locker
Openreach
Square
Nanlite
Drip
Netflix
13Looking ahead

The next twelve months.

What's happened at 24–26 Lisson Grove in twelve months is rare, and it's fragile. A dormant Job Centre is now one of the most active community venues in Westminster — 12,717 people through the doors, 106 events, 21 distinct programmes, a working recording studio in the basement, a tattoo studio on the ground floor, Thread Ahead distributing to 1,538 refugees and asylum seekers from a room upstairs, ninety-six local kids credited on real production work, and a Ramadan programme that gave the neighbourhood somewhere to gather every night of the holy month. None of this existed here a year ago.

Westminster is a borough of extremes — extraordinary wealth and acute need, often on the same street. The Exchange is one of the few buildings in NW1 that genuinely serves both, and the only one doing it free or at cost. That balance is hard-won and easy to lose. Pull the plug and the room goes dark; the programmes, the tenants, the trust we've built with residents go with it.

The next twelve months are about deepening what works — more youth pathways, more resident-led programming, more partner tenants like Thread Ahead — and protecting the only thing that makes it possible: an open building, kept open, on Lisson Grove. We're asking Westminster to keep building this with us.

Rooftop view down Lisson Grove on a clear blue-sky day, looking across NW1 toward the London skyline