Volunteers gained practical skills and experience in construction at the final community workshop to help transform an out of use bright blue studio complex into a creative hub this weekend.

Activities the public was welcome to get involved in on Saturday May 20 at Blue House Yard, Wood Green High Road, included painting, cladding, lining and joinery.

Encouraging participation in the renovation of the site is part of the aim Jan Kattein architects and Meanwhile Space (together High Street Works) has for its five-year project of nurturing talent and boosting businesses.

A spokesperson for High Street Works, said: “The volunteering day was an opportunity to open this process up to the wider Wood Green community, giving locals the chance to pick up some construction skills and be involved in shaping a new public space in the town centre.

“At Blue House Yard, the building process is not just a means to an end, it helps to train eight local carpentry apprentices from CONEL and allows us to extend the design process right into the construction phase – maybe in a slightly old-fashioned kind of way harnessing design opportunities at every joint and every junction.”

Some of the new tenants who have already moved into studios have started to customise and animate their workspaces accordingly, taking full advantage of the projects next phase of creative development.

The yard will eventually house markets and evening events and a double-decker bus, which is to be converted into a café, will serve refreshments for workers and visitors.

High Street Works embraces a self-build process which tests and prototypes sustainable timber frame construction.

Work on Blue House Yard is scheduled to end in May, and many studios have already been taken.