If you look up to the roof on the corner of Holywell Lane and Shoreditch, you'll catch
a glimpse of train carriages where they shouldn't be, famed against the sky.
Village Underground is a collection of cross-disciplinary studios designed by Oro Foxcroft, who now runs
it with his brother Jake.
It came from me being a fan designer and needing a studio space, so as with all of my crack
top schemes, they kind of start off small, you know, I'll get myself a studio space,
I'll make one and then they grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and now there's
six studios up here and big building downstairs.
I love the way this structure takes an element so intrinsic to London and reverses the way
people interact with it.
It's been recycled into a creative space, a site or a destination, both in a mode of
transport.
It's also an eco project, so the whole thing is run off of solar panels and in the winter
we buy a little bit of extra 100% green energy from the good energy company and that helps
to power the electric heating and then all the finishes are organic varnishes and biodegradable
paints and we've used a lot of sustainable timber and reclaimed timber and structures
as well like the staircase, that's all reclaimed stuff that are being ditched from building
sites so we really did kind of get stuck in and beg borrowed and steal stuff from everywhere
so that it was the screen as possible.
We all have to face the impact the way we live has on the environment.
This is a successful hub that uses local materials but generates global networks.
This village underground project, so an international thing that we're setting up, so we're reputating
the project first in Berlin and then we're looking at one in Toronto, we've got another
one in Bangkok in the pipeline and the idea is that we build these physical bases out
of reclaimed industrial buildings and then reused structures like we've got here, the
tubes and the containers, whatever is local stuff and then we fill those full of talented,
enthusiastic, energetic, creative people and then provide other space, we've got events
in space, we do music, theatre, exhibitions and other commercial work to sustain the not-for-profit
side of it and the end goal is that it's an international platform and the whole thing
will be linked via virtual networks and then you get these kind of interesting opportunities
for cultural exchange and cross-pollination and all that kind of juicy stuff so we try
and make it global and as accessible as possible.
I'd like to take modern tools to use environmentally friendly surfaces in the interiors as well
as energy from green sources, maybe even harnessing the tide of the Thames or the footfall of the
millions of visitors.
I'd like the architects to think about recycling or preserving elements of the city that are
functional but give it some character.
In a completely globalised world, we want to retain some of the uniqueness of London.
