Did you hear tell of our recent betrothal? It could have easily escaped your attention because we’ve abandoned the standard behaviour of arguing in public, answering each other’s sentences and generally losing our identity. We’ve gone instead with a union so joyfully up with the times and down with kids, that we sometimes have to pinch ourselves at finding such a wonderful partner.

Our dearly beloved, to whom we’d like to introduce you, is New London. Since their inception in 2005, they’ve been rather busy dealing with some of London’s most exciting and design-led new developments from this fine city’s bank of niche – some might say crazy – developers.  Along the way they’ve racked up RIBA prize-winning clients, national firsts and a considerable array of modern architectural beauties, while also finding the time for a long-standing flirtation with ourselves.

Here’s why we love them…

New London set out to prove that property developers had another choice than local high street agents and massive corporate internationals. That a small, specialist agency with marketing flair and detailed knowledge of the buildings it handled (sound familiar?) could bring something new to the business. They proved their case soundly. They had something of a flying start, outselling their very large international co-agent 7-0 at London & Orient’s hidden Clerkenwell mews, Compton Street. Next up, the space-age (and RIBA prize-winning) DKH in East Dulwich, the debut scheme from Bespoke Homes. Here, New London outsold their local counterparts 5-1 and then produced the same result at The White Building in Borough, from the pioneering MacDonald Egan. They were impressed enough to give their next development, the bigger Glasshouse in Deptford, to New London who sold 14 times (!) as many apartments as any of their fellow introducer agents. More recently they’ve had a sell-out success at the launch of City & Suburban’s Ivy Waterside in Hoxton, released the UK’s first multi-dwelling PassivHaus development at ZERO in Islington and produced something of a stir among the agents in Greenwich, By insisting that higher prices were achievable than the local agents had been able to envisage, they caused 10-15% more for Mercury Developments’ Hermes Court than they’d previously been told they’d get.

You can see how, over the years, they have cemented many a happy relationship with some very impressed clients.

So as we march on into 2012, the century’s most exciting year for London so far, we do so arm-in-arm with a partnership bringing together two of London’s most fascinating property scenes - design-led new build and unique’n’ interesting spaces – and taking them to a larger audience of focussed, discriminating and, above all, serious buyers.

Amen to that.

Yes indeedy. Our nation’s capital is becoming something of an embarrassment. There’s hardly any property available and this shameful state of affairs means we’re beginning to feel awkward answering the phone to anyone wanting somewhere to live (how fortunate that most people email these days). Anyway, this means there’s excellent money available to anyone with a place to rent out, particularly if it’s cool. And that, of course, is what we’re all about. So if you’ve got a unique or interesting space, we’ll get you a suitably sparkling renter and an equally excellent rent. Our tenants are a wonderfuly focussed bunch, looking specifically for alternative live/work and residential spaces. And they’ll pay.

If ever a building summed up viagra worth and resilience of originality in design, it is Bankside Lofts. We are unabashedly in love with the development and we’re far from being alone; it remains as hot and spicy as the mustard-coloured render that surrounds this loft-packed cylinder next to Tate Modern.

Made up of three distinct sections -  the aforementioned tube, a converted warehouse (the Victorian Lofts) and a glass & steel spectacular (Gallery Lofts) that wraps around the rear of the complex - there is something for almost everyone among the 130 unique spaces that lie within the walls. That’s right, 130 unique spaces. No two units are the same and the vast majority were originally sold as shells, making the quota of architects to apartments in this one development among the highest concentrations in London. No clone spaces, no stacked duplicates to save on the developer’s plumbing costs. It’s one of the best and most positive examples of ‘style over content’.

SE1 is now a fully-developed destination address with a healthy assortment of remarkable new buildings and conversions; this one postcode collects London landmarks like some sort of architectural aardvark. Through it all, Bankside & Gallery Lofts has remained constant. How does one building stand proud against a backdrop of evermore new and shiny neighbours? Because it is the one thing they are not.

Different.

And it’s not just the apartments that make living here so special. At the desk in the lobby you’ll find possibly London’s hardest-working concierge; try getting your junk mail past him and you come away not just holding your leaflets, but your tail between your legs. Being a resident here you feel cuddled and kept by this friendly-but-firm doorman who has the frontman since, if not the year dot, at least 1999.

We love Bankside & Gallery Lofts! And if you live here, or you want to live here, we want to talk to you.

National Geographic Channel have created a real-life version of the animated film Up — launching a house thousands of metres into the air using balloons.

A team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16′ X 16′ house 18′ tall with 8′ coloured weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles, and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted.

Using 300 helium-filled weather balloons, the lightweight building reached an altitude of more than 3000m and remained in the air for about an hour.

It just got us thinking that this would be the perfect way to move house in future - you love your house, but just want it in a different place. But thinking about it, it could give the Romany travellers a real advantage and could move on instantly to the next green belt plot - or our own back gardens………..

Have you got an interesting space you fancy letting out short term? Maybe you’ve got a tenancy coming to end next   summer? Or perhaps you want to run away from the madness next year and fund an adventure by renting out your pad?

  We are overrun with enquiries from pr agencies, media companies and the marketing world, Seeking truly unique, dynamic and incredible spaces for their clients during the games. That means cool & groovy spaces – big and small – with good access to the Olympic Village, from giant warehouses to funky studios, penthouses with terraces thru to urban lofts and factory conversions. Draw a line North-South through Oxford Circus and anything east of that is where we’re talking.

The main Olympics are from 27 July to 12 August and the Para-Olympics are from 29 August to 9 September. We have already agreed several Olympic Lettings with multiples of up to 6-8 times a normal long term letting price (we have just agreed a 6 week rental on a loft in N1 from 20 July - 24 August at a price of £5,950 per week. The normal rental value for a 12 month rental would be £850 per week).

So, for the right properties, opportunity knocks. We currently have enquiries from companies with budgets from £3,000pw to £50,000pw+. We plan to offer a small and very select range of properties for this opportunity (no more than 20) so, if you have a really interesting property that you would like to let out during and over the Olympic Period, please call Simon Harris on 0870 900 4050 or email simon@uniquepropertycompany.co.uk for further details.

Oliver’s Wharf is London’s original Warehouse Conversion which was converted in the early 1970’s and presaged the

transformation that was to take place during the next 3 decades in the Docklands

Originally built in 1870, bystolic.htm’>this wharf handled general cargo but was more well known as a Tea warehouse. The immediate post-war period could be called old London’s Indian summer. The docks still thrived, but the underlying currents, as with the river itself, were treacherous.

Britain no longer ruled the waves, and with imperial decline, London’s industries began to contract. in the decade after 1966 London lost half a million factory jobs. Manufacturing employment fell by almost a third between 1971 and 1976. By the mid seventies, 70 percent of London’s jobs were in services.

The most drastic was the death of the Docks. World trade patterns had changed profoundly. From a peak of 30,000 in the 1950’s, dock employment dropped to 2,000 by 1981. The port of London invested dramatically in containerisation at Iilbury and closed the old inner docks. Not just factories, but commerce too began moving out of central London to avoid spiralling rents, inflated wages and transport snarl-ups.

This really marks the start of the modern loft movement in London. As in other capitals - New York, Berlin and Amsterdam - it were artists, architects and academics who first started to colonise the empty buildings.

Sometimes it was a conservationist protest movement. In the Seventies, many prized warehouses were threatened with demolition and squatters took on rapacious office developers. The loft pioneers were the first to spot the potential of the buildings themselves and the opportunity for an alternative way of living. Then, lofts offered maximum space at minimum cost . Bridget Riley founded Space Studios at St Katherine’s Dock as early as 1968 and before long an artists’ colony formed in Wapping.

Oliver’s Wharf, a Victorian Gothic gem, was the first of the old warehouses to be converted in residential. The large open-plan interiors with retained industrial features, became a design blueprint, copied by Clerkenwell loft-dwellers much later.

So, what of all this information? Keep watching this space………………..

Finding a nest to live AND be creative is the dream of many a mortal. Somewhere to call home, to switch off, to play host… With a space for one’s craft when eureka moments strike. And a place to be inspired, surrounded by streets, people and commerce with art at their heart. Such was the dream of Jan and Ruth.

One needing a space for woodwork, the other a freelancer wiith freedom to work from anywhere, both with a desire to dwell in exciting & evocative environs. By chance, they happened upon Tilney Court, at the seam of Old Street and Clerkenwell.

A former printworks in a hidden courtyard by Whitecross Street, London’s most neighbourly of neighbourhood food markets – even the restaurants let you eat your own grub – the building gave them the space and the spaces to art their hearts out.

Now a two-storey affair of 1500 sq ft with a workshop and bedroom on the ground and a wide open living space upstairs, there’s planning permission to go one, indeed two, further. We’re talking a four-floor urban treat of 2800 sq ft, with two new roof terraces adding that extra-special final touch.

Do we need to talk about the abundance of just about everything inspirational in this part of town? Do we really? Like, does anyone NOT know this is absolutely, totally, undoubtedly, unequivocally and even most certainly, where it’s at?

Not just when it comes to hanging out. Yes yes yes London’s best eats, drinks, clubs, galleries, markets and shops are all here, but it’s more than that. Whether it’s artisans or partisans, EC1 & EC2 are simply unmatched in their stuffing of pioneers, moghuls, groundbreakers and verve.