Some cool uk land investment images:
UK, London, Berkeley Square
Image by hdes.copeland
London, Berkeley Square, June 2004.
This is a late 18th century example of a highly successful mixed-use urban neighborhood located west of central London. Elegant town homes face one of the city’s famous squares where both permanent and part-time residents lived. The landed gentry came to London to conduct business and engage in politics. Highly successful merchants lived among their best seasonal customers. High end shops and professional offices were located on the street level of some town houses while others serve as clubs or meeting spaces for influential cultural and political groups supported by the city’s elite.
The evolution of this space is as interesting as its current use. It seems that the Berkeley family were land holders and politically active in the early 17th century. They played a role in both camps during the political upheavals surrounding the English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I and the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell. Fortunately for the Berkeley family, they played both ends delicately. With the death of Cromwell, the demise of the Commonwealth and the Restoration of King Charles II, the Berkeley’s were seen as what might be called the friends of Charles, the heir appearent. The Berkeley family was rewarded accordingly. Since Charles II only had a throne and his head intact, and no money, land was the most common reward for his supporters. Already well endowed with real estate, the Berkeley’s were not unhappy to receive more land.
This square and the surrounding neighborhood was the site of the Berkeley family’s suburban estate which in the late 1600′s was still just outside the western limits of London. Besides, the Berkeley’s were busy with other interests, including one serving as Colonial Governor of Virginia. They held profitable sugar plantations in the Caribbean and were partial owners of the speculative colony of New Jersey. Two Berkeley brothers were among the eight original Lord Proprietors of the new colony of Carolina which began in 1670.
They were just as interested in things profitable and political inside London. Along with others associated with the Carolina venture, the Berkeley’s were contemporaries of Lord Ashley Cooper, his secretary John Locke and others who would be deeply involved with the political, economic and literary life of London just as it was becoming the center of a global empire. Eventually, the Berkeley’s turned their attentions to investments closer to home. They left their names on places in Virginia and the Carolinas, but their most profitable investments eventually were those in and around London.
By the 1770′s the Berkeley family had moved beyond their American colonial interests and so had London. The Berkeley’s suburban estate was by then surrounded by an ever expanding, crowded and, at least for some, very prosperous London. That generation of Berkeley’s decided to become real estate speculators much closer to home. In fact they tore down their family home, leveled the estate and redeveloped it as an upscale London neighborhood surrounding the square that would continue to bear the family name.
A Charleston merchant, Henry Laurens, in 1780, was technically still a prisoner of the Tower of London. Laurens, the former President of the Continental Congress, was a high profile leader in the American Revolution. He had been captured at sea by a British warship while on his way to negotiate an alliance with the Dutch against the British and could very well have been executed for treason.
London merchants ruled with as much power as the throne, at least when it came to the power of the purse. Laurens was respected, very wealthy and a skillful merchant in his own right. Among his many business friends in London he was considered to be an equal among the best of them even though he was an American. He was too important to execute as time would prove. He was eventually exchanged as a prisoner of war for Lord Cornwallis. This came just in time to be named to be one of three Americans authorized to negotiate the final peace with Great Britain ending the hostilities between England and its former colonies. Until then, and for several years during his imprisonment, Laurens had been given the freedom of the city provided he reported back to his jailers at the Tower at the end of the day.
He must have observed the construction of Berkeley Square which by then was in earnest. He must have also found the real estate enterprises of the most recent generation of Berkeley’s to be interesting. By then South Carolina had become a Royal Colony and the Lord Proprietors of which the Berkeley’s were two of the wiser ones, had long ago sold their interests in what began as a private venture. Still the Berkeley’s were a familiar name to most of South Carolina’s leadership one hundred years later, if only for the Berkeley’s high profile activities of the day.
Henry Laurens was very likely intimately familiar with their involvement in London businesses with which he had dealings as he traded in international commodities, including rice and indigo dyes for the British textile industry. Laurens must have studied London’s expansion even as it was at war with its colonies in America. It’s not surprising that Laurens would later try his hand at real estate speculation when he returned to Charleston.
The history of Hampstead Square, now part of Charleston’s Eastside, shows that Laurens must have imagined his development in light of what he had seen in London a decade earlier. He was after all a businessman first. He harbored no real animosity toward those who kept him prisoner while giving him the run of the city. Though he had traveled to London in his youth as part of his education and many times as a young businessman before the start of the Revolution, he must have used this forced and extended stay as an opportunity to see and learn from London’s civic experiments. This was just as the industrial revolution was about to begin in England.
Of course, timing is everything in real estate markets and Laurens missed it when Hampstead was initially proposed in the early 1790’s. It could be debated that he was either fifteen years too late or fifteen years too early. Eventually his version of Berkeley Square in Charleston was built out, but Hampstead Square in Charleston today has only a fleeting resemblance to its famous cousin in London. Unfortunately Laurens was long dead before Hampstead Square turned a profit for its subsequent owners.
Another member of this family, George Berkeley, though a distant relation, was a leading light in English and Irish intellectual circles in the first half of the 18th century. As a highly regarded philosopher he would be considered an equal to Hume and Swift. His education was encouraged by Locke and Shaftsbury, not coincidently the same personalities that were involved in the founding of Carolina. This Berkeley would leave his name on educational institutions, from the famous library at his alma mater, Trinity College in Dublin, to the University of California at Berkeley.
Not that we intended to insult our Berkeley benefactors, in politics and ideas, but we now pay dubious respects to them by grossly mispronouncing their name in America. It’s BARK-lay in London, but it’s BURK-lee in Charleston.
The idea to create, is the idea to do something better, the urban landscape says thank you! Enjoy!:)
Image by UggBoy♥UggGirl [ PHOTO // WORLD // TRAVEL ]
Skyline
A skyline is best described as the overall or partial view of a city’s tall buildings and structures consisting of many skyscrapers in front of the sky in the background. It can also be described as the artificial horizon that a city’s overall structure creates. Skylines serve as a kind of fingerprint of a city, as no two skylines are alike. For this reason news and sports programs, television shows, and movies often display the skyline of a city to set location. The Sky Line of New York City was a new term in 1896, when it was the title of a color lithograph by Charles Graham for the color supplement of the New-York Journal.
Paul D. Spreiregen, FAIA, has called a skyline "a physical representation [of a city's] facts of life … a potential work of art … its collective vista."
In general, larger cities have broader and taller skylines, though lower density cities often have smaller skylines than expected for city size. Taller buildings are found where either land value or desire for visibility is higher, and the tallest buildings in a city are usually office buildings. Because of this, the skyline of a city can be seen as symbolic of the city’s influence and economy.
Hong Kong is widely ranked by skyscraper enthusiasts as having the best skyline in the world. Dubai is ranked as having the tallest skyline in the world.
What about The Gherkin in London?
On 25 April 2005, the press reported that a glass panel two thirds up the 590 ft (180 m) tower had fallen to the plaza beneath on 18 April. The plaza was sealed off, but the building remained open. A temporary covered walkway, extending across the plaza to the building’s reception, was erected to protect visitors. Engineers examined the other 744 glass panels on the building. The cost of repair was covered by main contractor Skanska and curtainwall supplier Schmidlin.
In December 2005, a survey of the world’s largest firms of architects published in 2006 BD World Architecture 200 voted the tower as the most admired new building in the world. The building also featured in recent movies such as Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (film), Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct 2 and Woody Allen’s Match Point and, rechristened the Spirit of London, became the centrepiece of Keith Mansfield’s 2008 novel Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London.
In September 2006, the building was put up for sale with a price tag of GB£600 million. Potential buyers included British Land, Land Securities, Prudential, ING and the Abu Dhabi royal family. On 21 February 2007, IVG Immobilien AG and UK investment firm Evans Randall completed their joint purchase of the building for GB£630 million, making it Britain’s most expensive office block.
BY
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Re_Tower
AND
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline
AS WE READ THIS WE WILL REFLECT ON URBANITY AND OUR CITIES AROUND THE WORLD AND HOPEFULLY CELEBATE THE SKYLINE OF THE CITY! WHICH IS OFTEN CALLED URBAN LANDSCAPE! ENJOY!
2010 03 21 007 Concorde G-BBDG
Image by IoW_Sparky (off line – again)
G-BBDG, c/n 202, was the third British Concorde built and was one of two production test aircraft. They were different in many ways from their four predecessors, making it necessary to repeat certain work to obtain certification. However, like the prototype and pre-production aircraft, Delta Golf also had flight observer’s stations installed in the forward cabin. Even though 202 was called a production aircraft, it never went into service because the final version of the aircraft, as specified by the airlines, was different yet again – although not in a way that affected handling or performance certification. Ultimately it was therefore these two aircraft that did the bulk of the flying that allowed the final certification of Concorde for airline service.
Delta Golf’s first flight was on 13th February 1974 and was made by BAC test pilots Peter Baker and Brian Trubshaw from Filton to Fairford. The flight lasted 1hr 45 minutes and was supersonic for 12 minutes – reaching a top speed of Mach 1.4 at a height of 42,000ft. On 10th April 1974, and on its 15th flight, DG flew at Mach 2 for the first time and the following July became the first production Concorde to land at Heathrow for integration tests. In August, Delta Golf made history by becoming the first aircraft to carry 100 passengers at Mach 2. Over the next few years Delta Golf continued with an extensive flight test program for the purposes of engineering tests, CAA certifications, BA crew training and public relations and promotional work, visiting places such as South Africa, Singapore and several countries in the Middle East.
Delta Golf in fact carried on flying after the 14 production aircraft had been delivered to the airlines. Work included further performance enhancements, such as the certification of a re-designed air intake profile. This modification, coupled to an uprated engine, allowed an increase in payload of 1,500-2,000lbs. Another change was the extension of the control surface trailing edges by around two inches – a modification that many now feel was part of the reason for the rudder delaminations seen on the fleet over the years. What turned out to be DG’s last flight occurred on 24th December 1981 from Filton and back again with pilots Peter Baker and Roy Radford at the controls. Delta Golf was kept serviceable inside the huge Brabazon Hangar at Filton throughout early 1982 for any further development work or test flights that may have been required, however, ultimately no such flights were deemed to be necessary and DG never flew again.
At the end of its flying life Delta Golf was placed in storage out on the airfield at Filton and was intially placed inside a "Dri-Clad" bag in an attempt to protect it from the elements. Unfortunately, this proved unsuccessful as water managed to get inside and cause condensation and the bag was therefore removed. British Airways had a support contract which allowed them access to DG and in April 1984 they acquired title to the aircraft and started using it as one of the main sources of spare parts. Up until that point the airline had only been flying six of its seven aircraft and had been using a four year old aircraft, G-BOAG, for spares. With access to Delta Golf, British Airways set out on returning G-BOAG to flight status. To protect their investment and to keep prying eyes from seeing what was very quickly becoming an eyesore, BA constructed a special hangar for G-BBDG at Filton. The ’202 hangar’, as it became known, was completed in early 1988. The aircraft (minus tail fin) was moved inside in May 1988.
As Delta Golf was structurally sound, in the early 90s British Airways investigated the possibility of refitting the aircraft for airline service. This would have allowed the airline to keep six or seven aircraft flying whenever any of their Concorde fleet where grounded for routine engineering maintenance. However, the plan was found to be too costly and was rejected. The study did prove though that, in theory, if one of the seven BA aircraft suffered serious damage, parts from the damaged (and written-off) aircraft could be fitted to DG and the airframe used to bring the fleet back up to strength. That said, there were some doubts on whether a modified Delta Golf would gain certification due to the fuselage skin being slightly thinner than that of the fleet aircraft and also the fact that the life of the airframe had been reduced due to the the higher than normal stresses it was put under during the rigorous test programme, thus possibly making it unsuitable for long-term airline use.
In 1995, Concorde G-BOAF’s droop nose was damaged in a collision with a hangar door during a ground handling accident at Heathrow. In order to be able to return the aircraft to flying status as quickly as possible, BA decided to swap it for the droop nose on DG. Later investigation revealed that Alpha-Foxtrot’s nose was not too badly damaged and it was repaired and kept as a spare. (N.B. – AF’s nose ultimately ended up being fitted to Delta Golf during its restoration)
Even as it looked like the end of the road was near for Delta Golf, she was again found to be useful in late 2002 as she was moved temporarily into the West bay of the Brabazon Hangar for trial fittings of the prototype of the new strengthened cockpit doors required by the authorities on the British Airways and Air France fleets after the tragic events of September 11th 2001.
Having been in storage and Filton for more than 20 years, Delta Golf was formally offered to the Brooklands Museum Trust for restoration and display on 30th October 2003. In May/June 2004 she was moved in several sections by road to the museum’s Weybridge site and after an extensive restoration programme was officially opened to the public by HRH Prince Michael of Kent in July 2006.
