The White City area of London is set to emerge as a genuine rival to the capital’s current technology hotbed, Silicon Roundabout, with a number of new media and tech companies setting up for business there.
The West London district is currently going through a 10-year project that, it is hoped, will bring together technology, academia and creativity in a way that can help the area compete with its East London counterpart. The regeneration will cost £8bn and is likely to attract major companies and organisations to the emerging district.
The Royal College of Art (RCA) has announced that it will be opening a brand new hub there and it will soon be accompanied by a collaborative space aimed at creative entrepreneurs – Huckletree West. The new centre being set up by the Royal College will see a community of over 700 staff and students being based there and will provide interdisciplinary practice opportunities – such as digital direction partnerships and live exhibition project opportunities that link up the college with the tech firms there.
The college’s School of Humanities Dean, Professor Jane Pavitt, told Dexigner that: “This move will give the school, and most importantly, its students and staff, a quality of space and interaction that will foster new thinking and practice in relation to arts and culture, media, design and the built environment. We look forward to shaping a vibrant and integrated creative environment in our new home.”
The RCA will occupy a building named Garden House. Though suspended ceilings and elevated floors have been installed, the core and shell of the 1990 building remain the same.
The college is currently involved in a number of projects in an attempt to bring even more life to the thriving hub that is the White City. Recently, it has been confirmed that a former petrol station in the area will be converted into an art installation, with RCA students set to collaborate with developers Stanhope and lead artists Craig Redmond and Karl Maier. Such projects suggest that the area is not losing any of its aesthetics as it becomes increasingly significant to the tech sector.
Further enhancing White City’s claim to be a competitor to Silicon Roundabout is the launch of Huckletree West, a facility inspired by Google that offers sizeable meeting spaces, an Influencer space for the live streaming of content by digital companies and a VR studio that tech entrepreneurs will be able to make use of. Although the facility will be open to people from numerous industries, its main focus will be on those growing their companies through innovative tech. Gabriela Hersham and Andrew Lynch, the co-founders of Huckletree West, told Dexigner that they want the area to be a Silicon Roundabout equivalent and see this centralised hub as key to bringing its disparate tech community together.
We are always excited to see evidence that new tech hotbeds are being created within the UK. If you want to get more information about the various Microsoft SharePoint tech solutions we create, get in contact with WM Reply today.