London is a city that is floating with money, widely regarded as the financial capital of the world. There are more millionaires living in London then there are anywhere else in the world. Rich people often like to invest in property to live in, for bragging rights, as an investment or for tax purposes. A lot of the homes in London are already very nice and spacious, but something else rich people like to do is expand their properties even further. This can be difficult in the condensed and conserved areas of London like Knightsbridge, Kensington and Chelsea. One day, while looking for ways to make a client’s property bigger, one architect noticed that, while it is almost impossible to get planning permission to add anything to the exterior of the house, it doesn’t say anything about digging underneath it, and that is how the idea for ‘mega basements’ came about.

These ‘mega basements’ are holes that have been dug under the ground to include three or four storeys of luxury, including a swimming pool, cinema, car garage, wine cellar, climbing walls, a gym and, well, pretty much anything they want. They are vast and hugely impressive. An average one would set you back £250k, but there are plenty that would easily cost millions to create. They’re not just for luxury additions. People also use this space for things like extra bedrooms, bathrooms or even another kitchen, much like what David Cameron did for the staff he engaged to take care of his late son, Ivan.

One reason why people are being forced to dig downwards is because a lot of the homes in the country’s most expensive streets are located in conservation areas. The beauty of digging downwards is that you can triple the size of your home without touching the protected exterior of the house. The not so beautiful part of the plan, however, is the construction work involved. Building these basements is a noisy affair, which causes the neighbours a lot of stress. The worst thing is that projects which could be done in a year often end up taking two or three, due to various obstacles such as local councils who aren’t too keen on the idea anyway. It’s not just the noise, houses can quite literally sink into the ground as a result of all this digging. There have been several reports of people being trapped in their homes because of their neighbours’ or their own dream basements. When you add the fact that there are often four or five such projects going on at the same time on some roads, it is easy to see why some of the more conventional residents are so against this.

With so much opposition to these lavish ‘iceberg’ homes, it looks like they aren’t going to be the future of London, but instead a mere passing moment in history. If you have already built one of these basements, I would imagine its value is going to soar even higher, now they are practically banned by the local councils affected by them.