Not much of a commute for somebody with £4.5m to spend on this remarkable Sir Christopher Wren-designed tower in the heart of the City. It's over ten - yes, ten - floors, with a lift and a spiral staircase to get you up and down. At the very top... a balcony with 360 degree views, including St Paul's. Completely unique, and the Rat and Mouse's favourite London property this year. Particulars here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

An interesting piece here on the Primelocation blog. Jennifer Warner attended the launch reception for Central Square - 170 apartments in a good location in Clerkenwell with underground parking - and reports...

Between wine, canapés and viewings the prospective buyers – of all ages and nationalities – quizzed the selling agents. Then like the bear pit of a Wall Street trading floor, they started to buy. With two-bedroom apartments starting at £575,000 this is not a purchase to be bought in a hurry, but a buzz of chatter on the phones to banks or loved ones ensued and deposits of £2,000 per reservation were paid on credit cards.

Thirty-seven apartments were apparently reserved in four hours. That's 22%. Good? Indifferent?

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Yes, according overseas property portal HomesGoFast's director Nick Marr, who points to rapid rises in property prices in California's Silicon Valley and draws comparisons with the London Tech City initiative, occupying...

... the area of East End between Old Street and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford. Companies that are committed to investing into the area include Cisco Systems, Facebook, Google, Intel Corporation, McKinsey & Company and Vodafone.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

It's a four-storey house in Sidney Grove, Islington, with four bedrooms and a decent roof terrace, and the vendor's none other than fun-loving model and actress A.T. Titmuss chose Foxtons, and the property's listed here, with a guide price of £850,000. Judging by the photos, Titmuss hasn't been living there for a while, but has been renting to a tidy and minimalist small brown bear pictured below.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

Good God... a prominent gay man celebrated by the Daily Mail? He must have done something exceptional. Ah yes, he's made lots of money from residential property. He bought a house in Clerkenwell for £1.2m 18 months ago, and has just sold it for £5.065m. (He also like chasing foxes and hates modern art, which helps.) The property story is quite remarkable, though... a daring refurb, dinner parties with politicians and Joan Collins, a prison door to a bedroom. It also shows the apparent randomness of the estate agent's valuation, which it pertains to an expensive and unique property. His Currell agent told him to take an offer of £3.5m back in the summer.  More here.

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

The fifth new London office this year, no less. It's due to open in Clerkenwell on November 6, and expect the usual 0% commission deal to new clients, to help them stock their windows.

Another new Foxtons this weekend [October 1, 2010]
Foxtons, gayness, money... the story with everything [September 28, 2010]
It's a Foxtons world; we just live in it [September 13, 2010]

Technorati Tags: property, real estate

£4.5m buys an abandoned church tower in St Pauls, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, re-envisioned as something radical and residential, over 12 floors, with some original stone staircase retained, and a balcony around the tower with unique views. Particulars - and some great photographs - here.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

A little-known regional index (no, not house prices) was published by the Communities and Local Government Department a couple of days ago. It's the happiness index... how happy are you living where you do. The City came out tops, with a 92.4% swellness rating, narrowly beating Richmond upon Thames into second place. Richmond - clearly taking this kind of crap far too seriously - has fought back... calling the City "statistically insignificant" because of its sub-10,000 population, and proclaiming itself the swellest place in the country. Incidentally, the least swell place in the country was also in London... sorry, Barking and Dagenham (56.6%).

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

Thanks to the Rat and Mouse reader who drew my attention to this. Keira Knightley has apparently spent £2.3m on a Shoreditch townhouse.

“Keira was fed-up of West London. She wanted to move somewhere more bohemian and arty."

Really? Is Shoreditch still bohemian?

Technorati Tags: celebrity, London, property, real estate

Towering over the neighbouring buildings, the Barbican stands as the ultimate symbol of London’s postwar urban planning.

It certainly does; and here at the Rat and Mouse we love it. Time Out has put together a little guide to one of the city's residential landmarks, and it makes for interesting Friday afternoon reading.

Technorati Tags: London, property, real estate

In case you're wondering, the criteria:

Relationship to surroundings and neighbourhood.
Response to site constraints and opportunities.
Layout, grouping and landscaping.
Planning of roads and footpaths.
Handling of garages and car parking.
Attention to safety, security and accessibility.
External appearance and internal planning.
Sustainability in construction.
Finishes, detailing and workmanship.

Awards are also made to projects with planning permission but that haven't been built. We're going to look at completed projects.

[image courtesy of Design For Homes]

The Overall Winner is London-based Tabard Square [illustrated], behind London Bridge Station, by architect Rolfe Judd and developer Berkeley Homes. At it's heart: a 22-story tower with a clever built-in barometer... LEDs that change with the weather. There's clever management, too, including a deal with a hotel, resulting in a better, more complete, concierge service for residents. What's more, there are 212 high-quality affordable homes included in the development.

Other London winners are Pimlico's Tachbrook Triangle, by Barratt and Assael Architecture - a hi-tech development that managed to retain and protect an historic and endangered Georgian terrace - and Islington's Melody Lane, by developer London Wharf and architect Julian Cowie - copper-clad townhouses on the site of a former garage.

See the complete list - with illustrations - here.

Technorati Tags: architecture, design, London, property, real estate

Sign up so you can read the subscription-only but very fine Building Design online magazine, and enjoy the story of how Adam Richards Architects helped Clerkenwell-based priest The Reverend Richard McLaren write sermons on his roof-terrace without getting blown away. Inspired by paintings of the Annunciation, the architects designed a wind-break comprising Cold War surplus Geiger counter which translates cosmic radiation into a pattern of 384 flashing LED lights. At this point, if anybody can think of a suitably pithy sign-off, email me; because I'm just enjoying my own state of open-mouthed disbelief. Catch the whole story here.

Remember us featuring the skinny masterpiece back at the very beginning of June? Well it apparently takes more than first prize in the RIBA Future Homes competition (2004), a listing as one of the Independent's Top Ten Modern Buildings (2004) and a Best Building prize in the London Architecture Bienalle (2004) to shift a house so thin you need a crane to hoist in your furniture. So it gets this big feature in the Sunday Times (just posted on the Internet), which tacitly suggests the owner has just decided to let it go. At £1.15 million, there's no mention of a reduction either. That's because there hasn't been one. You can still find the particulars here.

It won first price in the RIBA Future Homes competition (2004), was listed as one of the Independent's Top Ten Modern Buildings (2004), and won Best Building in the London Architecture Bienalle (2004). And now you can buy it. Clerkenwell House - sometimes known as The Gap - is the result of inspired problem-solving... how could architect Joe Hagan build a house on a plot which he'd bought for just £35,000, but which measured just 11 feet wide? The steel-and-glass seven-storey home for sale today is unique. For £1.15 million you get three double-bedrooms, three bathrooms, a roof terrace with a proper view, and keys to Clerkenwell's skinniest address. Go here for particulars; here for some background.