Rain is a character: why the London set is wet on purpose

Everyone we have worked with in London has, at some point, asked for a sunny day. We understand why. We push back anyway.

This is the residents' club room at Ninefold Wharf on a wet Sunday afternoon: walnut, green marble, a fire going, and water running down the glass with the dock grey behind it. Sunshine would have made it a nice room. The rain makes it somewhere you want to be.

That is the argument in full. Warmth is relative. An interior only reads as shelter if you can see what it is sheltering you from, and a lamp lit at three in the afternoon only makes sense if the sky outside has given up. Take the weather away and the fire is just decoration.

There is an honesty point as well. London is wet for a third of the year. A set that is sunny in every frame is quietly telling a buyer something untrue, and the buyers who live there notice first. Showing the building on a bad day — and making it look good on a bad day — is a far stronger claim than showing it on the two perfect afternoons in July.

Rain is not a compromise in this set. It is cast.