What does the future look like? If the prime London market is any guide, it looks rather like the past.
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Throughout my career I’ve been asked about the trends and movements I see in residential design. And for many years the answer was always sleeker and shinier – clean lines and high-spec interiors. Owners and tenants wanted modern materials, hotel-style features, and muted colour palettes.
These homes were comfortable and restrained, if arguably a little generic; blank canvases for city life. But it’s been clear to me for some time now that change is in the air. In the same way antique denim, vinyl albums and analogue photography have been discovered by a fresh generation of consumers, property owners and renters of the 2020s are embracing heritage crafts and materials, celebrating imperfection and individuality – finding new ways to define luxury living. Take 1 St James’s St in Mayfair, a beautiful Grade-II listed building we renovated last year on behalf of its owners, the famous wine merchants Berry Brothers & Rudd. |
Rather than working against the historic aspects of the building, we leaned squarely into its quirks and foibles – seeing an unmissable opportunity to create somewhere genuinely beautiful and interesting for tenants to enjoy.
By incorporating eco-paints, UK-made fixtures, upcycled vintage furniture and ethically produced textiles, the finished apartments are as sustainable as they are stunning. And unsurprisingly, the building has been fully occupied since completion and achieved record breaking rental income. READ MORE
| Likewise, we’ve just begun work on another prestigious listed property, at 27 Upper Berkeley St in the West End.
Each of the four apartments currently underway is going to be utterly unique – like a jewel box of character and colour. It’s fun to create individualised homes like these, brimming with personality and charm. But it’s even more enjoyable to live in them, which is perhaps why I see the market embracing our approach so heartily. One of the greatest pleasures in projects such as these is the opportunity they offer me and the rest of the Obespoke team to discover amazing, traditional homewares and worldleading makers right here in Britain – breathable, mineral-based paints from Norfolk, castiron radiators from Yorkshire, and Cornish bed-steads and woollen mattresses, to give just a few examples. Choosing to use these products is a commitment to quality and sustainability that we’re happy to make, because we know you’ll see and feel the difference if we do. Building on the past with intelligence and sensitivity seems such a powerful, attractive idea, and offers so much more than any mere trend. After all, being able to bring out the best in a property, whether it dates from the 1770s or the 1970s, is the essence of successful development – certainly in a city as cosmopolitan and multi-layered as London. In fact, it’s timeless. |
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