"As developers, we must ensure new homes created within existing buildings complement pockets of cities, enhancing what is already there and adding to it." Thoughts from our MD Damien Sharkey on the importance of excellent quality public realm when creating a vertical neighbourhood...
Creating a vertical neighbourhood starts from the ground up. The built environment forms the backdrop of our lives, and changes to it have a ripple effect – especially in a dense city like London. With increasing focus on brownfield regeneration and building retrofit, it’s crucial to think about how each building – built new in an existing area or retrofit and given a new purpose – will serve its community. Recently we gained planning approval for our 174-home office-to-co-living conversion, Cornerstone which is alongside the Barbican, and we have submitted plans for another conversion in the City of London, Assemblies on Minories. As anyone undertaking these kinds of urban projects will know, it is not easy. Aside from the bricks and mortar, we also need to think about people. How can we open the building or site up as an asset for the whole community, and ensure they engage with it in a way they haven’t before? At HUB, we are focussed on doing this quite literally through the provision of publicly accessible amenity on the ground floor. This includes shops and cafes, but also co-working space, and more recently in our proposal for Assemblies, a health and wellness centre. Creating a vertical neighbourhood starts from the ground up, and excellent quality public realm can make or break a scheme. Fostering community inside the building is one thing, but stitching it into what’s already there takes an additional level of care. Buildings shape the way local communities live their lives, and as we all know, their impact can be hugely positive, or disappointingly negative. As developers, we must ensure new homes created within existing buildings complement pockets of cities, enhancing what is already there and adding to it. #retrofit #buildingconversion #coliving #london #brownfieldregeneration