Our new exhibition explores how circular economy principles can reshape the way we design, build, make and live in our cities. At its heart is the idea of a Community Circular Economy Hub (CCE): a place where businesses, materials and communities come together to transform waste into useful resources.

Drawing on research by UCL and Morris+Company, the exhibition explores how such hubs can operate as local infrastructure for circularity, bringing material reuse, fabrication, food systems, community enterprise and resource sharing together under one roof. It tests different spatial configurations and layouts, exploring how these activities can be brought together more effectively to support a connected local circular economy. This vision is now becoming reality in Hackney Wick, where we are working towards the UK’s first purpose-built, permanent CCE Hub. The project aims to create a model for the local infrastructure needed to make circularity part of everyday community life. From reclaimed construction materials and plastics to food systems and community enterprise, these activities reveal that circularity is about more than keeping materials out of landfill. It is about creating the spaces, relationships and local networks that allow resources to stay in use, and communities to become more resilient. Bringing together local makers, reclaimed construction materials and research by UCL and Morris+Company, the exhibition explores the environmental, spatial and social potential of reuse, while reflecting our own commitment at Morris+Company to putting circular principles into practice as a business. It asks what happens when waste becomes a resource, and when the places that manage those resources become part of the community itself. ... Our exhibition is free to visit every day between 10am-4pm. ... Join us on Thursday 14 September at 6pm for a special PechaKucha-style evening when we'll bring together businesses, makers and organisations featured in the exhibition — including UCL, Fantasy Fibremill and Hackney Wick & Fish Island Community Development Trust — to share their experiences of putting circularity into practice. Tickets are free - please RSVP via https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pecha-kucha-evening-the-circular-city-starts-with-community-tickets-1998244997579 ... Credits We thank Hackney Wick & Fish Island Community Development Trust, Sophie Percival, Looply, Reuser, Yodomo, FibreLab, Zhero, Studio TIP, Fantasy Fibre Mill, Are You Mad?, Make Play Design, MatterForms, Angus Clifford, OverTheMoon CIC, and Cella Collective, for their contribution to this exhibition and to the preparation of the guidance. Special thanks to UCL Innovation & Enterprise for funding the project, grant EP/X525649/1. Guidance Contributors Polina Pencheva, Mark Miodownik, Rosalilla Hewlett: UCL Plastic Waste Innovation Hub (2026) 3D Design Cella Collective Printing FibreLab Exhibition Materials Resolve Collective’s Material Store, Tipping Point East