Tag: london

  • Good Hotel, London

    Good Hotel, London

    We recently had an amazing stay at Good Hotel in London’s Royal Victoria Dock. Good Hotel is part of Good Group, a social business which has community and not individual at its core, providing premium hospitality with a cause.

    www.goodhotellondon.com


    The concept

    Founded by Marten Dresen, Good Hotel is the manifestation of his social business dream. The first Good Hotel popped up in Amsterdam during 1 year and trained and re-integrated 70 long-term unemployed locals who were living off welfare. Good Hotel now has locations in London (the floating hotel was transported from Amsterdam) and Guatemala (Marten founded a NGO called Niños de Guatemala there in 2006) and plans to open 5 new properties by 2020, focusing on destinations where touristic demand meets the needs for development.

    There’s one common point in all the Good Hotel properties: the contribution they make to the local community while offering a personalised, authentic experience. The Good Group has created an in-house training program called Good Training, offering long-term unemployed locals custom-made hospitality training and the chance to build a new future. Rooted in the local community, the ingredients, materials and labour needed at Good Hotel are all locally sourced from small business owners and craftsmen.

    Good Hotel also invests in the education of children of low-income families in Guatemala through the NGO Niños de Guatemala founded by Marten – in its first year it has donated $80,000 and is now working towards a goal to donate $500,000 per year).

    If you’re running a similar project and need guidance in social care, you can find organisations like CBAT that can help you in this process.

    The hotel

    Located in the Royal Victoria Docks, an up-and-coming area in East London, Good Hotel London is a floating hotel with an innovative design in a unique waterfront location.

    The modern rooms (4 types with different bed sizes and views to the dockside or waterfront and River Thames) have a minimalistic design, with Scandinavian-style wooden furniture and special details that make the stay even more pleasant, such as the fair trade toiletries, tooth brush and shaving kits, sockets for EU guests and a little doll handcrafted by Guatemalan artisans and designed to help you have a good night sleep.

    On the ground floor guests can find The Living Room, an open space with sofas where you can relax, big tables to work and meet other people staying at the hotel and a bar serving locally inspired cuisine with an international twist. On the top floor, guests can also find a roof area overlooking the River Thames and London, whilst enjoying drinks and café classics.

    When you book direct with Good Hotel, £5 will be donated to their NGO Charity partner, per booking, per night. When you book with Booking.com, they have partnered to created a unique ‘boosted’ link whereby if you book to stay anywhere with it, Booking.com will donate a percentage of your booking to Good Hotel’s NGO.
    Find out more here: www.goodhotelbooking.com

     

  • The Silver Building, creative workspaces in London’s Royal Docks

    The Silver Building, creative workspaces in London’s Royal Docks

    Located in London’s Royal Docks, an area currently undergoing a transformation to become a hub for creative industries, The Silver Building is a dramatic multi-purpose shared workspace centre in a striking brutalist building by the River Thames.

    www.thesilverbuilding.com

    On our last trip to London, we visited The Silver Building at Silvertown and were showed around the different areas and studios by its founder Nick Hartwright, who’s also behind Green Rooms Hotel – an arts hotel and social enterprise we’ve already talked about.

    The 50,000 sq ft building, originally constructed in 1964 for Carlsberg-Tetley Brewing company, opened in late 2017 and is already a bustling creative and entrepreneurial hub where new talent is nurtured and grown. The concept behind this project is to provide affordable workspace for everyone, with different studio spaces that cater for everyone: from fashion designers and artists to photographers and set designers.

    Working in partnership with the Mayor of London’s office and re-purposed by award-winning studio of architects and designers SODA, The Silver Building also features communal areas and events spaces across its four floors, with a ground floor café which is the beating heart of the development.

    Nick Hartwright has said about the project “The Silver Building is an incredibly exciting project and a perfect example of how modern regeneration should be carried out.  Over the coming years we’re going to put Silvertown on the map.  We’re going to engage with existing Newham-based businesses and we’re going to bring new enterprises to the area.  Everyone will benefit, and together, I’m sure we’ll produce some brilliant outputs.”

    And the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, supports the initiative and the offering of affordable workspaces for creative businesses: “London’s creative industries are unrivalled, but the capital is growing and we need to make sure we build great creative infrastructure into major development projects. As property prices rise, artists are finding it more difficult to put down roots here and that’s why they need access to genuinely affordable workspace.“

    Fashion designers like Craig Green and Liam Hodges have their workspaces here and also set designers Block9, who have worked with Gorillaz, Lana del Rey and Banksy. With prices of around £15 per sq ft, The Silver Building is attracting some of the most exciting creative talent due to its affordable spaces, the dramatic setting and the on-going regeneration of the neighbourhood.

     

  • Assembly Hotel, London

    Assembly Hotel, London

    On our recent trip to London we were invited to stay at Assembly, a new hotel connecting guests to the heart of the city through its mantra ‘Get Up and Go’. If you love feeling the energy of London and being nearby to the main attractions keep on reading to find out why Assembly Hotel is the perfect place to stay.

    www.assemblyhotels.com


    Located in the West End, just next to Leicester Square underground station, and with Soho and Covent Garden on the doorstep, Assembly is designed for curious travellers who want to explore the city and experience London like a local.

    The moment you walk into the hotel you can feel the urban vibe. The pink bunnies in the reception area – a recurring theme in the rooms and the rest of the hotel – and the friendly staff greet the guests and provide all the information you might need about the city and its secret spots. That’s why Assembly is perfect for those individuals who want to explore London and then have a place with all the essentials to spend the night, and get ready for another day of exploring.


    The striped back rooms have been created to recharge. Designed by architects Scott Brownrigg, the 4 different types of rooms (Snug, Nest, Pad and Den) are inspired by iconic London fashion designers Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney and Gareth Pugh, with recognisable elements from their designs incorporated into the rugs, beds and other details of the space.


    Assembly doesn’t have unnecessary room amenities like overpriced mini bars or telephones but you will find comfortable beds, different pillow sizes and walk-in showers – everything you need for a good night’s rest. The stunning views from the rooms will make you feel even more immersed in London’s bustling streets but without the noise thanks to the incredible sound proofing.


    The hotel experience is completed with a rooftop terrace that will open really soon and that also offers great views of London’s skyline and its iconic landmarks such as the London Eye or The Shard.

  • Cascabel’s London

    Cascabel’s London

    Cascabel is a multidisciplinary creative studio, founded in Buenos Aires by Estefi Panizza and Diego Jalfen, and based in London. Cascabel specialises in unique bespoke experiences, working with global lifestyle clients across a wide range of industries – from art and gastronomy to design and technology.

    Estefi and Diego are also the founders of Radio Cascabel, a project we’ve talked about before and that they describe as “an online platform for the musicians and artists who are creating the sounds of tomorrow.” Radio Cascabel works with NTS Radio, the British Council, Resonance FM/Extra and hosts a monthly column on Monocle 24, as part of their art and culture review program. Radio Cascabel’s latest event, Greetings from Space, will take place at the new EXP Cantina by the canal in Hackney Wick on August 10th and will bring together the best of Argentinian and British music, food and culture – you can find more information about the event on Resident Advisor.

    We asked Estefi and Diego to share with us some of their favourite places in London.

     

    Institute of International Visual Arts

    This place is a visual arts organisation based in East London that collaborates with contemporary artists, curators and writers. We discovered them through this music exhibition inspired in London’s first magazines for improvisers, sonic artists and musicians during the 70’s and 80’s.

    1 Rivington Place, EC2A 3BA

    Second Home

    This amazing co-working space is where we choose to work every day, have meetings and attend to workshops. We produced an event for their cultural programme based on silence walks around East London to contemplate the sounds that surround us, WALK AND LISTEN PROJECT, with their support and with Argentinian sonic artist Ulises Conti. Second Home describes itself as ‘a new type of workspace and creative hub‘.

    68-80 Hanbury St, E1 5JL

    Rough Trade

    As you might know, London is a very musical city. This is our favourite record shop and where we go to see lots of live music shows, such us Factory Floor, Mac Demarco and Angel Olsen Music among others.

    The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Ln,  E1 6QL

    Rochelle Canteen

    This is the place where we love to have lunch. It looks out onto the grassy playground and the trees of Arnold Circus. Whenever it’s warm enough the tables are set outside for a peaceful meal in the sun. The food is provided by Arnold & Henderson, who established the Rochelle Canteen in 2004 and since then, it has rapidly become one of London’s destination restaurants.We handpicked this spot for one of our Seasonal Banquets, a marketing activation we developed for a winery group in the UK.

    London Centre for Book Arts

    This is an artist-run, open-access studio dedicated to book arts and artist-led publishing. We love this place because you can see the work process and how things get done.  It is a hidden gem, located in Hackney Wick and one block away from Exp Cantina, the new venue where we will host our ‘Greetings from Space’ event.

    Dace Road, E3 2NQ

  • London Cyclist with Expedia

    London Cyclist with Expedia

    We recently collaborated with Expedia on a cycling route around East and North London for their London Cyclist guide. We often travel to London for work and the route we suggested, from Borough Market to Camden Town, is one of our favourites when we are visiting and have some free time.

    You can find more about this route and all our recommended shopping and eating stops on the following link:

    www.city-cycling.expedia.co.uk/london/heading-north-past-markets-and-waterways

    Future-Positive-Cycling-Expedia-4-low
    Gulliver’s Wharf in Wapping

    Future-Positive-Cycling-Expedia-3-low
    Regent’s Canal

    Future-Positive-Cycling-Expedia-1-low
    Donlon Books in Broadway Market

    Future-Positive-Cycling-Expedia-2-low
    Present & Correct in Islington

     

     

    Save