Hackit Design CIC - Ladywell Playtower

Ladywell Playtower

A home for Lewisham, built by Lewisham

Ladywell Playtower is a place to feel safe, seen and supported. A place to rest, connect and rebuild, with practical opportunities to learn, create and thrive.

Lewisham has always been made by people. Families who work hard. Young people with big ideas. Elders with deep roots. Communities who bring culture, care and resilience.

But too many people now feel pushed out. Rents rise, familiar places disappear, services get harder to reach and stress becomes a normal way of life. We understand that because we have lived it too. Ladywell Playtower is our way of saying Lewisham belongs to the people who live here, not just today but for future generations.

About us

We are Hackit Design CIC, a Black-led social enterprise delivering accessible, inclusive design and home adaptation support for disabled, neurodivergent and chronically ill people.

Our CEO, Angela Stewart, was born at Lewisham Hospital and grew up returning to Lewisham’s markets and high street culture as part of everyday life. Hackit Design was created from lived experience of disability and neurodivergence, and from seeing first-hand how stressful, inaccessible environments can make health harder to manage.

We are bidding for Ladywell Playtower because we want to create a practical, welcoming place you can feel at ease, where people can improve their homes, build skills and feel better in everyday life. This is about health, wellbeing and opportunity by reducing stress through spaces that support health needs, improving confidence through learning and creating routes into training, work and enterprise.

Our vision

Our vision is to restore Ladywell Playtower as a welcoming, accessible home for wellbeing, connection, skills and creativity. Ladywell Playtower can be part of the answer. It can offer a stable, accessible home for community activity sessions, support and connection so people are not left without somewhere to go as the borough changes

What will be here

• Accessible hydrotherapy and spa facilities designed around privacy, dignity and calm
• Affordable access shaped around need, using a social enterprise model that reinvests back into the community
• Dedicated women-only and men-only sessions to support cultural needs and a sense of safety, alongside family-friendly and mixed community activities
• Coworking and a digital suite so local people and community groups can work, learn and communicate
• Creative spaces and routes into training, paid work and progression in trades, heritage skills and the arts
• A community garden for food growing, alongside a café for community cooking, food education and practical nutritional tips
• Clinical consultation hours for advice sessions, plus signposting to community services and activities led by local community organisations

The people invited to use the facility include local residents, families, young people, disabled and neurodivergent residents, people living with long-term health conditions, carers and community organisations.

Hackit Design is a not-for-profit social enterprise. That means we do not extract profit for shareholders. Any surplus we generate is reinvested into community benefit.

In practice, this helps keep access affordable because we use a blended model:

• Standard paid sessions and room hire help cover running costs
• Reduced-cost and free access is prioritised for local residents on low incomes and people facing additional barriers to wellbeing and participation
• Contract income and grants help us subsidise community access, protect affordability over time and keep the building active for local people

This approach is designed around need, not your income, so the building can serve the people it is meant for.

Building design and restoration approach

Ladywell Playtower is a Grade II listed former Victorian Baths. Restoring it is not just about nostalgia. It is a practical decision to protect a landmark and bring back a civic space that supports everyday life and everyday needs.

Our approach is conservation-led and restoration-first. We will make the building safe, usable and welcoming while preserving its architectural significance.

The Project Team

Hackit Design is supported by a multidisciplinary team spanning architecture, heritage delivery, engineering, landscape and inclusive interior design.

Maxwell Ward Architectural + Design with more than 20 years of professional experience as an RIBA architect, Maxwell Ward has delivered highly complex and carefully crafted buildings and spaces, including projects involving historic and listed buildings in London as well as other parts of England. This experience provides MWA+D with a strong understanding of working within sensitive heritage environments while introducing new spaces that are practical, inclusive and responsive to their community.

Kiros Amdemariam Gerab, quantity surveyor, project manager and engineer, with heritage building experience including a recent Grade II listed restoration in Charlton for the Ethiopian community

Isaac Aryee, architect with delivery experience across healthcare and public sector buildings

Vanessa Celosse, landscape designer and director at Sayes Court Garden CIC, a community landscape, horticulture and heritage project at Convoys Wharf in north Lewisham, with a background in community development and NHS mental health training

Susan Rowe, Chair of the Black Voluntary network is delighted to be a part of this project as she has a background in construction management and extensive knowledge of the needs of the Lewisham community. 

Together, we are building a team that can protect the heritage, deliver safely and design a space that supports health, dignity and belonging.