Development Aesthetics

Morley House. London, W1B.

Choose Choice.

I actually burst out laughing when I walked past this hoarding on Regent Street. It hardly needs saying how idiotic “choose choice” is for a development slogan in London.

This is a Crown Estate building in super-central London which is being redeveloped from a retail/commercial building to a retail/residential building by MSMR Architects. Apparently, the Portland stone facade is being retained while the rest of the building is demolished and rebuilt into 44 new private rental apartments. 

No. 1 Palace Street. London, SW1. 

A great big gift. Subtle.

Conversion of the nineteenth-century Palace Hotel (literally across the street from Buckingham Palace) into 72 uber-luxe apartments. Completes in 2019 with flats starting from £2.145m, but some keen soul already paid £20m for one back in 2015. 

Prospect East. London, E15.

Fish Island Village. London, E3

Not a village.

Fish Island Village. London, E3

Fish Island Village. London, E3

Authentic

Vibrant

Eclectic

Fish Island Village. London, E3

Good architects (Haworth Tompkins), decent clients (Peabody), unavoidable “creative campus” provided by third-party (The Trampery). 1-bedroom flats starting at below-London-average (yet still utterly insane) prices of £432,500.

As far as new London developments go, it’s all relatively inoffensive. But because this new development is in Hackney Wick -- with its recently revamped and enlarged overground station, soon to be followed by many more bland developments (plans for new buildings on Dace Road and Berkshire Road have all been approved) -- it feels as wrong as the crassest, priciest developments elsewhere in the city.

Alongside local residents and industrial estates, for at least the last 20 years, Hackney Wick has been home to artists and their studios. With over 600 studio spaces, the Wick has even been crowned area of Europe with the highest density of artist studios.

Things started to come undone for the area back in 2005, when the 2012 Olympics were awarded to London. Given Hackney Wick’s proximity to Stratford and the new Olympic park, it was fairly obvious what future lay in store when an 11-mile-long blue fence was unceremoniously erected in 2007, closing in several square miles of the Wick and Stratford.

Many of the area’s early artist spaces -- including Vittoria Wharf and Mother Studios -- have closed. New buildings, like Fish island Village, incorporate studio spaces, but these seem geared more towards ‘innovators’ and small businesses, rather than artists, musicians and others drawn to the cheap freedom offered by Hackney Wick’s repurposed industrial spaces. 

Wallis Road. London E9

Nothing to see here, it’s only social cleansing. #futureghosttown

London City Island, Leamouth Peninsula E14

The site where Ballymore originally agreed to place its social-housing provision for the Wardian development. 

Wardian, Isle of Dogs, E14

Wardian, Isle of Dogs, E14

Wardian, Isle of Dogs, E14

A New Benchmark for Luxury Residences

Wardian, Isle of Dogs, E14

Wardian, Isle of Dogs, E14

Natural Beauty Taken to New Heights of Sophistication