LLOYD LEON COMMUNITY CENTRE

Redevelopment of The Dominoes Club, Brixton

Feasibility work for the redevelopment of the Lloyd Leon Community Centre (LLCC) is underway. This important community project is home to the award-winning Brixton Immortals Dominoes Club & the hugely impactful Brixton Soup Kitchen in Brixton, Lambeth. The project team were appointed by Lambeth Council following competitive tender.

The redevelopment of the LLCC will see the rich and diverse history of the community centre celebrated and enhanced, while adapting to the future to ensure the long-term economic, social, and environmental sustainability of this tight-knit community. Stakeholder engagement will include building occupiers the Dominoes Club & Brixton Soup Kitchen, Lambeth Council and The Ubele Initiative, and will form the foundation for delivering a successful response. 

Led by Gbolade Design Studio, the strong collaborative team includes: Urban Symbiotics & Green Tea Architects; as well as consultants: Tisserin Engineers, Quaye Services; and guidance from both Elsie Owusu OBE & Bola Abisogun OBE. The winning team were chosen by the LLCC occupiers alongside Lambeth Council.

History: many of the invited 500 Jamaican passengers on board the SS Empire Windrush that arrived at Tilbury Docks, Essex on the 22nd June 1948 had travelled to Britain to help rebuild the economy by increasing workforce shortages caused by World War II, with many settling in Lambeth Council. They brought with them art, writing, dance, music, and dominoes playing that would transform British culture.

The UK actively invited people from Commonwealth nations as large parts of Britain were in desperate need of rebuilding. These newly arrived Britons went on to work in industries such as the National Rail & the NHS. Even though invited, many would be met with intolerance and were denied accommodation and access to public services.

Playing dominoes requires intelligent mind games alongside a passion for the game, leading to what is called ‘the sweet sound of the shuffle’ - which endures in the Brixton Dominoes Club, Lambeth.

The proposal for the community centre sought to re-establish a sense of camaraderie, connection, and openness through the creation of a rear garden courtyard—referred to as ‘The Yard’. The bold roofscape spanning the uses on either side of the courtyard deliberately draws on the pitched forms of neighbouring buildings, reinterpreted through a contemporary trapezoidal geometry. It modulates rhythmically to admit even north light, establishing a visual dialogue with the Grade II listed host while maintaining a domestic scale and grain.

A new level-access glazed walkway, extending the full length of the building, would delicately mediate between the Grade II listed host structure - retrofitted to Passivhaus standards—and the new corten-clad extension. This intervention respects the integrity of the existing fabric while clearly articulating the contemporary addition, establishing a cohesive dialogue between old and new. The result is both a visual and physical continuity with the past, set against a confident architectural expression oriented towards a changing future.

The relationship between inside and outside is carefully calibrated to foster serendipitous encounters between strangers and friends. The internal façade addressing the courtyard can be opened to create a continuous, flexible environment, or partitioned to accommodate smaller workshops and more private community uses. The layout is deliberately designed to maximise adaptability, while maintaining passive surveillance and a strong sense of safety.

The Brixton Soup Kitchen Helping The Homeless | Amazing Humans

Solomon starting feeding the homeless when he was 11years old, and started the Brixton Soup Kitchen in 2013. The impact of the soup kitchen since then has been exponential - recognising that homelessness can be only a few weeks away for many families in London. The Soup Kitchen has become a community hub that provides expertise from counselling to legal advice, IT skills to school packs; breaking the cycles of disadvantage that issues from homelessness can create.