We’re hosting an Open Workshop as part of the 2024 Craft + Design Canberra Open Studios, running a series of workshop tours that’ll bring you behind the scenes of Hammer HQ.

What To Expect

In the tour, you’ll learn about the skill and care it takes to safely salvage and recycle our timber, as well as the history behind it. You’ll meet members of our team from different sections of the business, from recycling, dressing & joinery, and the design and office staff.

You’ll have the opportunity to check out the workshop, showroom and upstairs gallery, and there will also be time for questions. This is a really great opportunity to get to know us a little better—we love welcoming people to our space and sharing what we do. You could also bring along any teenagers in your life (N.B. anyone under 16 must be supervised) to get them fired up about a career in sustainability, design, timber recycling, furniture-making or joinery.

Come on a timber recycling journey with us…

We’ll be taking visitors on a timber recycling journey, from the raw demolition timber to the fine furniture produced by our craftspeople.

There will be three sessions available, at 10am, 10:45am and 11:30am, all going for about 75 minutes. It’s free, but tickets must be reserved because spaces are limited.

First up, we’ll take you down the back to the timber yard to show you where the timber arrives from the demolitions, and then to our recycling section for a demonstration of nail removal, species identification and grading techniques, and if there’s time you might even get a go at de-nailing yourself!

After that, we’ll take you inside to see the big machines in our dressing workshop and our recycled sawdust fire briquette production.

Next, you’ll have a chance to learn about making furniture with the joinery team, looking at things like machining, profiling, gluing, sanding, filling and finishing. You’ll get to see our 5-axis CNC machine in action.

Finally, you’ll head upstairs to the Mixing Room Gallery and Showroom, to check out the design details of the furniture on show, and talk through some of the design thinking behind our work.

Please note

You must reserve your space for the tour. If you miss out, we’ll be running another tour in 2024. Make sure to join our email list so you don’t miss out.
Kids/teenagers under 16 should be supervised by an adult.
There is a fair bit of walking and standing on the tour, but you are welcome to bring your own fold up chair. The last part of the tour is up two flights of stairs, so it is not suitable for those with mobility issues—we're very sorry to those who that will affect.