December 2008 Archives

This is an extract from the LRR Database from last week, just a small scheme in Hoxton, here are the details:

Full planning application went to committee with the recommendation to grant as follows:

The erection of a part 4 storey, part 5 storey building plus basement to
provide:

• 8 private residential units in total (mix: 5x2 and 3x3 bed flats).


• 2,327sq m of B1 offices.


• 1,135sq m of D1 gallery space.


• 8 cycle parking spaces.

The S106 legal agreement included the following:

• £24,440 towards education.


• £38,200 towards public highways.


• £553 towards library facilities.

Planning permission was granted.

(London Borough of Hackney, ref: 2008/1321, 03/12/2008)

The development would of course be totally unremarkable if it wasn't for the architect, Zaha Hadid. This is what she's come up with...

Link

In June of this year I wrote this blog about the Liberty of Norton Folgate  and how the plucky folk at The Light Bar pub were launching a campaign to save it from demolition having enlisted the help of Tracey Emin, local MP George Galloway , Suggs off of Madness  and some ancient documents in the Guildhall Library which could have changed the political map of London forever. They were going to take it all the way to the courts. Heady stuff. But it's over. Developer Hammerson and Bandol Estates who own the leasehold of the bar reached an out of court settlement days before the High Court case. The plan is to find an alternative location for the Light Bar in the Shoreditch area, which may mean the eventual demolition of the original.

In a blog I wrote in May of this year (charmingly entitled Top Hung) I discussed the merits of two buildings and their peculiar build type which led to an even more peculiar type of demolition. Both these buildings, The Leadenhall Building (featured as picture of the week in the Guardian some time ago) and 20 Fenchurch Street still looked like this only a few weeks ago:

...and, given the CEC (Current Economic Climate) I was expecting them to stay like this for a while, but as with resi (see Not Dead Yet blog) things are far from static in the office construction market. Here are (or rather aren't) the two buildings today, both demolished, both with groundworks underway..

It's a bit blurred (I was on my bike) but this is East Sheen's Woolworths already taken by Tesco, this morning, 8:32 am...