Last month, Imperial College London inaugurated the Victoria Industrial Estate under its new name: Grapht Works.

Names matter. Graft speaks to work, iteration, getting your hands dirty and staying close to the process. It also signals the coming together of things, the building of a new community. And for our tenants at 1 Portal Way, this moment is profoundly practical.

What’s been launched next door (a five‑minute walk away)is pilot manufacturing capacity sitting directly alongside our ready‑to‑occupy labs and offices.

In London, this kind of proposition is almost unheard of.

A proposition that barely exists in London

If you are a science or technology scale-up thinking about the next stage of your journey, which is likely to involve manufacturing - whether that’s imminent or still a year or two down the line - the usual London story is compromise.

Labs in one place. Manufacturing somewhere else.

Here in North Acton, there’s no compromise.

At 1 Portal Way, you can be running R&D in fully fitted labs while your manufacturing sits literally 200m/ a “five-minute walk” away. Not in an industrial park beyond the M25, nor a train journey away.

We’re talking about two sites designed to operate as one ecosystem- physically, culturally and programmatically: for founders and operators, this level of adjacency matters hugely.

Why this matters? Manufacturing is iterative. Distance kills iteration.

Manufacturing is not a fixed end state, especially at pilot and demonstration scale.  It’s a process of adjustment, refinement, and correction.

When your lab is far from your manufacturing site, iteration slows, small teams waste time travelling, decisions get deferred and changes wait until “the next visit”.

Here, iteration compresses: you can walk from the manufacturing floor back to the lab. Adjust a process. Test it. Return. Adjust again. Several times in a single day if needed.

That is not a marginal gain, it is a structural advantage.

It means faster learning, tighter feedback loops, and better decision-making (especially for lean teams where every hour matters.)

There isn’t a better place to do this in London

There are very few locations in Zones 1 or 2 where manufacturing is even permitted.

Fewer still (none?) where manufacturing sits directly alongside labs, offices, and an active innovation community anchored by a world‑leading university like Imperial College London.

As far as we can see, nowhere else combines all of the following:

• Ready‑to‑use lab and office space where teams can refine and adjust their process.

• Adjacent manufacturing capability the kind where you can literally drive your forklift from one building to the next.

• A single, integrated community and programme, offering stage‑appropriate connections that accelerate thinking and reduce time to scale.

• Central London connectivity, making it easier to attract talent and maintain effortless commutes.

• A position within the Imperial and WestTech London ecosystem, giving companies privileged linkage to research, talent and translational infrastructure.

  
  

For companies serious about scaling, this is a rare alignment of capabilities, location and ecosystem support.

The successful launch of Grapht Works simply formalised what we already believed: 1 Portal Way occupies a genuinely unique position in London’s innovation landscape.

Lab to manufacturing.

Same day. Same community. Same momentum.

Looking for Labs & Office space adjacent to advanced manufacturing? Check us out

Want to find out more about Grapht Works? Brochure's here