January 2011 Archives

...it's being built in Mumbai and it hasn't got a nickname yet. Suggestions?

Skyscrapernews has the story.

Came across this photograph on the Guardian website and thought it worth sharing. It's taken from the Broadgate Tower looking towards the city cluster and beyond with the rising Shard in the background. No photoshop involved, just excellent timing with the clouds parting and a burst of sunshine breaking through, ok I'm no photography expert but there might be some photoshop involved. Still, I think it's great.

Remember Christopher Farrell the mortgage broker off of the Apprentice. No? Me neither. Anyway he looked like this:

...and has just pleaded guilty to altering mortgage applications to boost his earnings. He also had some previous, with convictions for possesion of an extendable baton and a knuckleduster. The Beeb has the story.

This is a classic story of what we at London Residential Research have come across over the past couple of years and a predominant theme running through the latest 'Red Book', soon to be published.

A press release from Argent on their huge King's Cross scheme describes how construction has recently started on the first residential building providing 117 homes out of the 1,900 total. However instead of being for the private market, they're starting on the affordable homes first in a similar way to Bellway and their Space1 development in Whitechapel. The first plot to kick off at King's Cross known as R4 will include 15 supported housing apartments, 78 general needs rented apartments and 24 shared ownership apartment and come with the help of a £42m funding package from the HCA. 

It just goes to show in the current climate, developers are still finding it nye on impossible to sell flats off-plan, even a train station with direct access to Europe on the front door hasn't persuaded even investors so what hope have other developers got.

Arsenal FC have so far completed the redevelopment of their old Highbury ground in to top end flats as well, as much of Holloway Road around their new home at Ashburton Grove. Now having very recently gone under construction is the final phase, adjacent to and almost on top of the Emirates, here's the proof from yesterdays site visits.

It appears however the development consisting of 734 residential units in total will be phased. The stuff currently under construction is just the lower rise 173 shared ownership units.

Here's how the completed scheme will look...

...is not the dodgy title of a Eurovision song entry, just more evidence (if more were needed) of China's continued expansion. The plan is to merge nine cities around the Pearl River Delta into one massive one. Now you've probably got an idea of "massive" in your head right now...let me guess, twice the size of London, maybe three times the size? Not even close. In fact trying to compare this new uber-city to any other city is a bit pointless, we need to up the scale a bit. Even now I bet you're thinking on a county level, 'bout the size of Kent? OK, Kent and Surrey combined surely that should do it. Again not even close. So let's go to the world's default country of measurement, Wales. The new city will be as big as Wales...wrong again. Ready for this? Here goes...the new city will be twice the size of Wales, with an area of 16,000 sq miles and a population of 42,000,000...now imagine the rush hour.

link

If you were stuck in the massive traffic jam on Fulham Road on Monday morning it was due to the partial collapse of this building:

270-296 Fulham Road being refurbished to its former glory by Thornsett. The Standard has the story.

These are not obscure Governmental departments but plots on the Greenwich peninsula. Meridian Delta (with a little help from the HCA) is going to develop over 1,500 resi units on this site just north of the former David Beckham Football (sorry Soccer) Academy. A noteworthy story in itself but not half as exiting as what they intend to do in the middle of the site. They're going to build a station on it, not a bus station, not a train station but a cable-car station. That's right, instead of a bridge to cross the Thames we're going to get a cable-car, all the way from the Dome/O2 to the ExCell Centre on the north bank.

Build this, build it now.

First Picture Quiz of 2011. 6 pictures, 1 link, what is it? 

Two major residential-led schemes in Docklands as of last week got refused planning consent. The first; Angel House, 225 Marsh Wall (below left) had 265 residential units and 56 hotel beds proposed. The second; Skylines, (below right) also on Marsh Wall had 806 residential units and 103 hotel beds proposed.

Interestingly both were refused on the same day and by delegated powers, not at committee, very strange for schemes of such size.

If you look further into the delegated report however, the reasoning behind this becomes clearer. In the case of 225 Marsh Wall, the south-facing residential units in the lower 22-storeys would receive substandard levels of daylight and sunlight (40% losses) with the 9 lower storeys receiving losses in daylight of 90%. This would be created due to the Skylines development literally across the road.

So, are these two projects now dead in the water? Probably not just yet. It looks as though Tower Hamlets Council has asked both developers and architects to go back to the drawing board and work together so that neither schemes are too dominating. If they want to build out these sites they will have to accommodate one another, namely Skylines over Angel House as it's directly south.

You have to feel for the developers of Angel House, their application was deferred at committee back in February, a full 4 days after Skylines was first submitted to the council. It went to committee with the recommendation to grant and you can imagine the planners trying to drag it back in order to commission a sunlight report. That must have been an awkward conversation.