The current demolition of many of the buildings, bars, night-clubs and cafes within London’s Soho risks destroying one of the UK’s most idiosyncratic areas. The on-going demolition with its subsequent destruction of the small-grain, combined with the privatisation of public space is erasing the areas history and breaking the continuity with activities that many of...

“The list of Chelsea residents past is so impressive as to appear fictitious” - Sarah Vowell,  Take the Cannoli, 2000. It’s unfortunate that most people’s knowledge of New York’s Hotel Chelsea is limited to its connection with Sid and Nancy, Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls or a Leonard Cohen song. The importance of the work produced...

In the current London building boom with its many towers with benign and amusing nick-names, it’s hard to imagine that residential towers in the UK were until recently viewed with considerable hostility. Yet even at the height of tower hatred there was a brief moment when a select few saw the tall residential block as...

For anyone living in London the cost of housing is a hot topic. The price of housing has been rising faster than income for years. Initially effecting students and the low wage earners, expanding to the professional middle classes. The housing crisis seems to be a relentless chronic condition of the city. Year from year...