What is House of Annetta?
What do we do?
House of Annetta is a project to repair and imagine the former home of Annetta Pedretti, in Spitalfields - East London. She was a cybernetician and trained architectural designer, and the building became her life-work from 1980 until her death in 2018.From the building at 25 Princelet Street - a Huguenot Merchants House built 1705 - Annetta was able to act in relation to the forces of speculation and development affecting the lives of those around her: the skyline of the financial district in the City of London, the new development zone of Canary Wharf, demolition of community facilities, the threat to informal ways of living and the impacts of gentrification. She was an active campaigner, designing different ways to bring people together and share their demands for change.
Today, House of Annetta aims to benefit individuals, groups, and organisations committed to spatial justice, especially those negatively impacted by the financialisation of land and property. This includes communities fighting for access to housing, or public space as well as organisers, artists, researchers and educators building life-affirming projects.
Build Infrastructure for Movement
We offer free and low-cost access to space to aligned organisations. Space is important to meet each other, test things out and share ideas. Inspired by Annetta’s practice in fostering exchange through conversation, printed books and performance, we have established a printing press in collaboration with collective Slow + Dirty. The Risograph printer is available at low-cost for community groups and campaigns; and publishes projects by user-groups of House of Annetta. Find out more.Cultivate Radical Imagination
We facilitate a yearly process, Systems RIP (Research in practice / Rest in Power), to undertake action-research on the systems that we interact with in our daily lives: from food production to material extraction. We encourage creative and experimental ways of engaging with issues that connect the social with the spatial.We’re also developing a learning program for heritage crafts, which will grow as we move into the large scale repair of the building. We support organisations and individuals to develop through mentorship and programming opportunities. Find out more.
Who was Annetta Pedretti?
Annetta (1954-2018) was born in Celerina, Switzerland. She came to London to study Architecture at the Architectural Association, where she encountered cybernetics. She went on to write a PhD, The Cybernetics of Language (1981), at Brunel University under the supervision of Gordon Pask. Her work on language and reference informed her interdisciplinary, intermedia book, video and performance works.She bought 25 Princelet Street in 1980, which became her home and life-work until the end of her life. She established princelet editions, an experimental press in 1981. She undertook a decades-long process of dismantling and repair in the building, as well as philosophical learning and local activism. From around 2000 onwards her focus shifted to honey bees. She designed a new system of bee-stewarding, in Spitalfields as well as in Enfield, North London, distributing jars of honey locally.
What’s happened so far?
When Annetta died without a will in 2018, her family gave the building and its contents to the Stiftung Edith Maryon, a Swiss foundation set up to “remove buildings from speculation so that it can be used in a socially responsible manner”. Speculation is the process of trading land and property for profit. They approached architecture and design collective Assemble to think about what to do with the semi-derelict building. In December 2020, House of Annetta opened to the public with the Save Brick Lane exhibition.In 2022 Assemble established a new organisation, House of Annetta CIC, in order to build on Annetta’s legacy, to test out ways of using the building, and to develop a sustainable proposal for its future.
◱ 2025 - Growing independence, last year of support from SEM and Assemble
◫ 2024 - Opening the second floor! Slow + Dirty move in with their risograph
⊠ 2023 - Structural surveys, learning programmes launched
◰ 2022 - Craft commissions, HoA CIC established
⊟ 2021 - Making the garden, repairing the electrics, basic repairs
⊡ 2020 - Save Brick Lane Exhibition, boxing up the archive
What is the plan for the future?
We are in the process of fundraising for repair works to make the building wheelchair accessible, and retrofitted so that it is a bit warmer in winter. We also want to fit out the different spaces as a community resource: with a range of spaces for meetings, arts production, and an archive dedicated to women in Cybernetics. The repair process will be delivered as a series of training courses, including a Built Environment Ecologies Diploma, a Future Skills NVQ and community DIY upskilling supporting the maintenance of local housing stock.Once the building is repaired, these training courses will continue as learning programs with the dream of seeding neighbourhood retrofit projects. House of Annetta will continue to provide low-cost space and resources for people and organisations working towards spatial justice. We will host a programme of courses and learning events, combining practical building maintenance and supporting community projects. We will reprint Annetta’s books as ‘living books’, alongside new creative responses.
The house will be repaired as a learning programme.
The building will be a space for meeting and learning.
Who is involved?
House of Annetta CIC
The project is being developed by House of Annetta CIC. We are made up of people with connections to local housing campaigns, and community-led development.
Current HOA CIC directors are Saif Osmani, Frances Northrop, Sumayyah Zannath, Fran Edgerley, and Aska Welford.
Stewards
Stewards take care of the day-to-day running of the space, coordinate maintenance, and develop the future of the project.Fran was a Co-founder of architectural design collective Assemble. Learning through the delivery of projects they came to understand the power in access to land: from setting up child-led Baltic Street Adventure Playground, and working alongside the Granby Four Streets Community Land Trust on neighbourhood repair. They co-founded House of Annetta to build resources for learning and organising around relationships to land.
Aska grew up in Tower Hamlets and went to nursery on Brick Lane. After training in architecture and working in social housing they were part of a workers enquiry, which lead to the formation of the first trade union in architecture since the 1980s.
Anna is a textile designer and printer by trade. She first got involved with house of Annetta through trade union organising and the Antiuniversity festival. She co-runs the second floor community press with feminist collective Slow + Dirty, working towards more collectivised systems for DIY print production.
Previous stewards include:
✼ Fawziyah Rahman
✼ Sofia Deria
✼ Yibeijia Li
✼ Seyi Adelekun
CAREtakers
Nominated from regular user-groups, caretakers are trained fire-wardens, can open the space for others, and know where the toilet paper is stored. They meet across the year to learn skills together, and to discuss the ongoing operations and future of the space.Fabricators
We have worked with craftspeople to carry out craft commissions, furniture building and repairs: making the space more usable, testing out learning methods and the future repair strategy, and building on Annetta’s practice.⏍ Imani Qamar: Garden Planters
☡ Monika Kolarz: Handrail
◘ Emma Leslie: Kitchen
✾ Ella Khafaji and Leila Dear: Lampshades
✲ Daisy Moore: Rooflights
﹆Ash Thornton, James Bromley and Sofia Deria: Second Floor
⚡︎ Tash, Regan, Nicola: Rewiring (Amy’s Electrics)
⌲ Het Moriarty Thompson: Door Knocker
Stiftung Edith Maryon UK
This is the first UK project by Stiftung Edith Maryon. The foundation was established to remove land and property from the streams of commodification and inheritance so they are no longer objects of speculation but instead made available for uses that serve society. In each of their projects - of which there are over 100 in mainland Europe, the primary goal is to secure socially responsible places of residence and work. The foundation strives for transparency in ownership and land use, and is committed to high-density and mixed-use development, to biodynamic agriculture, and to green building methods.Chopping board
House of Annetta is supported by working groups–’chopping boards’–of expert advisors to strategise, advocate and open their networks for the project. They include professionals and community members with expertise in fundraising, community asset development, heritage, archives, accessibility, legal support in movements, researchers, craft construction, cybernetics, land justice organising, asset management, education agroecology.♡ Janna Aldaraji - Shared Assets;
♡ Juliet Can - Stour Trust;
♡ Gemma Copeland - Common Knowledge
♡ Deba Malique - Tower Hamlets Parents Forum
♡ Itxaso Markiegi - freelance accessibility consultant