A Different Lot

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A Different Lot

Civic Houses. A new kind of place, and the network that runs them.

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Culture first. Everything else joins it.

A new kind of cultural house, built for what comes next.

We believe superintelligence is coming, and that it will hand people back their time. The question becomes where we spend it, and who with.

The new luxury won't be more stuff. The more of the world that runs on intelligence, the more we'll want what can't be automated: being there together. That's what we build.

  • Attention.
  • Craft.
  • A shared table.
  • A room where the sound is perfect.
  • A night you couldn't have had anywhere else.
The thermal baths in the vaults: a long warm pool under brick arches, light falling into the steam

Baths at dawn.

Warm water on the roof as the city wakes, and down in the vaults the long pool, the steam and the light falling through the roof.

Roof pool
The great sauna: tiered benches in the round, the sauna master driving the heat with a towel

The great sauna, a ritual in the round.

The sauna master works the heat at the centre: the hush, water on the stones, the towel driving the wave round the benches. Then the cold.

Ice baths
A climber on a tall stone wall inside the vaulted hall, friends watching from the floor

Rooms for the body and the mind.

Climbing in the old hall, morning classes and bodywork, and a reading room under the vaults with deep chairs and books chosen by people who love them.

Reading room
The grand hall at lunch: long tables in the light, a piano on the stage

A grand dining hall with audiophile sound.

Long lunches in the light, an open fire at its heart, supper carved at your side. By night it becomes a music hall.

The hearth
Supper
The auditorium as a club: the DJ on the floor among the crowd, horn stacks either side

A room where the sound is perfect.

A listening bar with horns built for the room, and at the heart of the house an auditorium built around a sound system we make ourselves.

Listening bar
Music hall
A cinema audience laughing together at a huge curved screen

Games, and a cinema where the audience plays.

Board games and big-wall games with the whole room in, and films played together, the room deciding what happens next.

Games

One building, many worlds.

A converted building where the day starts in the baths and ends on the dance floor. Here is one day, from dawn to three in the morning.

  

Open any window to step inside.

Why it works.

Every square foot keeps earning.

Every room changes through the day: baths at dawn, lunch at noon, a music hall by night. The building never stands empty between services.

Five to seven ways to earn.

Food and drink, tickets, the baths, rooms, memberships, private hire, and the shows that tour from house to house.

The nights are the marketing.

The culture brings the people, and people pay for it. A house with nights worth talking about doesn't have to buy its crowd.

Run on Civic.

Every enquiry answered and every night sold at a lower cost of running the house, so our people stay on hospitality and entertainment.

Lit models of houses joined by lines of light across the dark

The network.

It starts with one house.

Faith In Strangers in Margate, our prototype and R&D house. We chose a hard place to prove it on purpose: a small seaside town, a small population, and half our catchment is the sea.

Next, a flagship in London.

Then house after house in other cities, each a converted building shaped to its city, built from the same worlds.

All connected.

Every house runs on Civic, and Civic Estate runs every house as one.

Every house learns from every other.

The menus that work, the nights that sell, the suppliers worth keeping: what one house learns, every house knows.

And the culture travels.

Shows and comedy tour from house to house on the same sound. The more houses we open, the smarter each one gets.

Running a house like this is hard.

  • Every night has to be sold.
  • Every enquiry answered.
  • Every booking priced.
  • Every supplier paid.
  • Every shift planned.

In most venues that work lands on the people who should be looking after the guests. Costs climb, sales slip, and good places close.

We believe that's exactly the work intelligence will take on.

So we built Civic.

The technology that runs every house. Already running Faith In Strangers, every day.

Underneath, one model of the whole building.

  • The rooms and the tables.
  • Every speaker and every light.
  • The team, and who's on tonight.
  • The prices, and every pound.
  • And who's allowed to decide what.
A Civic House drawn as one model, opening floor by floor from the crown down to the ground

A house that knows you when you arrive.

Civic sees the building the way a great host does. It does the remembering, so the people here can spend their time on you.

The listening bar at night: horns built for the room, a DJ at the decks, guests in deep chairs
Sound, the listening roomLow enough to talk
On the decks until oneBooked by Junior
Third visit this monthHer usual is on its way
The auditorium as a club: horn stacks either side, the DJ on the floor among a full crowd
Zone one, the floorTuned for a full room
Zone two, the backEvery corner hears it
The floor at its fullestFrank has two more on the bar
The booth, on the floorAmong the crowd until three
The open kitchen: a chef turning fish over the coals, the hall full behind her
Table 12No dairy, the kitchen knows
The passMains away for table 9
Turbot for table 12Four minutes on the coals
A guest walking down a long stone corridor at night towards a crowded, glowing room
ArrivingA friend is already in
The partyHer table is ready
Light aheadWalking her to her table

 

    Agents do the coordination. People do the hospitality.

    Faith

    answers the guests.

    Penny

    does the money.

    Junior

    runs the programme.

    Frank

    works with the team.

    Watch it work.

    One enquiry, from the first message to the deposit. Shown with demo data; at Faith In Strangers it happens every day.

    The guest
    Dana, Northshore and CoHi! Christmas dinner for our team, 80 of us, Friday 11 December. Do you have space?
    FaithHi Dana, Friday 11 December is free and we'd love to have you. Here's how your dinner could feel.Northshore and Co, here's how your dinner could feel.
    DanaThis is perfect. Deposit paid!
    Civic
    1. EnquiryNorthshore and Co, 80 guests, Friday 11 December
    2. The diaryThe grand hall is free that night
    3. Priced from the real rooms
      The hall, for the nightDinner for 80, from the hearthWine and drinksSound and lightTotal £0
    4. Proposal writtenDrafted by Faith, with Dana's own page
    5. Faith asks youSend it to Dana?
    6. SentTo Dana, with her page
    7. Deposit received, by Penny£2,250
    8. The whole building movesKitchen briefedRota plannedTables setSound booked

    Civic Estate. Every house as one.

    Every house runs on the same Civic, so the whole estate can learn like one business: an idea is tested where it's cheap, and the winner reaches every house at once.

    1. 1

      Write it once

      A new Sunday menu, written once in Civic.

    2. 2

      Test it in two houses

      Two versions run side by side, and Civic watches what guests actually book.

    3. 3

      Roll the winner out

      The better one goes live in every house at once.

     

    Prospect finds the next place.

    A building or a piece of land. Prospect reads the public record and sees a site's story months before it lists.

    • Planningapplications, decisions
    • Heritagelistings, conservation areas
    • Licencespremises, hours
    • Saleswhat changed hands
    • Insolvencieswhat's about to
    First searchPursueSecuredDesignBuildOpening night

    Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors

    Proven at the edge of the sea.

    Faith In Strangers is our prototype and our R&D house. It's where we've been building the technology and testing the business models, in one of the hardest places we could find: a small seaside town with a small population, where half our catchment is the sea.

    We bootstrapped it there on purpose. If it works here, it works anywhere. Next, a flagship in London. Then other cities.

    Visit Faith In Strangers
    Faith In Strangers in Margate: the stairway of light, the kitchen pass, music by the sea windows, and the digital twin of the building

    Real nights at Faith In Strangers, ending on the house's digital twin.

    Civic on a laptop: the day's decisions waiting, a reply drafted and ready
    Floor on an iPad: tonight's reservations on the plan of the room
    Faith on a phone, asking before she sends a reply

    The day, decided

    What needs you, with the work already done. One tap to send.

    Floor

    The room, the tables and the till, in the hands of the team.

    Faith

    Answers the enquiry, drafts the proposal, and asks before she sends.

    Build it with us.

    We're choosing the partners for the London flagship and the cities that follow.

    The buildings

    Owners and developers with a landmark that deserves a second life, in London and beyond.

    The groups

    Hospitality groups who want to build the next kind of place with us.

    The capital

    Investors for the flagship and the houses that follow.

    Thank you. We'll be in touch.

    A Different Lot holds every house, and Civic runs them all.

    Real estate is the stage. Civic is the director. We don't sell rooms or dinners; we sell a reason to be there.