November 2010 Archives

We've already told you where The Apprentice house is, now (in case we could be accused of bias) we can reveal the location of this year's X Factor house:

Hyver Hill, London, NW7 4HU to be precise.

Out and about in London and I'm noticing the increasing number of places where you can see this:

It is of course, The Shard. This picture was taken on Tuesday last week, a significant date in the supertall's history because sometime after 12 noon it overtook One Canada Square (a mere 771 feet and 2 inches tall) as the tallest building in London. But it's not stopping there we've still got another 230 feet to go. Soon you'll be able to see it from everywhere in the capital. 

In June this year I blogged about this site, and how, after many years of neglect Barratt was in the process of preparing for the start of construction. This is  a big development, 247 resi units in total together with a gym and a 300 space car park. This is what it looked like at the start of summer:

And this is what it looked like last week...

The site remains cleared but all the boards have disappeared with only the increasingly ragged flags still flying.

However, some development should be starting here fairly soon. Perhaps not the residential element but the gym, or the Europa Gym Centre to give it its full title, which seems definitely on the cards. Link

If ever there was a building which epitomises the marmite love/hate fixation it has got to be Robin Hood Gardens. It totally divides opinion with world renowned architects such as Richard Rogers and Zaha Hadid part of a 2,000 name petition to try and list it whilst others couldn't be happier to see it demolished.

Designed in the 1960's by brutalist architects Alison and Peter Smithson the estate completed in 1972 with the design incorporating the 'streets in the sky' thinking of the times.

Tower Hamlets Council however don't subscribe to the idea that the estate should be listed and refurbished, they want the site to be demolished and housing maximised across the site. Robin Hood Gardens as it currently stands provides just over 200 residential units, by knocking it down and encompassing land to the south and north they have created a huge development opportunity they're calling Blackwall Reach, outlined in red below.

Now the plan is to see 1,600 homes built as well as the usual, shops, schools and community facilities amongst others. The plans from two architectural practices went on show to the local public last week although they are not too dissimilar from each other.

Here's the first from Swan Housing & Countryside Properties, featuring Aedas as masterplanner with designs from Jestico & Whiles, Glenn Howells and Maccreanor Lavington.

The second design is led by London & Quadrant and Telford Homes and features designs by HTA and Squire & Partners.

The council is expected to make a decision on which plans to progress with as soon as this week. Meanwhile Guardian architectural critic Jonathan Glancey made an excellent short video piece last summer when the architectural masterpiece / architectural disaster argument was in full flow. View it here.  

...last week: 

Berkeley's new build element of its Bromyard Avenue site, Napier, gets underway.

European Land and Property, a joint venture between the Reuben brothers firm Aldersgate and the Jarvis family, have just submitted fresh new plans to supersede those from 2005. The two developers incidentally have just come in 2nd and 172nd place respectively in Estates Gazette's recent 'Rich List 2010' which is worth a quick browse. 

The new plans relate to Merchant Square fronting the Paddington Basin with the designs coming from Robin Partington Architects, shown below.

The tallest building in the new scheme will stand at 42-storeys and 460-feet making it the tallest building in Westminster if it goes ahead. In total the four buildings will provide 542 residential units with the landmark tower already being nicknamed the 'Cucumber' by some due to its design. 

The key changes between the consented and proposed scheme are as follows:

Residential space (GIA) will increase from 36,603sqm to 59,141sqm.

Commercial office space (GIA) will be reduced from 43,556sqm to 20,526sqm;

A new hotel has been included and will provide 90 rooms.

The total area (GIA) of the Merchant Square development (all six buildings) will increase from 135,110sqm to 143,951sqm.

A new Crossrail levy has been introduced which requires a total payment of £2.813m.

The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment have published what is likely to become one of their last reports before it is set to be disbanded. The report called 'Supermarket-led development: Asset or liability?' is based on reviews by CABE on 30 major schemes from around the country.  

In the report CABE criticise many schemes for simply repeating old out-of-town proposals - typically big plain buildings in a large car park - which are unsuitable for town centres. The report goes on to offer technical advice to planners and councillors on how to work together with supermarkets to make the best of each investment opportunity, creating schemes which are both commercially viable and enhance the place in which they are built.

CABE identifies a Sainsbury's development in Fulham, as a scheme which should become an asset to the area. The scheme brings high quality new streets and landscaping as well as being pedestrian friendly and the store has been designed to avoid dominating the street scene. In contrast, a scheme proposed by Tesco for Bromley-by-Bow which I previously blogged gives precedence to the store, while the housing is sited by the A12 where noise, air quality and outlook are at their worst.

Interestingly as this report comes out two more major supermarket-led regeneration schemes are being proposed. One by Asda south of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs and another by Sainsbury's in Nine Elms to the south of Vauxhall. Both schemes will redevelop and enlarge their stores as well as providing residential units.

Starting with the Asda store in Crossharbour, plans for a massive £400m redevelopment are proposed with around 1,000 new homes plus shops and leisure. Plans were submitted back in 2005 which then stalled; a new application is expected to be submitted next summer. EGi subscribers can read the full story here.

Over at Nine Elms, Sainsbury's have recently shown their plans off to the public although details so far are still limited. They state they are looking at creating up to 750 to 800 homes with three landmark towers. The site sits opposite the proposed Vauxhall Sky Gardens and will also incorporate the new Nine Elms tube station on the northern line extension (they hope). The consultation has recently started and its website went live over the weekend. Sainsburys-nineelms.co.uk  

Planning consent has been granted for a large residential scheme on the Strand, opposite the eastern junction with Aldwych. Developer Mourant Property Trustees along with Berkeley Group acting as development manager plan to replace the existing 60's office block with 206 residential units as well as 22,500sq ft of retail, leisure and office space.

The scheme designed by GRID Architects will provide 6 buildings in total built around 2 courtyards. Interestingly it will be the first housing scheme built in the prestigious legal district for more than a century. The value of the scheme is estimated at £200m.

Included in the S106 legal agreement was £5m towards the council's affordable housing fund. It's reported Westminster now has up to £93m to build 500 homes across the borough. This is the largest local authority affordable housing programme seen in the capital since the 70's and will go some way to help meet demand and tackle overcrowding.

You may remember me blogging about a 26 billion pixel image taken of Paris, a panoramic shot allowing you to zoom in forever in to the distance. It was very impressive and begged the question; when will they do one of London? Well they have, not the same people I might add, but it's been done. This time even bigger.

Here's the link if you want a browse.

Launching today it holds the record of the largest spherical panoramic photograph in the world and stars London as viewed from Centre Point. Jeffrey Martin, a panoramic photographer took more than 10,000 photos over 3 days using a 400mm lens (ie. a really, really, super-long lens). Over the next six weeks he stitched 8000 of these photos together into one seamless 360 degree spherical panoramic photo with a total resolution of 80 gigapixels, or 80 billion pixels!

What this means is you can zoom in from this...

to this...

and a lot further if you so wish, all with great detail.  

The very first blog I wrote on this site was about this building:

Battersea Power Station. Treasury Holdings have just gained consent to redevelop it and here are the relevant resi stats:

Picture the scene. Its about a hundred years ago, deep in the American mid-west. You've got a plot of land and a mind to build a house on it. But the nearest town with building supplies lies more than 100 miles due north and if truth be told you haven't got much of a clue as to what materials and in what quantity you're going to need or indeed what the house will eventually look like once it's complete. If only there was a way to order a house in the same way as you did your clothes, carpets, gingham, chewing tobacco and heavy agricultural machinery, from the catalogue.

At the time, as far as the mid-west was concerned, there was only one mail order catalogue, the mighty Sears. It boasted that within its pages a person could find everything they needed for the home. But surely that couldn't include the home itself, could it?

...delivered to your door for $1,062. And just in case you're thinking, that's all very well Pint of Milk Test but $1,062 was a lot of money back at the turn of the 20th century, consider this. The average annual wage in the U.S at the time was $400, the Sears houses average out at about 3 times that salary. Sound familiar? 

This is the Grahame Park Estate in Barnet. Genesis has consent to build around 3,500 units in phases across the site. This is a big estate, the largest in the borough, so big (think small town) that you could quite easily drive past it oblivious to the fact that deep in the centre works have already started. Phase 1A to be precise. This element will provide 319 residential units in total, 155 private and 164 social units (30 shared ownership units and 134 for rent). Due to launch in January 2011 some elements already up to the 6 storey mark. This is what it looked like last week:

I've written about Eagle House on City Road before, (see previous blog post) just to the north of Old Street roundabout. To say it's had a chequered history would be a bit of an understatement. The 27-storey, 300 unit scheme started construction back in the early part of 2008, it then halted construction for nearly the whole of 2009 before starting back up earlier this year. Now with the concrete frame topped out and limited cladding applied it looks as though construction has halted once more.

Building Magazine has the full story where apparently the sub-contractors haven't been paid by the main-contractor McCabe. It was the same story last year with the builders downing tools and refusing to carry on working. A look on Companies House suggests that their accounts are overdue and have been since May and it looks as though McCabe are just trying to extend the inevitable. It will be interesting to see how quickly developer Aviva Investors can sort out this mess, get a reliable contractor in and get this building finished. There are over 200 private units to sell after all.

When site visiting a few weeks back I passed the Kings Reach tower on the Southbank just to the west of Blackfriars Road. Here's what it looked like, boards surrounding the first floor exterior suggesting some internal gutting was taking place. The building has been empty since IPC Media relocated to the nearby Blue Fin building back in 2007.

Plans have been in place since 2005 for a full refurbishment of the building including a 4 storey extension and added office space, the MAKE designed scheme is shown in the render below. However these plans were developed by Simon Halabi's Buckingham Securities, whom have since gone bust.

New plans have now emerged from CIT who bought the site in June of this year for £60m. They have appointed KPF architects to draw up new proposals to create a largely residential building with up to 140 units. An application is likely to be submitted sometime in 2011.