Micro-apartment developer Inspired Homes has collaborated with spoken word lyricist Benedict Smith to reveal beauty in the heart of Croydon.
Benedict Smith, 20, was invited to write and perform a poem to promote Innova, a new 235-apartment development on Croydon’s Edridge Road, opposite Queen’s Square and the Civic Quarter.
Spending most of his life in Abu Dhabi and now living in London, Benedict has had a YouTube channel from the age of 16, vlogging and performance speaking about his life and experiences.
Benedict explains: “Inspired Homes want to capture the imagination of millennial buyers and really liked the idea of using spoken word to promote their development in Croydon. I happened to meet the chief executive Martin Skinner in Shoreditch and told him what I did – it just went from there.”
Inspired Homes CEO Martin Skinner said: “When Benedict showed me his YouTube videos, I asked if he could write and perform a piece for us. I remember Nationwide running a spoken word ad which was quite cool, and thought we could do a much better one.”
Benedict and his team spent three nights at Inspired’s Central Cross penthouse on South End and created the spoken word piece “Home is a place” in the penthouse and on location in Croydon as they experienced life in “The Cronx”. The video shows Benedict and his friends walking down the High Street and past market stalls on Surrey Street, sitting behind the window in Byte Café, and outside East Croydon station before concluding at Boxpark with the lyric “this is Croydon bruv”.
Opening to its first residents this November, Innova is a 16-storey micro-apartment development, which also includes three floors of larger apartments called the Nova Collection. It has a ninth floor sky garden, flexibly designed to hold music events or open-air cinema, and a ground floor co-working themed residents’ lounge.
Prices start at £305,000 and Help to Buy is available, enabling buyers to purchase with a 5% deposit topped up by a 40% Government Equity Loan, interest-free for the first five years. For more information, visit www.innovacroydon.co.uk or call 020 8688 6552 to enquire.
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