Homes for sale in former factories – in pictures

Build a future at these properties previously used to make products ranging from shoes to fighter planes

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Rick Owens: 'I love art nouveau. It's super sexy and ominous'

His brutalist furniture has been inspired by rocks and bunkers. But the designer known for his gothic aesthetic has created a new range with a warmer influence – his mother’s homeland of Mexico. Has the ‘Donald Judd of fashion’ gone soft?

This year, designer Rick Owens and his partner Michèle Lamy went to Mexico for the first time. “I’ve never really explored my Mexican heritage, even though my mother was from there,” says Owens. “But I was thinking about using it for my next clothing collection.” He returned to Paris inspired by what he’d seen. “Not the piñatas and the Frida Kahlo Mexico,” he says. “More the hot colours that Luis Barragán used, and Aztec architecture, and the photographs that Josef and Anni Albers took there in the 1930s, which I saw at the Guggenheim in Venice last year. Loud colours. And sequins.” Sequins? Colours? From the man who loves grey? “Yeah! I’m a flashy guy!” he giggles.

Another, rather different, strand of influence emerged from the trip, seen in a new furniture collection that launched in London at Carpenters Workshop on 16 September. “We went to the cenotes in Tulum,” says Owens of the underground cave systems. “There was something about the enclosed spaces that felt insulated and grand at the same time.” Channelled through the designer’s brain, this culminated in a work called Glade – seating units that form an enclosed monochromatic landscape. “It’s like a hole in a forest,” says Owens, “which is what a glade is.” The seating, made with ply and covered in the grey vintage army blankets that have appeared in his work for two decades, comes fitted with internet and lighting connections. “I like the option of putting a hundred of them together,” he says. “You could fill a stadium with them. It’s like my version of wallpaper.”

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Rick Owens: 'I love art nouveau. It's super sexy and ominous'

His brutalist furniture has been inspired by rocks and bunkers. But the designer known for his gothic aesthetic has created a new range with a warmer influence – his mother’s homeland of Mexico. Has the ‘Donald Judd of fashion’ gone soft?

This year, designer Rick Owens and his partner Michèle Lamy went to Mexico for the first time. “I’ve never really explored my Mexican heritage, even though my mother was from there,” says Owens. “But I was thinking about using it for my next clothing collection.” He returned to Paris inspired by what he’d seen. “Not the piñatas and the Frida Kahlo Mexico,” he says. “More the hot colours that Luis Barragán used, and Aztec architecture, and the photographs that Josef and Anni Albers took there in the 1930s, which I saw at the Guggenheim in Venice last year. Loud colours. And sequins.” Sequins? Colours? From the man who loves grey? “Yeah! I’m a flashy guy!” he giggles.

Another, rather different, strand of influence emerged from the trip, seen in a new furniture collection that launched in London at Carpenters Workshop on 16 September. “We went to the cenotes in Tulum,” says Owens of the underground cave systems. “There was something about the enclosed spaces that felt insulated and grand at the same time.” Channelled through the designer’s brain, this culminated in a work called Glade – seating units that form an enclosed monochromatic landscape. “It’s like a hole in a forest,” says Owens, “which is what a glade is.” The seating, made with ply and covered in the grey vintage army blankets that have appeared in his work for two decades, comes fitted with internet and lighting connections. “I like the option of putting a hundred of them together,” he says. “You could fill a stadium with them. It’s like my version of wallpaper.”

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Trump's firm wins permission for luxury homes development in Scotland

Licence granted for area close to golf course despite objections from Aberdeenshire residents

Donald Trump’s family firm has won permission to build a luxury housing estate beside his Aberdeenshire golf course despite record objections from local residents and anti-Trump protestors.

Aberdeenshire councillors approved the proposals by 38 votes to 24 on Thursday after planning officers said the Trump Organization’s £20m scheme to build 550 homes and holiday villas would boost jobs and tourism.

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Windows at our new homes shattered – but the developer won't pay

It says it can no longer be liable for the fault in the glass, even though we can’t afford to fix it

Three years ago I bought a home in a Grade II-listed property renovated by developer Urban Splash. Each apartment is a two-storey maisonette with floor-to-ceiling windows. At the time of purchase there were a series of spontaneous window shatterings and an investigation found the cause to be a “material failure of the glass related to the Nickel Sulphide (NiS) Inclusion”.

To date, there have been 14 cases of shattering windows and Urban Splash has paid for replacements. Now I’ve received a letter from Urban Splash informing me that after 31 December it will no longer be accountable for glass failure, while simultaneously demanding “historic building insurance charges” due to an error made by the service charge team.

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Jennifer Lawrence’s fondue set: the kitchen gadgets you should never buy

The actor’s wedding list is full of unnecessary items, as are many people’s homes. Here’s what to borrow, rather than buy – and what to avoid altogether

A fondue set, an aroma diffuser, a pasta machine: just some of the oh-so-essential items on the actor Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding list. It’s not her actual wedding list – rather, a “collaboration” with Amazon to share “my favourite registry wish-list items”. However, it serves as a handy example of all the random things people think they want these days – things that, frankly, they will use a maximum of once before confining to the back of their cupboards.

A 2017 survey by Skipton building society found the average UK household has more than £1,100 worth of items gathering dust, including exercise bikes, posh crockery and water filters. I am no better – I have an ice-cream maker that has made it through three house moves and still remains unused (at least the toasted sandwich maker gets brought out a few times a year). Even decluttering experts fall into the trap – one of them, Rachel Burditt, confesses to me that she owns a pasta machine she has used only three times. Electronic kitchen gadgets are the most common purchases cast aside, she adds: “Soup makers, breadmakers, NutriBullets.”

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Jennifer Lawrence’s fondue set: the kitchen gadgets you should never buy

The actor’s wedding list is full of unnecessary items, as are many people’s homes. Here’s what to borrow, rather than buy – and what to avoid altogether

A fondue set, an aroma diffuser, a pasta machine: just some of the oh-so-essential items on the actor Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding list. It’s not her actual wedding list – rather, a “collaboration” with Amazon to share “my favourite registry wish-list items”. However, it serves as a handy example of all the random things people think they want these days – things that, frankly, they will use a maximum of once before confining to the back of their cupboards.

A 2017 survey by Skipton building society found the average UK household has more than £1,100 worth of items gathering dust, including exercise bikes, posh crockery and water filters. I am no better – I have an ice-cream maker that has made it through three house moves and still remains unused (at least the toasted sandwich maker gets brought out a few times a year). Even decluttering experts fall into the trap – one of them, Rachel Burditt, confesses to me that she owns a pasta machine she has used only three times. Electronic kitchen gadgets are the most common purchases cast aside, she adds: “Soup makers, breadmakers, NutriBullets.”

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