September 2011 Archives

Dutch hotel chain 'CitizenM' is entering the London market and with it bringing a fresh and new concept, not only in its clientele it wants to attract but also in its construction and development. They have two sites, the first in Southwark, on Lavington Street, a stones throw to the south of Tate Modern and NEO Bankside recently started construction. Rooms here should soon be full because as you can see in the photo below, construction is by modular rooms, prefabricated off-site.

Thanks go to London-se1 for the photos. Workspace Group sold the site to CitizenM for £4.5 million and the scheme when complete will provide 191 rooms. Here's what it will look like when finished.

As well as this site, 38-40 Trinity Square next to the Tower of London went to committee two weeks ago yesterday but was deferred. The site known as Tower House is expected back at the next committee with the recommendation to grant permission for 370 hotel rooms across 9 storeys. The site had a previous consent for 11,500sqm of office space and currently lies vacant with the basement levels already having been excavated. Again this will be built off-site saving costs and time within the construction.

If you want to find out more about the CitizenM brand check out their website. Here you will find this... their rather corny 'concept'.

I've always really enjoyed cooking, and never been happier when left alone in the kitchen trying to create a culinary masterpiece. So whenever I've been flat-hunting, it has always been important to me to have a decent kitchen where I can wind down from work. As a renter, I've never even thought about what a kitchen would cost and came across the most interesting kitchen I've ever seen:

Marazzi Design unveiled their newest kitchen - the Colosseo Oro. This 24-carat gold leaf kitchen has crocodile-skin finishings and glittered Venetian glass surfaces. Only 10 will be made and they start at £300,000. If the price doesn't put you off, please be aware that you do need a kitchen that is a whopping 12 square metres. I think i may just get this rather fantastic tap for £6,000 instead:

Two very sizeable planning applications have been submitted in Shepherds Bush, both involve shopping and both also include a lot of housing.

Firstly Westfield have submitted plans for an extension to their already very large shopping centre. It will provide an extra 50,000sqm of retail space as well as 1,646 residential units. The planning application can be viewed here, although having only recently been submitted there are no documents online as yet. Westfield have produced a website though with some detail of the layout and a vague masterplan.

Incidentally the new retail offering here will push the total amount of space over that of the new Westfield Stratford City, meaning their title of "the largest urban shopping mall in Europe" will only be held for a few years. West London was always going to have the last laugh wasn't it...

The other application comes from Orion Shepherds Bush who are planning on redeveloping Shepherds Bush Market. 6,000sqm of retail/market space and 4,000sqm of food/beverage uses will be provided along with 212 residential units. Orion Shepherds Bush is a joint venture between Orion Land & Leisure and Development Securities.

We at The Pint of Milk Test were one of the first to reveal the new plans by Exemplar, Kaupthing and Aviva Investors for their Middlesex Hospital site, formerly also known as NoHo Square, when Nigel went down to their open consultation. See his blog from the event here:

A full planning application has now been submitted. If permitted in the same form the development will comprise buildings of 9 to 11 storeys plus two basement levels for mixed use purposes comprising 291 residential units, as well as office, retail, financial and professional services, restaurant and community/health uses as well as the creation of new open space. Here's what it will look like.

This is surely one of the biggest plots of central London land to be redeveloped in recent years, having been demolished in 2008. The scheme will also now be called 'The Middlesex', I wonder how much they paid someone to come up with that? Under the Candy and Candy proposals the scheme was to be called "Noho Square".

Construction work at The Heron, on Moor Lane, EC2 is progressing well. How well is evident in these two images below, the first one was taken back in February.

This was the site last Wednesday, the concrete core is up to 36 storeys; it was in fact by May actually. The concrete frame is now catching up though up to 18 storeys and cladding is also on in places.

LRR spoke to the sales office at the end of August who informed us an estimated 219 units had been released to date with reservations / sales occurring on 198 plots. Currently on sale are 21 units with prices between £495,000 and £2,950,000.

In total the scheme will provide 284 private residential units as well as a new concert hall and theatre for The Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

Staff at upmarket London estate agency Douglas & Gordon have made a "grossly unflattering" film about their profession.

The internet spoof, Under offer, shows estate agents as many detractors imagine them - obnoxious, sleazy and unprincipled louts, reports The Mail on Sunday. Ed Mead, the firm's director, who is on the board of the Property Ombudsman, said it had got "completely out of hand" and had been intended only for industry insiders. Leading property figures were quick to condemn the YouTube film.

Check out the film here

EGi News - 25/09/11 Mail on Sunday 14

Who should win the RIBA Stirling Prize 2011? You decide. Click here to vote online.

Back in February last year we blogged about the then recent application for 905 residential units in between Deptford and Surrey Quays, known as 'The Wharves, Deptford'. It also featured this image (below) within its design and access statement, which I believe deserves another mention (surely the best and worst render ever).

Last week Lewisham granted consent to the hybrid application, that's outline consent to the whole 905 residential units as well as office space, retail, parking and the like as well as full detailed consent for the first 2 phases totalling 591 residential units. The scheme by City and Provincial Properties measures 1m sq ft in total and will reinstate an old canal, currently buried under ground.

...think big on the continent. First it was the Dutch solution to living in a country bereft of any mountains - build one. Now Sweden's gone down the super-size route with its solution to the increasing lack of snow in the country. Answer, build this:

The worlds largest indoor ski slope.

I saw this quiz in the Guardian yesterday regarding tenants' rights and received a mediocre 6 out of 10. How well do you know your rights?

Find out more here.

...is going to be pumped into infrastructure projects in China by America over the next five years. That's an awful lot of money. And it seems where there's money, there's a 'stretching' factory. Let me explain. Any sort of modern construction, be it buildings, bridges or whatever uses vast amounts of concrete all of which has to be reinforced with steel rods. Now these rods have to be of a minimum thickness to withstand the massive loads that they will be put under, and this is where the stretching factories come in. The quantity of steel rods in these projects is so enormous that stretching them by a mere 1mm will turn a tidy (but illicit) profit, it also puts peoples lives at serious risk.

World Architecture News has more on the story here.

A couple of days ago we blogged about a contender to Kew Bridge's marketing suite's title of "Mother of all Marketing Suites" at Ballymore's 21 Wapping lane. Now here's another one, made out of a sea container at Countryside's Hoxton Wharf:

Last month we saw a house "extension" that looked as though someone was so inspired by our recent posting on Pod Living  that they nipped down to their local Homebase, bought a garden shed and stuck it on the roof:

"Oi, your flat's ready*"

But this month we saw another one, again in Hackney:

"Attention to detail is key"

Now I don't know about the legality of this, you certainly don't need permission for a garden shed, thing is, what constitutes a garden?

Sainsbury's has submitted its planning application to add to the regeneration of Nine Elms. The site currently looks like this:

This scheme is for 750 new homes, including space for the proposed Nine Elms tube station. This 37-storey tower could be seen as the southern barricade towering around the US embassy, which is also surrounded by Bondway Business Centre, Vauxhall Cross and the Market Towers. 

On that note, Green Properties have released their plans for the Market Towers. This redevelopment will consist of two towers that are 47 and 58 storeys tall and will be the highest tower within the Nine Elms regeneration. Below, you can see how it will look in comparison to St. Georges Tower which is being built as we speak:

They will include a 4* hotel with 180 rooms and up to 450 apartments. The planning application is supposed to be submitted this year, with demolition beginning next year and construction to start in 2013.

We've all done it. You've had some friends round and you want to show them your new flat, so you crowd round a tiny laptop to show them a miniscule picture of a sitting room that doesn't really do it justice. Well this process is soon going to become something of the past. Rightmove has partnered with Samsung to create a new residential App which will be available on their smart TVs by the end of the year.

Being able to view properties on a bigger and better quality screen will surely help, but also maybe hinder the vendor. Photos and videos of potential homes will receive serious scrutiny before viewings are booked. Properties will have to be spotless as enlarged HD pictures will surely highlight flaws that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Vendors could receive less viewings because of this, but the viewings they do have will have a higher conversion rate. With Rightmove being the 8^th most visited site in the UK, it will be interesting to see how long until the other property hunting sites follow their footsteps.

...what is it? Some times only a map will do:

The BBC speculates what the country would look like without them, here.

Back in August we blogged about the mother of all marketing suites at the Kew Bridge development in Brentford. Here's another contender for the title:

Ballymore's 21 Wapping Lane development on the site of the old Group 4 HQ.

Back in 2008 we blogged about the Dave Musset development (or lack of) next to the Tate Modern, read all about it here. The gist of the story is that local residents successfully objected to a tower being built on the site as it would spoil the view. The blog ends with a picture of this:

Herzog & de Meuron's Tate Modern extension, less than 50 meters from the proposed tower.

Many thought that this would never get built, me included. But I was there yesterday, and it looks as though it's on its way:

This is in London, but where?

As usual substantial property industry related prizes await.

This blog has written many times on new towers being planned for Vauxhall as well as the major regeneration across the wider Vauxhall Nine Elms Battersea opportunity area. Some not familiar with the area may wonder what all the fuss is about but over the next 20 or so years this is going to be London's development hot spot. If you were in any doubt take a look at this render of the cluster forming around Vauxhall (of consented and proposed schemes).

Incidentally as predicted by the Pint of Milk Test back in July, 'Riverlight', the former Tideway industrial estate has now started. London Mayor Boris Johnson broke first ground at a ceremony on Thursday with the scheme being the first to start construction in the area, and with it kicking off central London's biggest regeneration programme. Construction Enquirer has the story. 

How do you get a big building on a tiny site? Solus 4 think they've cracked it (with a little help from LeMessurier Consultants) flat slabs supported by columns and shear walls embedded into an extruded core shaft, ah... seems so obvious now. It'll look like this:

It's going to be around 1,000 ft tall and very, very thin:

And it's called the SNCI NYC Tower.

No seriously, you can now live in a cloud, look at it:

Ok so it looks a little bit like a hot-dog (IMHO) but this is what is going to be gracing the Indian city of Kolkata's skyline in a few years time. Skyscrapernews has the story. 

... to get the Australian Green Star standard doesn't look too bad either:

...to find a typical English village. Consider Thames Town (China):

Or Seoul English Village (SEV to the locals)

Or Hyde Park (Russia):

Or just English Village (Japan)

A rather strange proposal went before the City's planning committee on Tuesday. Valentine Investments intends to build an 11 storey building, some of it behind a retained facade in the heart of the City of London. Retained facade, 11 storeys, no big deal you might think. But consider this, 4 of the 11 storeys are going to be under ground, some 21 meters and the end use of the building is not office space but a private cancer tratment hospital. The new facility will be one of the first in the country to use proton beams as part of the radiation therapy and that's why the basement has to be 21 meters deep, because that's where the ultra-compact Synchrotrons* are kept.

*Fully compliant with the Ionising Radiations Regs of 1999

Here's a development that doesn't come along all that often, your own fort, in the middle of the ocean:

Horse Sands Fort is one of the largest of four forts in the Solent completed in 1880 as a military base to protect Portsmouth against the French. They were never used. Now this one's up for sale with a lapsed planning consent for conversion to 14 flats and a pending application for 22 flats. Interested parties should contact Andrews & Robertson who are selling the fort at their September auction.

Recently we blogged about £264 billion (that's right billion) man-made-Dutch-mountain plan. Architects Forrest Fulton have another take on the idea...

...they're still going with the whole "build-a-mountain" thing, but they also plan to have people living inside it:

This (below) reminds me of something...

Ah yes:

I know what you're thinking. This concept architecture is all very well, but it never gets built, does it. Think again:

This (above) is the California Academy of Sciences and again does remind me of something...

Wangjing SOHO paid a whopping £381 million for a piece of upmarket land in Beijing. They then got Zaha Hadid on board who designed this:

Very organic, reminds me of something, not sure what. Construction of the 521,000 sq m gross B1 space is already underway completion sometime in 2014.

Bob Morton has recently submitted an alternative planning application for Walthamstow Greyhound Stadium to prevent the demolition of the dog track so that it can be rejuvenated. He has been trying to buy the stadium for the last year and both bids (£6m and £9m) have been rejected as it fails to meet "market value." The new application proposes 100 private and affordable homes - instead of the 300-home scheme submitted by L&Q. The redevelopment would look like this:

Save our Stow, the campaign fighting L&Q's plans, have labelled L&Q's proposals as "poorly designed," "completely isolated" and "a flashback to the bad old days of high-density housing estates."

One thing that is worth mentioning is that Bob Morton had won the Walthamstow Greyhound Derby three times...

Furthermore, as some landlords are now charging tenants a fee to house their pets, will there be any exemptions if their dog races?

We've blogged before on temporary uses for buildings or sites which are at that awkward stage, oven-ready but yet to be developed. Chelsea Barracks' art fair and the dino-park experience at LandSec's Park House on Oxford Street (looking very close to topping out this morning) are two schemes that spring to mind. Now the National Youth Theatre has come up another use, theatre (bit obvious that one really).

The eco-thriller Slick is performed inside a vacant housing estate, the infamous Park Hill in Sheffield, which is being redeveloped. The empty concrete shells of the buildings doubling up as the decks of an ocean liner and a mysterious island.

Some of the residents yet to be decanted already know all the songs. The BBC has more on the story here.

This is the reason that offices have large windows... 

we just didn't realise it... untill now. It's called Post-it War, started on the continent coming to an office near you, real soon.

Someone just had to take it one step further though