We Can Make is a community land trust and neighbourhood test-space in Knowle West, imagining and making new ways to create homes that build social infrastructure and community wealth.
We Can Make grew out of a KWMC artist residency in 2015, and as of December 2025 they are now their own organisation! They run a regular programme of workshops and events throughout the year for those in the community and beyond to attend, including Neighbourhood Meetups every third Thursday of the month (5-7.30pm at The Factory, BS4 1ET), where folks get together to make and craft together, and to share food.
KWMC are currently collaborating with We Can Make on Retrofit Street, Trade Schools, and DIY Care Club. We’re excited to continue co-creating together and supporting We Can Make to grow!
What if the power and resources to create good homes were in the hands of communities?
WeCanMake has a people and place-led approach to housing innovation, embedded in and working with the community of Knowle West, Bristol. Our mission is to grow the spaces, tools and capacities to collectively imagine and actively anticipate better community-led ways to do housing. This means more than just generating speculative futures, but making practical glimmers through prototyping and testing out ideas for real so that people can tangibly see and feel how new possibilities might work on the ground.
So far, WeCanMake has delivered two community-led, low-carbon, locally made, Living Rent homes in Knowle West, with the land and homes held in trust for community benefit in perpetuity. Our two homes are a practical demonstration of a new replicable model for community-led opt-in densification, that unlocks an additional supply of land enabling those in housing need to create affordable homes precisely where they are needed most.
To get in touch with WeCanMake, please visit the website: wecanmake.org or email wecanmake@kwmc.org.uk
WeCanMake is open for others to adapt and adopt
We believe the neighbourhood is a key site within which to seed and grow social and economic change. We want to connect with other communities and neighbourhoods experiencing similar challenges to ours, with whom we can share learnings from our experiment and tools that others may find useful when it comes to meeting diverse housing needs.
Neighbourhoods may want to adapt and adopt some or all of the WeCanMake tools and methods for their own context. This is an open invitation to get involved in the next stage of the neighbourhood test-space as we develop a new peer network for collectively imagining and making better housing futures for people and places.
Visit the WeCanMake website: www.wecanmake.org
Read the WeCanMake Playbook
General enquiries: hello@wecanmake.org
Communications/press enquiries: athlyn@wecanmake.org
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