The Ecohouse - a hub for community, collaboration and environmental education

Available for hire here.

The Ecohouse is Bankside Open Spaces Trust’s shedlette. You can find it between Ayres Street and Redcross Way. And we think it’s one of London’s best kept secrets.

Originally built in 2012, The Ecohouse was designed by Phil Clayton to be our HQ and growing space. As well as housing our team, The Ecohouse also hit the big screen, featuring in the 2015 film, ‘Missing You Already’ with Drew Barrymore. A grant from the production team enabled us to build the first iteration of the Pattison Green Hub raised beds - which also feature in the film (see if you can spot them in the trailer!).

The Ecohouse recently evolved into our community hub with two rooms; The Grow Room for propagating and growing plants, and The Rainbow Room, a space for workshops with a gardening library too. We use the space for our volunteering and community engagement work - but soon you can hire it too, keep an eye out for updates.

Space for community, collaboration and environmental education

The Ecohouse is unique, just a stone’s throw away from London Bridge with a backdrop of The Shard but surrounded by plants and trees. A perfect and welcoming space to base our work with under-represented groups, which is growing thanks to funding from the National Lottery Community Foundation and the City Bridge Foundation.

Meeting room, studio, workshop…

The main part of The Ecohouse is now called The Rainbow Room, a flexible communal space devoted to our community engagement and widening access efforts. It’s also a place for our volunteers to shelter from bad weather or learn new skills. The room recently hosted a pond-making workshop Jack from Walworth Garden and transformed into a studio when participants of our Exploring Anxiety in Nature course continued their journey of self expression through nature inspired art and craft sessions. This group, now known as the Wet Potatoes Art Collective, recently showcased their work in The Ecohouse’s first exhibition.

If you need a space for a community gathering or workshop - you can now hire our Rainbow Room. To make a booking click here, or to find out more email mustafa@bost.org.uk

Growing skills

Currently, we’re establishing a Tea Garden in and around the EcoHouse with neurodivergent and lgbtqi+ groups, including supported learning students from Southwark College and Drumbeat College. Citrus and kiwi plants are already blooming in The Ecohouse’s greenhouse - the leaves and fruit will be used for tea making sessions in the summer. This renovated greenhouse, The Grow Room, is now a space for community groups, local growers who are part of our Green Hub, our Future Gardeners horticulture students, and individuals with learning support needs to learn how to propagate plants. Plants which then flourish in our award-winning open spaces, reducing the need for us to buy plants.

The Rainbow Library

The newest addition to the Ecohouse is the Rainbow Library containing about 600 books that were kindly donated by former Head Gardener, Stephen Crisp. Access to the Rainbow Library is limited while we catalogue with the help from our volunteers. Volunteers, students and community members we support through Green Hub are able to visit between 10am–1pm on Fridays, excluding holidays and maintenance times.

With thanks to City Bridge Foundation and The National Lottery Community Fund for enabling us to widen access and participation to our programmes and supports our efforts to further diversify the horticultural sector.