Sustainable Makers Studio: From salad farming to east London’s clay revolution
How hobbyists Tom Smith and Zoe Boult built a potter’s haven in Bow’s industrial heartland to counter isolation and consumerism.
Most people who turn down Eleanor Street, behind Bow Road, do so on autopilot. Food delivery drivers zip in and out of the business park on their journeys to deliver hot food fast.
Dark kitchens and pop-up takeaways have nestled themselves underneath the railway arches, churning out hundreds of orders a day for people on the go. Takeaway boxes are whisked away on the back of e-bikes, summoned by an app.
‘In London, you’re either isolated, over-consuming or a bit of a robot,’ says Tom Smith, 34, co-founder of the Sustainable Makers Studio. ‘That’s what we’re trying to undo.’
As you approach the last arch on Eleanor Street, a peep through the window of the portacabin sat out front offers few clues to the studio’s purpose – unless you happen to spot a class of students shaping hunks of clay inside.
Beyond the heavy metal door guarding the arch is a clean, well-organised room with tones of pale grey and white. A perfect clean slate for the most unexpected of creations to clamour for your attention.
There’s barely a classic pot in sight, with angular vases, strange organic sculptures or intentionally wonky mugs lined up on shelves, either with a post-kiln gleam, or matt and unassuming, waiting to be fired.
On any given day you might find someone in deep concentration throwing a bowl on the wheel, a few hand-builders sat at the centre table pinching pots into existence, a scattering of marbled mugs (the rejects from a beginners class) half-full of cooling tea, and a rack of glittering ceramic pickle ornaments fresh from the kiln.
A trip to the bathroom is a must for any visitor, where a psychedelic assortment of ceramic toilet roll holders cling to the walls.
Polaroid photos of the studio’s current members, grinning while thrusting forward a ceramic creation, are proudly pinned to a wall. A creative base of more than 70 members, the studio is rolling with the current popularity of ceramics. But Tom sees no reason to limit the space to only ceramicists and hopes that artists of all creeds will see a place for themselves here.
‘Deeper down, it’s about trying to connect consumers – people – in a way the modern world doesn’t allow for,’ Tom continues. Tower Hamlets is the most densely populated London borough with soaring demand for consumer goods, yet there is little space that allows us to make things needed to sustain ourselves.
Like many idealistic ventures that question the capitalist foundations of our society, the idea of Sustainable Makers was born during the upheaval of the pandemic. Looking to fight off the growing doom cloud of consumerism, Tom and his partner Zoe Boult, 33, first looked to salad farming to bring sustainable production to the cramped East End.
Just before the lockdown, the couple set up a vertical farming business with hopes of supplying salad to local shops. At the time, the family were living in Hackney Wick, just a short cycle from the arches where they hoped to grow leaves with similarly short commutes to shop shelves.
‘It kind of gets all quite lofty and big ideas, you know… And that never works too well for small businesses, you know,’ Tom says wryly. When greengrocers, desperate to remain profitable through the lockdowns, reduced their offering, locally grown salad leaves were struck off the order form.
Unsure what to do next with the space they had secured under the end arch of Eleanor Street, Zoe and Tom looked inward. Both hobbyists who had long turned to creativity for joy, rarely for income, they saw a need for a space where like-minded people could come together.

The kind of people who loved getting creative with clay, wood, paint or metal – but weren’t pretentious about it.
‘Being around a creative community appealed to us’, explains Zoe. ‘People were saying they felt intimidated by creative spaces, so us not being creatives and having other interests as well, makes it somewhere to experiment without judgement from professionals.’
Once Zoe and Tom nudged the community into existence, it grew organically through its members. As one of the studio’s first members, studio manager Sorrel Madley has been a driving force behind developing the studio’s green credentials. Sorrel helps ensure the kilns are filled very efficiently to save on fuel.
‘We recycle all our clay and recycle our glaze creating mystery reclaimed glaze colours,’ she explains. ‘We try to encourage members to only find pieces they really need.’ Although clay is a natural resource – it’s essentially mud – once fired, it will last millennia. The studio’s electricity comes from renewables, and everything possible goes in the recycling bin.
It’s rare, living in East London, to know where the ingredients in your takeaway came from, let alone the origin of the plate you ate it off. And while we may not have the space to grow our vegetables or salad leaves, plate-making isn’t as far out of reach as you might think.
While Maker’s Studio is accepting new members, all members must have some pre-existing knowledge of ceramics to use the equipment and kiln. If you’re a complete newbie, an entry-level course on hand-building, or a one-off medieval tile-making class is a good place to start.
After all, it’s impossible to feel like a robot when you’re playing in the mud.
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