Yesterday there was a massive 10 page spread in the City A.M free newspaper. This paper is distributed around central London, primarily within the business hotspots of Canary Wharf, the West End and City of London Zone.
The headline that caught my attention was “Why London remains the centre of the world”. In essence, the articles were about why London is still seen to be a commercial property investment zone, even though we are in recessive times.
Right up front, I would agree with Mr William Murray that these buildings of architectural beauty are in no doubt inspiring to Londoners and people all over the world. However I would raise the point that iconic architecture can be equally applied to residential developments.
The amount of thought and energy gone into building these magnificent landmarks just goes to show what we can achieve together as a team, and what our imaginations allow us to achieve as a species.
That being said, one of the points which was consistently raised across all the articles in this spread, were that office space occupancy was down on previous years, and property advisors DeVono also stated that the current hunger for more commercial office space was partially driven by the Olympics coming to London.
In fact, they predict that a large number of these new developments will be vacant and there will be an abundance of grade A office space as the follow through from the Olympics dies off. Adam Landau, director at DeVono, commented:
"The economy is still struggling and as an occupier-led business, we see and feel the pain of our many clients. To say that the vast amount of office space being built in the city is immune to the downturn would be very short-sighted...."
It would seem that the current developments are not taking heed.
Why on earth are they still building them then? What could possess these people to believe that even with the real boom in virtual working solutions, that more and more people will want office space?
It seems absurd to me that in a country where there are nearly 2.5 million people out of work, and a capital with a continuing housing shortage, that they still build office space in preference over residential homes.
I’m sure they could just as much build iconic architecture for residential developments as well as commercial space. The notion of landmark buildings is not exclusively reserved for the elite multi-billion pound organisations across the world who are literally unbalancing the delicate economy in London.
It’s quite simple, I predict there to be a rise in flexible home working and remote working solutions from now on forth. In fact I firmly believe that if you ask me to identify a booming industry in this current economic climate, then I would firmly point towards business virtualization services.
In London alone, there are currently 6 major new developments which have completion dates between now and 2014.
The Shard alone, currently building on London Bridge Street, will offer 586,509 sq ft of office space. According to OfficeFinder.com, in typical office scenarios, you can estimate between 175-250 sq ft per employee.
If we take the upper figure of 250 sq ft per employee, that means that The Shard will only house 2346 people, and that’s not taking into account boardrooms and meeting spaces which will reduce that number to probably around 2000 people.
What a waste! Especially when that building will on average only ever have 35% occupancy which means we are all paying in carbon emissions, for the upkeep of that building 65% of the time when it’s empty.
With that same space, you can build 1173 one bedroom apartments, based on a conservative sizing of 500 sq ft per apartment. So instead of building homes that are much needed, London builds empty office space just because it is perceived to be what keeps London a competitive city in the world.
Remember that this is just one example of 6 which will be built between now and 2014.
I say it’s the people of this city that makes it the place it is. The diversity of cultures, tirelessly working to keep the city going, endlessly finding solutions to create a harmonious environment. We don’t always succeed, but if we compare it to other major cities of the world, I can honestly say that the people of London are the greatest most generous and hospitable people in the world.
That is what keeps London one of the best cities in the world.
To this point I’m sure many overseas investors agree, which is why they are piling all their investment purchases into London. The weak currency and the perceived high value of London space has brought in investors from as far as Korea and China.
For my mission, all this points to one thing, and that is that London has just become ground zero in my mission to build a world without offices. If it can be done here, it can be done anywhere in the world.
What are your thoughts around all these buildings they are putting up? Do you see them as a complete waste of our global resources? I hate to imagine how much carbon is actually being produced by their development, let alone the amount of carbon emissions they will produce when they are operational.
To end with, Mr Murray closes his article with a quote from President John F Kennedy made in 1962 about why America sent a man to the moon:
"We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intent to win."
Mr Murray I say to you that this quote was made in 1962, when the world was a different place, when people did not fully understand the impact of carbon emissions on global warming.
I’m sure JFK didn’t mean that in the face of global warming, we continue to build massive wasteful building spaces that serve only as giant egotistical penis extensions, that ultimately will add a massive amount of pressure into our eco-system that is currently in delicate balance.
I can assure you of this, if JFK had all the facts today, his statement would in fact be supportive of my goal to reduce this inefficient use of office space. That this notion of a business without offices is hard, but we will strive to pursue it because that goal will serve to organise and measure the best of our energies and skills.
It is a challenge I’m willing to accept, one which we clearly cannot postpone and one I most definitely intend to win.
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