Month: June 2015

Cladding our new tower with teapots

Hannah Godwin 7 Comments

View 3_150204    Facade View

Pocket has just received consent from the planning committee to proceed to build a 24 storey tower of affordable homes in Wandsworth.  This is big news!  A tower in Wandsworth with 63 Pocket homes might not make us a giant in the world of property development but it does symbolise the fact that we’ve come of age.  London desperately needs more starter homes for its city makers, and we’re working hard to help deliver as many as we can.  Moving into the world of towers means we can deliver more affordable homes on a tight plot of land in a great location.

But what about the teapots?

Our first tower at Mapleton Crescent SW18 is designed by award-winning architects Metropolitan Workshop.  Met Workshop are well known for their innovative work, and we briefed them to come up with a proposal for this scheme that contributed positively to the local area, and stood as a thing of beauty – while at the same time delivering affordable new homes for the way London’s city makers live today.  Met Workshop are working with ceramiscist Loraine Rutt to develop a range of striking green tiles with which to clad the building.

IMG_4393 IMG_4395 Read More

How to help London stay successful – a snapshot of Ed Glaeser’s recent visit to our city

Hannah Godwin Leave a comment

By Lucian Smithers, Director of Sales and Marketing, Pocket

At Pocket we have all read ‘The Triumph of the City’ by Ed Glaeser. Glaeser’s views about what makes cities great and how they can remain successful give heavyweight academic substance to Pocket’s belief in delivering starter homes for London’s city makers – you could even say we’re groupies.

So you can imagine our excitement at the prospect of hearing him talk in the UK last month at Warwick Business school’s outpost in the Shard.  He was also interviewed in the Guardian, and even better, he popped in to visit Pocket and hear more about our philosophy and business model – we think he liked it!

Glaeser’s work focuses on the power of successful cities. Note the word “successful.” His studies cover huge geographical and historical distances to find the lessons about how great cities have managed to thrive and in some cases come back from the brink.  And his visit to London meant he gave some thought to the similarities, and differences, between the UK and our friends across the Atlantic.  He pulls out the simplest observations from a huge set of data and experiences, and here are some of the nuggets of genius that we took away for London: Read More