When I was an employee rather than an employer, I used to laugh when leaders of companies went on a world tour of their outposts, taking their families along for the ride. It all seemed like one big jolly.
But this summer I spent five weeks visiting our studios in Hong Kong and Sydney and our clients in Singapore – and yes, my family came too. The boundaries between work and play have always been blurred for me, but this was on a whole new level, squeezing in trips to beaches and zoos around press interviews, project updates and client presentations. Fun, but exhausting.
The trip was co-ordinated around speaking at the University of New South Wales and the British Council in Hong Kong. Chatting with fellow property professionals afterwards was a real eye-opener. It is fascinating to get to grips with the issues facing other world cities.
Across the board there was widespread astonishment at the Brexit vote, to the point that I found myself defending it to one investor who said there was now a question mark over whether his company would make any further investment into the UK, even though the pound was low.
It was clear that globalisation, in terms of trade, has never been more crucial. It came as a relief therefore, to hear Theresa May say that we needed to look beyond Europe in her party speech and it will be interesting to see how this government looks to support those trying to do just that.
It was interesting to place the philosophy and approach of Make into the context of the countries I visited.
Hong Kong, for example, despite its land shortages, is still building and on smaller and smaller sites. Yet for all its constraints it still has some amazing infrastructure projects under way, mainly focused on rail, but significant airport expansion is planned too. The value placed on infrastructure and investing in transport and connectivity is superb and in a different league to the UK – we could learn a lot.
Sydney is a far more car-dominant city, with more investment going into roads than rail, and while public transport systems seem fairly robust in and out of the city, the connections between suburban districts are diabolical. Everyone has a car because cars are needed and prioritised. It is a culture which is still so familiar in many UK cities, and one that we are gradually realising leads to sprawl, traffic jams and unpredictable commuting times. The UK seems to be slowly starting to tackle some of these issues, with a growing groundswell of support for cycling initiatives and new public transport infrastructure, but I am not convinced there is the will for it in Australia yet. Having said this, they have some great car-sharing initiatives and are looking to invest in projects – such as our Wynyard Place scheme with Brookfield – which create major transport hubs.
This contrasts again with Singapore, where no one needs a car and, like Hong Kong, the country is streets ahead of the UK in terms of plans for airport expansion. I so strongly feel that a decision on airports is more crucial now than ever if the UK is to retain its position in the global economy.
It was Singapore that really awakened the senses as to how a city could be. Architecture there is incredibly exciting. Like London, Singapore is very welcoming to architects from all over the world and refuses to be bowed by constraints, as it is still expanding into the sea. It is fascinating how this relatively tiny space has become such an incredible centre for commerce.
I came home feeling inspired by what I had seen, by the potential for building in the UK and abroad, and by where London stands in terms of what it has achieved in the built environment and what it could achieve if we allowed ourselves to think outside the box. I will take this year to recover and then I might just do it all over again.
