All White now

mini-city once Crossrail arrives. The world’s largest “co-living” space, The C o l l e c t ive , o p e n e d t h e re i n May, offering 551 minimal, serviced living spaces around shared communal areas as an alternative to traditional rental models.

On the other side of Wood Lane, the mind- bo g g l i ngly v a s t , 2 5 - a c re , £ 3 billion new campus where Imperial College plans to “invent the future through science and engineering and medicine” — as Professor David Gann, Vice President (Innovation) puts it — stretches north beyond the A40. To the east, t he ne w phas e o f West f i e l d shopping centre — already one of the top five tourist destinations in London, with 28 million visitors a year — is under construction, and a site occupied by M&S warehouses is to become 1,480 new homes by developer St James.

Out of sight, beyond the A3220, are the headquarters of early White City adopters such as Mario Testino, Stella McCartney and Monsoon. To the south lie the huge new developments at Earl’s Court and Chelsea Harbour. Dalston can do one, and Hackney can hack off — west i s bes t a g a i n, a nd W12 in particular has got its mojo back.

One of the re asons for this is geographical. While most brownfield or redundant industrial land is in south or east London, there was a swathe of backland ( r a i l way y a rd s , s t o r a ge facilities, power stations) stretching from Chelsea Creek up to Old Oak, following an old river course. This area is ge n e ro u sly shot through with transport: the A40 and M4, a cluster of Tube and bus stations giving quick access to the West End, easy links to Heathrow and now Crossrail landing at Old Oak.

“Holland Park and Notting Hill are next to us, nice parts of Hammersmith are next to us,” says Paul Monaghan of AHMM Architects, which is helming the TV Centre development. “There are two Tube stations and the most successful shopping centre in Europe. It’s amazing it’s taken so long for this area to take off.”

Soho House’s Nick Jones says: “I feel strongly that the whole area will pop and change dramatically over the next few years. Just like Shoreditch used to be, White City was thought of as quite dodgy, but it’s changed. And when a building like the TV Centre becomes available, it’s hard to turn it down.”

White City and Shepherd’s Bush are full of texture and history. Not just the TV Centre and lost iconic buildings like L i me G r o v e S t u d i o s , Wh i t e C i t y Stadium (home to the 1908 London Olympics) and the vast 1920s Pavilion Cinema (which was hit by a flying bomb and is now the upmarket Dorsett hotel). There’s music venues Bush Hall and the 02 Shepherds Bush Empire, and the Bush Theatre, which is undergoing a major upgrade.

The area also has a mix of cultures and incomes, the kind that stops London becoming a divided city like Paris. “The Uxbridge Road is the most diverse in Europe in terms of languages spoken,” says the Bush Theatre’s artistic director, Madani Younis. “Turn right outside our door and you have Westfield. Turn left and you can buy food from just about anywhere in the world for about £5. Other people are r e a l i s i n g wh a t Shepherd’s Bush people know: that this was always a cool part of the city.”

Younis says the new developers seem ke e n to avo i d the “Chri stopher Columbus” effect — laying claim to an area without regard to, and usually to the detriment of, the existing community. David Gann says the new Imperial campus will get away from the “ivory tower” concept of an isolated academic establishment and be open not only to i n n o v a t o r s , me d i c a l professionals and tech start-ups but also to local schools and residents. Even the new Westfield extension looks more porous and less slab-like than the initial building, with routes through railway arches and new open spaces.

Alistair Shaw of Stanhope, which owns and is developing TV Centre with Mitsui Fudosan and AIMCo, says the fact that the scheme will have residents, Soho House guests, workers and a continuing “24/7” BBC presence will prevent it becoming “soulless at night” like some other developments. He stresses that Stanhope has reached out to local schools and the Bush Theatre, put on food festivals on the car park roof and buzzy events in the studios, such as the Evening S t a n d a rd F i l m Awards and Marc Ronson’s album launch.

The site will certainly be more open than in the BBC d ays , w i t h landscaped gardens replacing the s er vi c e ro a d a ro und t he central, listed Helios building, aka the “doughnut”, of TV Centre. There’ll be a Cowshed Active gym — run by Soho House but open to everyone — beneath the statue of the eponymous sun god that stands slap bang in the middle of it. And unlike the schemes at Old Oak or Earl’s Court, which have 10 or 20 years to reach completion, the refurbished TV studios will be up and running again next year, with the first apartments ready by 2018. “The whole scheme could be entirely built in four to five years,” says Paul Monaghan.

The 950 apartments here will be out of the reach of the millennials that the Collective hopes to target, with prices starting at £650,000 and rising much higher in the Helios building and the 22-storey edifice that will replace the