top of page

    In January 2020 we took on a large a scruffy old mechanics unit in Tongwynlais just North of Cardiff and began to transform it. This was a couple of months before the Ist lockdown.  As Covid Rules began to relax the large workshop became an  great safe place for several young people to learn creative construction skills and see their work included in a commission for a contemporary  street installation in Cardiff City Centre and contribute to making the first extraordinary micro-house.

    We need to  transform how we live and work on this wonderful, finite planet.   So many of our social systems are stretched and dysfunctional. We want to make a real difference  so that we co-creates ways of living for the wellbeing of our communities and our environment.  We aim to make a number of  collborative interventions, some radical, some just common sense, to enable people to build and enjoy the fruits of a community where there are connected spaces for growing food, cooking,  working, meeting and sharing, upcycling creating, caring for each other  and our  environment.  There is a self  supporting social enterprise business with employee ownership that will be making individual and handcrafted furniture along with  building imaginative and cost effective small scale living units.  The Bottega project plans to  take advantage of the newest developments in technology and software  to take examples of succesful social and digital models from around the world.   There is a 3 year plan to develop a genuine school for change, where all are students and which empowers its students citizens to work within communities to identify and seed and nurture  the changes which they can see are necessary and acheievable without waiting around for someone else to do it. 

  The story  started over 5 years ago as the realisation of a long term dream of John Whitehead, inventive sculptor, engineer and social innovator. In  the years after conceiving, and building the hugely sucessful  Talgarth Mill Project in 2010 with an award winning lottery bid and hour long BBC TV program.

   The Bottega now has a core group of members many inspiring supporters and strong links with  other groups within Cardiff and South Wales....

bottom of page