Finding accommodation in London can be a bloody, muddy battle – the bad kind of battle that is, where no one is even naked or covered in jelly. Those precious semi-detached terraces which don’t have life-threatening damp are snapped up before you can say ‘deposit’ and with the cool-status of London areas changing faster than Kerry Katona’s bankruptcy status, nobody can keep abreast of the fleetingly fashionable postcodes, except perhaps landlords, who have an infuriatingly keen nose for up-and-coming areas and raise the rent before the place has really made a name for itself and earned its first trendy pop-up food joint.
From a mixture of ingenuity and desperation (the key components of all original endeavours) members of the middle class creative homeless have crawled into empty warehouses, weed on the walls and called the spaces their own, so to speak. And it’s worked out rather well for everyone.
Converted warehouses are actually really brilliant spaces to live in, the drawback is that in half of the warehouses with residential tenants the landlords forgot to do the ‘converting’ bit and just started charging rent. The more canny half of landlords have clocked the cool-status of warehouse living and renovated the living skylights out of their industrial property, naturally charging totally not-creative-type prices. The phrase ‘warehouse conversion’ is becoming as big a seller as ‘spacious kitchen’ or ‘comes with puppy’. But let’s cast our eye upon the more authentic and affordable warehouses, which are still clustered about our dreary London like growths of magic mushrooms in a sea of packing crates. So what kind of creature inhabits these unusual quarters?
They’re not students anymore, but they’re as close as you can get. They are ‘creatives’ which essentially amounts to the same existence: little-to-no money, inconsistent working hours, frequent inebriation and a general abhorrence of anyone whose profession could be interpreted as working for The Man (read as: everyone other than creative types). Most warehouse tenants are engaged in an unspoken battle to out-vintage coat each other so that at times there are more dead and dusty animals in the place than humans. Both respond well to food rewards.
Warehouses come in all shapes and sizes but rarely with clean cutlery or loo roll. A good sound system is an essential badge of honour, as is a shared novelty item. No warehouse is complete without something large and unexpected in the communal area: a life-size cut out of Daniel Radcliffe, a pitched tent, a giant road sign, half a boat, a horse foetus… these things can escalate. There is always, always someone sleeping on the couch and, like a sleeping dragon or a bum that smells of piss, it’s best to let them lie.
Photography - www.jmlalonde.com
The kind of space you might pay for in such an abode varies a great deal depending on luck and of course coin. Most bedrooms forgo a window and natural light in favour of BUNK BEDS, leaving more room for ACTIVITIES. This is a great selling point for most of us unable or unwilling to grow up; nothing feels cooler than ascending a ladder to your own secret bed in the sky. Descending can be perilous after a few cans, but life is for living. Some tenants prefer to save money and opt out of such non-essentials as doors or standing room, instead living in a mezzanine cubby blocked off by a curtain from the main area. This is all well and good until those tenants decide to have a nice time with a special friend.
Warehouse shindigs are top drawer – that’s when the space comes into its own and the high ceilings prove themselves as good for something other than losing heat. But one must always remember to respect the fact that, despite appearances, some people actually call this their home. The land is not Terra Nullius and you do not have permission to take whatever ends up on the floor – that is not how the Seven Second Rule works. Stolen cutlery – it’s a sad fact.
Warehouse creatures are generally very welcoming to new faces, if a little predatory. Once the occupants of the warehouse have all slept with each other, they’re desperate to find untapped material without actually having to change out of their PJs and get on the tube. Fortunately coitus is not the only means to garner acceptance: if you come bearing booze you’re in the club, if you come bearing skins you’re in the club, if you come bearing double thickness Oreos – my god they’ll never let you leave. The particularly artsy lodgers often let their home double as a studio space, and that’s how you go meet your mate for a cup of tea and by and by find yourself shading in cellulite in a life drawing class.
Artwork - Killer ZEES
Suspect though these creatures may seem – with their old coats and dirty surfaces and what not - they bring life and energy into dead spaces. Grey, industrial and nondescript though they stay on the outside, warehouses converted for living are transformed from within by the colourful creatures which inhabit them, and that energy spreads out into the postcode and the next thing you know you find yourself on the way to Seven Sisters for reasons other than falling asleep on the night bus.
Collections are going strong in Hackney Wick and Hackney, Stoke Newington, London Fields, Manor House, Finsbury Park, Seven Sisters, Clapton and beyond (something is beyond Clapton?). If my gruesome depiction has tickled the alternative liver in you, don’t wait. Soon enough the other half of warehouse owners will catch up and prices will sky-rocket like Shoreditch on fast forward - do you want to share your bunk bed with an investment banker?
Jordan Smith
