The P in placemaking - people

Richard Vernon:

Welcome to today's placemaking conversation, which is part of Ashurt's Reimaging Real Estate's campaign. Those operating in the development world often talk about placemaking, but I would like to unravel some of the mystery that surrounds placemaking. What do we mean by placemaking in practice? How do we know if we've achieved it? And why is it important? I'm Richard Vernon, a partner in the real estate team with Ashurts, and I have great pleasure in being joined today, firstly, by Selina Mason, who is director of master planning at Lendlease. Morning.

Selina Mason:

Good morning, Richard. Good to be here.

Richard Vernon:

And secondly, great pleasure in being joined by Bek Seely, who is managing director for development in Europe. Morning, Bek.

Bek Seeley:

Morning, Richard.

Richard Vernon:

Right. I'm going to start testing you both by the magic words placemaking. I'm interested to dig deeper into what we actually mean by placemaking on the grounds, and how we measure it, and how do we understand if we've achieved it. And I know that placemaking is in the DNA of Lendlease, and has always been at the heart of your strategy. Could I start by asking you each to pick a scheme where you have made a place, and what criteria do you use to measure both the benefits of Lendlease and also the benefit to others, having successfully made that place. And perhaps, Selina, I could ask you to pick that scheme first.

Selina Mason:

Okay, well, I'm going to start with one that's not quite finished. It's a work in progress, which is Elephant Park in London, just in Southwark. Next to Elephant & Castle. I think the thing about place is it's something that starts and ends with people. It's not bricks and mortar as such. It's the kind of that's the sort of chassis for the place. It's the people in the way that they live, and work, and play in a place that really makes the difference. And that's where placemaking comes in.

Selina Mason:

And I think that's probably the thing that makes it the most challenging for us, and for anyone building large schemes anywhere. It means you have to be fixed on the people that are going to be using it. Both of those that are there at the moment, the community that you arrive in, but also the people that are going to be living there in the future. And it's very difficult in the midst of the kind of energy and chaos of getting a place built, it's really easy to get fixed on the buildings, on the architecture, but actually, we, at Lendlease, really try to focus most of our energies on the place itself, in terms of the public realm, the buildings, the activation at ground level, and how people are going to occupy it and inhabit a place to make it work really well. So, that's the start of it. I'm sure we'll get into more detail of how you deliver it as we go in the conversation.

Richard Vernon:

Fantastic. Bek, handing over to you. Pick a scheme.

Bek Seeley:

Okay. I'm going to go a bit different. I'm going to go regional, and I'm going to go Hungate in York. The reason I think I would choose that is ... Selina's smiling now because she knows that I love Hungate. It's really difficult to do something new in a very old and historic environment, which obviously, York is. Hungate is within the city walls in York, so it's right next to all of the historic features. And I think Hungate manages to be a really modern place to live, but actually, feel like it's integrated with the historic city.

Bek Seeley:

I think, as well, what I really like about Hungate is you can wander off the streets of York into Hungate, and you don't feel like you're in a different environment. It feels a very natural flow, and also, you don't feel like you have to live there to be there. So, it's inclusive. I think some of the challenges, as well, in modern places are around the people who do live and work there and, therefore, feel they own it. Does that kind of create an issue in terms of visitors and people passing through and how you blend all that together? And I think Hungate does achieve that. Yes, we're not finished on that, we're still going, but I think there's enough there to see that that place is going to work, and it's going to feel like somewhere that everyone would want to be.

Richard Vernon:

Fantastic. Selina, picking up on something you mentioned about not being fixed on the architecture and it's sort of about the people, a widely held view is that placemaking costs more to deliver. So, going back to the money, does it actually cost more in your view? Does it result in value? Is it just the development cost on the balance sheet, on the appraisal, or is that cost balanced by additional value on the other side of the equation?

Selina Mason:

It really shouldn't cost more. And this is really about where you put your money and where you choose to invest. And in the end, in terms of value, if people like the place then it's value is going to go up. In the end, you need to make an attractive good place to continue to build value over time, and that's what we're really after.

Selina Mason:

I think for cost it's always a really interesting question. This is something I've often been asked over the years, but, for me, this is around investing in the places that matter to people and it will be those value drivers in the long term, and it's largely around public realm. You do have to build high-quality buildings that are going to be enduring and lasting, obviously, but at the same time, if you focus your investment in areas that will be those places, as Bek said, that are those places that people are going to be walking through and enjoying, whether they're living there or working there, or indeed, just visiting. That's where the value is really driven through into a place.

Selina Mason:

And so, again, if we go back to Elephant Park, I think the quality of the park in the middle, the way that we really focus the investment in that, and the way that we've built the buildings around it so that they're orientated towards it and make that the real centerpiece. That's the thing that's really driving a lot of the value there, definitely.

Richard Vernon:

So, Bek, taking your York example, is that how it's applied? Is that how the sort of cost-value analysis worked for you and has that ended up in that place?

Bek Seeley:

Yeah. There's probably a couple of aspects to that. So, placemaking can cost if you're focused on a particular individual piece of it, and I think sometimes in design and sort of enthusiasm, that can be a bit of getting over carried away with it. I think you've got to look at the whole thing. And Selina and I often have conversations around things like quality of materials, et cetera. You do need some things that are features, but you also need everything to be to a reasonable standard in totality of the place and how that's done. So, I think looking at the whole investment, and how you're working, that is really key.

Bek Seeley:

Otherwise, there are some places where, and I wouldn't want to name them, but certainly, not ours, I'd hope, that people got a bit carried away in one area and five years later run out of money, and that doesn't work. It's kind of fairly obvious. So, I think it's thinking through and planning your investment, particularly on a long scheme over the totality of it, and York, I think, has done that. We've kind of evolved it phase by phase. We didn't kind of start in one form, and then kind of switch and all the rest of it to go through.

Bek Seeley:

And then the other thing that I'd probably just say around that, which I think York probably does share, is that because it's a scheme that's been going quite a long time, it's about how you maintain that place. We all know the challenges around historically, for example, sort of public center funding of public realm in city centers, town centers, so it's no use putting in a great place that there is then no commercial durable model to fund and maintain. You may as well have not done it. So, having that model in place and working through what you can afford to maintain at the start is absolutely key, I think, to the enduring outcome.

Richard Vernon:

So, in terms of design, yeah, a slightly unfair question, what more are you getting out of the place?

Bek Seeley:

For me, so, I mean, it's a very easy example, right? So, you will need drainage in the place. Very unglamorous. I've probably spent far too long in pipes myself looking at stuff in my career, but you do need it. And you can think about how you design your drainage to also be a great place in terms of use of materials and how that public realm and the spaces between buildings works with things like gravel or the sustainable drainage things. And that's more than just a nice pretty picture and a nice garden, it's actually saving you money in terms of what heavy infrastructure you might alternatively have to put in to remove excess water from the site. So, it's a combination of yes, design, and the focus on that, but also, the integration of engineering and infrastructure and all those tasks to bring it together, which then, ultimately, can help get a commercial proposition that can work.

Selina Mason:

That's a really good example, and the other thing that I was going to talk about was the fact that actually, it's something that we're learning about all of the time, as well. It's not just something we kind of have a methodology for and can deliver. So, for instance, at Elephant Park, the original master plan that was drafted was going to remove all of the trees there and listening to the people in the early stages when they said, they threw up their hands in horror, "You can't possibly do this. We've got these glorious, glorious ... They're London Plane Trees over 100 years old." And we listened to them. We revisited the master plan, redrafted it so that we could retain the vast majority of these trees. And what we've learnt. Trees, just like historic buildings, are kind of part of the fabric of a place. And if you pay attention to what people are telling you about somewhere, and you pay attention to the place itself, you really do start to learn what's of value there already. Why take away those valuable components when you can keep them.

Selina Mason:

And I think if you do go to visit Elephant Park now, the fact that we've got mature trees throughout the scheme really lifts it. It makes it something quite incredible and unusual relative to some of our competing schemes in neighboring areas. And that's just, again, the big lesson there is just listen. Pay attention to what people are telling about what they value locally, and if you start there, you're always going to start in a good place then.

Richard Vernon:

Trees. That's an interesting link to, actually, my next thought, which was around the wider question of net zero, but also linking into health and well-being and also, ESG being right at the top of everyone's agenda. Placemaking has had to evolve or will have to evolve to meet those agendas. From your perspective, how has that happened so far, and where next? How is placemaking going to evolve to meet those agendas?

Selina Mason:

I think from kind of design and master planning perspective, certainly health and well-being is now becoming a really important part of how we think about a place. We're really recognizing, and the pandemic has been a big, big wake-up call for people. I think it's been really obvious the way in which where you've been living, the kind of quality of place, what access to amenity you've had has a major impact upon your well-being during that period. We heard a lot about people who were living in densely-packed housing, having to use public transport to get into jobs. Key workers who were much more likely to suffer the consequences of getting COVID in the early days than people who are more able to work at home, more easy access to open space, and the opportunities to improve your health and well-being through that. It was so obvious how the built environment was having. It was the consequence of the way that it was built was having a major impact on people's quality of life. And that, I think, is something that is really going to become an important part of how we build and design places in the future.

Selina Mason:

Recognizing that an equitable place, you do have to think really carefully about how you can create places that everyone can live in, they all have access to amenity, everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy life. And a lot of that is about public realm and access to open space, definitely, as well as having a good quality home.

Richard Vernon:

Bek, from your perspective, I know on that sort of topic, we've obviously worked together on the Thamesmead proposal or project, how have you seen or how do you think the green agenda's going to apply say, on a project, like Thamsmead?

Bek Seeley:

So, Thamsmead, I think, has the opportunity because it's very, very long term. Multiple generations will probably grow up in Thamsmead while we're developing out Thamsmead waterfront. To really kind of sort of in a way be Petri dish of experimentation as it evolves through, with the ideas that hopefully, some of those will really make a difference, not just in Thamsmead, but internationally in other big schemes.

Bek Seeley:

So, because, I think, if anyone thinks they've got all the answers to what we need to do, then I kind of feel like they're kidding us, then I think you have to have the confidence to experiment and fail, and I think Thamsmead has the opportunity that there is so much potential that you can have a go. And some things will work really well, and some things, kind of technologies won't be quite what we thought they were, et cetera, but you can still move on and you can recover that position and be very successful in the long term.

Bek Seeley:

I think that's much harder to do on sort of small, more short-term schemes where you're not going to be there very long and you really need to know it's going to work. So, Thamsmead, I think, has the opportunity to take a leadership role in how you work through what a new place can look and feel like in a modern world that is sustainable. And, I think, probably, if you look at it, as well, I mean, it's sort of helpful in its geographic position in that it's very kind of focused on green and how you can use those green spaces to support quite an intensive community, but they can feel very, I guess, the simple word is wild, given that it's still on the edge of London.

Bek Seeley:

And also, I think, the fact Thamsmead is on the river, I'm not sure we've yet seen the full extent of how, particularly topical at the moment, energy will evolve over the next 10, 20, 30 years. And so the fact that you have the Thames sat next to it, the fact that you have a large amount of open space, I feel that that offers a lot of opportunity for those ideas to really come to bear in the future on that scheme.

Richard Vernon:

It's interesting, isn't it? A lot of this conversation is it comes back to communities. You use the word communities, and we talked about the importance of it, of people, not just bricks and mortar, and that, obviously, brings into bear the concepts of socio-economic benefits, which again, is one of those expressions that's talked about a lot. And I know embedded in the Lendlease principles is a quote from your founder which was around the emphasis placed on the environmental and social impact, rather than just straight economics, which I think is a brilliant quote. What examples have you seen in practice that shows that socio-economic benefit really can be delivered in the schemes that you've done?

Bek Seeley:

I think if you don't have those examples, Richard, then I'm not sure the scheme is successful and is a really high-quality place. So, just from a general perspective, I'm not sure how you deliver that great place outcome if you don't have socio-economic benefits that are often really valuable mean something. I think, probably, an example, I was just around our own learning [inaudible 00:16:23] is that for many years, Lendlease has really focused on how we open up construction jobs to the local community on all of our schemes. I think the challenge with long-term schemes is you can for a significant periods of people's lives, all they look is at what you're doing and just think you're a building site, what am I getting out of this? And, therefore, being able to offer those benefits back to a community early is really critical in feeling like the equation is more balanced.

Bek Seeley:

I think what we've learned though is very much the focus on those socio-economic benefits, not just being associated with a scheme and the presence of a scheme because by definition then there's a view that they turn off as soon as the building's finished. And therefore, what we've learned to do with our approach which is very much put a lot of our effort into not just employing people to help us construct and do things on those schemes, but over train them and over provide career coaching and additional help around how you make that job a career, so that when there is no longer a job with us because we've finished, then you actually are really well-equipped to move on into that career, and that's kind of a long-lasting lifetime benefit for a family of somebody with a career, not just a job. And that's a challenging thing.

Bek Seeley:

But working with our supply chain to make sure that people have opportunities after we finished because obviously, the supply chain is working for the people. That, to me, feels like if we can get ourselves there, then that's a real long-term benefit for the community that started with something on the scheme but is then much bigger.

Richard Vernon:

Selina, coming back to Elephant Park, how have you seen in a scheme that's in the making still, after 10 years, but how have you seen that socio-economic benefits show itself?

Selina Mason:

Yeah, as Bek was saying, we've been focusing a lot, not just on short-term jobs, but also medium and long-term, as well. So, there, we've, as well as helping in terms of construction jobs, we've also been looking at local businesses, as well. So, we set up a meanwhile space called Artworks where we had local businesses housed in there as a hub with business support. Many of those businesses that were in that meanwhile use have now moved into providing services along our streets in Elephant Park. So, particularly, food and beverage. We've got some great examples of home-grown small businesses that are now building, growing, and taking on more shops in localities as well as the ones on Sayer Street in Elephant Park.

Selina Mason:

And I think that's where it's really important to focus on, as well as focusing on short, medium, and long-term in terms of bricks and mortar, if you're focusing on business development and economic development over that period as well, you can make thoughtful decisions. Again, very focused on the actual community there and what's there, and how you can build more economic vitality into a place using the scheme as the kind of leverage for that and the opportunity for that.

Selina Mason:

And it's something that we have to kind of think about on every scheme in a slightly different way. And the challenges that we're facing as we move towards trying to achieve zero carbon in our development, for instance, with reflecting on what Bek was saying about construction jobs, one of the big challenges about zero carbon is it kind of feels fairly obvious, the best thing to do is probably to Massachusetts produce, probably to build newer buildings in factories offsite somewhere and ship them in, and ship the components in and assemble them onsite, which obviously, will mean fewer jobs on site. So, I think, thinking carefully about how we tackle those kind of those mass production issues, and how can we still obtain that opportunity to generate great jobs locally during construction whilst we're still also bringing in mass production?

Selina Mason:

So, probably it isn't about building great big chunks of buildings and putting them on a lorry and bringing them in, probably, it's actually about buying mass producing smaller pieces and bringing them to site and assembling them onsite. And actually, just starting to create quite high-quality jobs onsite as we assemble that.

Selina Mason:

And thinking, too, about who does those jobs. Traditionally, in construction, it's always been the big burley men who you've needed onsite to do the jobs, but actually, increasingly, if we're looking at mass production then you get a wider opportunities for much broader section of society, particularly women, for instance, who you don't see anywhere near enough of in building sites.

Selina Mason:

So, I think, all of these things, it's a constant learning exercise. It's constant questioning and challenge to ourselves, are we doing the right thing? Is this the best way to do this in this place given where we find ourselves and the community we're in and some of the future challenges?

Richard Vernon:

But you've both talked about some investment for the long-term, which is fantastic, and I understand how you, on the one hand, have to look at the cost of delivering the place today, the development costs we've already talked about, but also, the challenge is, Bek, you mentioned the challenges of then how is that place looked after? We can build wonderful public realm, but how is it then funded? Who's going to look after that place going forward? What's the role of Social Impact Funds and investment into that in relation to looking after those spaces going forward?

Bek Seeley:

I would say, at the moment, a huge opportunity, nowhere near developed enough as to how the role of those sorts of funds may work. So, from a sort of Lendlease perspective, I think, the custodianship of the place in the future is critical, as we talked about. Having a position where you can have an investment model, but it's as driven by those socio-economic outcomes and valuing those as much as kind of the stable financial return. Is this kind of a perfection where you think well, that might be on the way to kind of getting to something that feels pretty good. I think a challenge historically in the market on some of the kind of more established areas on these sorts of funds is building property and development is not low risk, and how do you get the risk appetite of those sort of investors to match off with the actual inherent risk in building and construction, constructing large places, and selling and renting large amounts of real estate. But I think we're exploring quite a lot of how, particularly on things like managing an estate, that could be a really significant role for those sorts of funds.

Bek Seeley:

I think we've seen Community Land Trust for a while that an evolution of that can be very much a kind of socio-economic impact assessment fund type model, so there's work going on on how that may evolve into the future, I think, in the industry, but definitely, Lendlease is looking at that. I think we all aspire to places that are inclusive and mixed with high degrees of affordable housing as well, but that necessarily means then we need to think even harder about how the maintenance and management costs of those places are going forward? So, it drives you to think creatively around that.

Bek Seeley:

I think there's also some really interesting positions that are coming through from what you might say is some more mainstream investors. So, no mainstream investor, I think, doesn't care about social impact now. So, much as though three or four years ago you may have thought that these sorts of models et cetera, probably you'd have to go to a bespoke type of investor. I think the mainstream investor market is moving towards it, so sort of coalescing over the recent years. I see a big opportunity, Richard, I think there will be some things that go right in that, and there will be some things that aren't quite as good as they should've been and we need to learn and move forwards. But, I think, the focus on that as an alignment model for how you manage successfully commercially places in the long term, but also do not lose focus on that social outcome is critical.

Richard Vernon:

What I'd like to do then is ask you both for your predictions for both the main changes we're going to see in placemaking looking forward, but also the challenges which are going to be faced in placemaking? Selina, if I could perhaps ask you first.

Selina Mason:

All right. Well, predictions, how clear are we about how they're going to be? But anyway, I can certainly tell you what my kind of nervousness about going forward, or where I think things might be. We've talked about health and well-being, certainly that's something that's going to be an increasing part to how we build places and think about them, design them, there's no doubt about that. The other thing I think we don't talk enough about and that is something that is having major impact on the way that we use cities and we think about places is the digital economy. And not in the sense that new jobs in the digital world, we need to build places for those things like that, but actually, most people will recognize as I start to say you can pick up your phone and you can order anything quickly, whether it's food, or whether it's from Amazon, or whatever, and that's having a huge impact on the way that our public realm is being used.

Selina Mason:

So, if you just go down your high street and you walk past any F and B outlet, you'll see the guys waiting out there with their helmets on waiting for deliveries, taking up quite a lot of room, and creating a very different street scene than we would've been used to a few years ago. Or equally, you might have a neighbor who rents out their house to Airbnb. So, the fact that we're now deploying our urban resources through the digital world is having a huge effect on the way that we use and experience urban places. Basically, those digital platforms are pushing their negative externalities onto the public realm largely or onto you as a person living in the place and your neighbors doing something with Airbnb [inaudible 00:27:24]. And I think that that's something that we're not really tuning into very carefully around how we design places.

Selina Mason:

And certainly, from a Lendlease perspective, we're aware of the impact. We're now often worried as we design our streets, where are the delivery guys going to be? How is this restaurant going to be able to serve people on the street, have a lovely experience sitting outside and eating, whilst at the same time, obviously, also, providing delivery services? Which they need to do because that's the business model now. So, all these questions about how you can accommodate all this stuff. And, of course, a lot of it is unknown. Five, 10 years ago, we had no idea this was going to have such a big impact. And if there's one thing I know about the way we're using our phones, that's going to carry on changing. The change is probably going to be exponential, and being alert to that and being able to ... Given as Bek was saying, we're delivering these places over 10s of years, how can we make sure we're agile in that context as our cities change in response to this?

Selina Mason:

That's my big worry about the future. I mean, it's sort of a prediction and a sort of anxiety there for you.

Richard Vernon:

Bek, how about you?

Bek Seeley:

Okay, I'm going to go with a positive outcome from the pandemic, which I think is the focus on localism. So, not totally everywhere, but I think in many places you're seeing people discovered their communities for the first time, people learned each other's names in their streets. There was a lot of good things that came out of a pretty awful period. And I think, generally, people don't want to lose that. There's also some really interesting things that if you look big picture going on, may drive certain things in terms of helping with the sustainability perspective, but also, they really drive focus on localism. So, for example, the fact that petrol costs so much now. Well, people don't want to drive and can't drive because it's so expensive. What that focuses on is why is your workplace so far from your home? Why is it not possible that your workplace could be a cycle ride or walking distance because then you also would be doing a much more sustainable outcome for the environment, but it would cost you less and you wouldn't be using energy.

Bek Seeley:

I think the, for me, looking at big picture, what do you mean by your local community and how that evolves? I think there's going to be a huge amount of real focus on it. But also, some of the macro trends, if it interacts in the right way might really help us. So, the cost of energy is crippling at the moment, but it will have behavioral change because it has to because it is so high, and that, I think, offers us opportunity in a positive sense. And, yeah, it's certainly no pleasant right now for the consequences it's having, but we have to continue to drive change. And we can prove that you can come through a pandemic and drive positive outcomes, that does show that the world can adapt.

Richard Vernon:

Fantastic. Well, thank you both. And my takeaway from today is really centered focus on people in communities. When I asked the question and right at the top of this, what do we actually mean by placemaking, yes, we can talk about vertical building, we can talk about bricks and mortar, but actually, that success is around the people, that the measure of success is around the community and people. And, Bek, you're just picking up then, in terms of the potential change in the way in which we see our communities and staying and working within our communities as a positive outcome potentially of the pandemic, again, it centers back to people in communities which is obviously fantastic.

Richard Vernon:

So, thank you very much for joining us today. Selina, thank you. Great to see you.

Selina Mason:

Thank you. Thank you very much. It was lovely to be here.

Richard Vernon:

Bek, thank you for your time.

Bek Seeley:

Thank you very much for having us.

Richard Vernon:

A great conversation and we'll no doubt continue the chat. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss the rest of our conversations on Reimagining Real Estate, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to leave us a rating or review. If you'd like to find out more about Ashurst, please visit ashurst.com. In the meantime, thanks very much for listening, and goodbye for now.