Fulham basements

Digging deeper into the luxury basements of London’s super rich.

In 2008 the world had an estimated 8.6 million “high net worth individuals”. These are people with $1m (£761,000) or more of investable assets. By 2016 this had increased by 92 per cent to 16.5 million. The figures come from the World Wealth Report.

The geographical distribution of this population is highly concentrated: 4.795 million in the USA. 2.891 million in Japan. 1.280 million in Germany. 1,129,000 in China. 579,000 in France and 568,000 in the UK (compared to 362,000 in 2008). Some half a million of these people live in and around London. They are found in a set of tightly circumscribed neighbourhoods.

All this wealth sloshing around London has had myriad consequences for the built environment. Perhaps the most evident has been the appearance of many “super-high”, “super-prime” residential towers. This vertical urban housing has become something of a preserve for the very wealthy.

But some wealth has not found its way into the city’s changing skylines. That wealth has still had major impacts on the existing built environment. Many high-end properties have been transformed by super-affluent newcomers. They commission often brutal structural conversions of older properties into modern living spaces. Maximising the size of all interior spaces has now become de rigueur. So has infusing them with exterior light. So have various design and technological “solutions” to matters of privacy and security.

But take many areas of “super-prime” London attractive to “super-rich” buyers. There, the nature of the original architecture combines with planning restrictions. Together they often make it very difficult to extend properties laterally. Adding additional floors on the top of properties is often very difficult too. And so, for some, the only “solution” has been to go down.

Consequently, residential basement developments have increased markedly in the wealthiest parts of London. This new subterranean London for the super-rich has been the subject of much comment. Until recently, though, it had little systematic investigation.

Research into planning records suggests such developments are emblematic of how London is changing. Residential highrise luxury towers (“luxified skies”) are sprouting up across the city. Alongside them is a steady spread of what the researchers call luxified troglodytism. That means wealthy households extending downwards instead of outwards.

Digging down

The study pulled data from the planning portals of seven London boroughs. The boroughs are Camden, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey and Islington. Kensington and Chelsea, Wandsworth and Westminster complete the seven. All seven cover core super prime London. From 2008 to the end of 2017, those boroughs approved 4,650 basement developments.

Hammersmith and Fulham has the greatest number, 1,147 over the decade. Kensington and Chelsea follows with 1,022, and Westminster with 678. The great majority, 80.7 per cent, were standard single storey excavations. Another 16.9 per cent, 785 of them, were two storeys or equivalent in volume. A further 2.4 per cent, 112 of them, went three storeys or deeper.

The 785 large and 112 deepest basements are the ones worth looking at. Those nine hundred or so excavations sit on a different scale to the rest. Together they hold 367 swimming pools, 358 gyms, 178 cinemas and 63 staff spaces. The records also list 14 car lifts and seven art galleries. There are two gun stores and one panic room.

Some of these basements can take many years of disruptive construction to complete. Concerns have also been raised about their environmental impact.

The deepest of them was granted planning permission in Holland Park in 2013. It sits under a large semi detached house. It consisted of a new three-storey basement under the entire property. It also extended under part of the rear garden. It includes a staff kitchen, staff bedroom, six WCs and a gym. There is a media room, a family room and a family kitchen. There is also a guest bedroom, a guest kitchen and a laundry room. It has a drying room, a sauna, a steam room and two shower rooms. It has a jacuzzi, a plunge pool and a pantry. And it has a full-sized swimming pool and a beach. Yes, a beach.

Consider the “water-related” features in this particular basement development. Their volume was roughly equivalent to an average new-build property in England. Some of the super-rich swim, bathe and steam subterraneously. The rest of us might consider those spaces adequate for all our domestic activities.

All this shows a significant increase in the number of larger basement excavations. That rise took place over the decade studied. Such widespread development of subterranean London is an important component of broader changes. Those changes in the built environment have occurred since the 2008 financial crash. Londoners are more used to the “luxified skies”, highly visible reminders of great wealth. But these deluxe basements are, in aggregate, equivalent in depth to 50 Shards. They are also an important aspect of the type of city London has become.

The super-rich continue to have a significant impact on London. It is simply not so noticeable any longer. Wealth is burrowing underground, rather than just reaching for the skies.

NU Projects builds basements across west London.

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