Global crises test the real-estate sector but Mipim’s mood was resolute
“How are you finding the mood this year?” People would ask as they came to the Monocle Radio booth at Mipim, the world’s largest real-estate fair, which concluded yesterday in Cannes. The question was prompted by events in the Gulf, which some guests feared were about to deter interest-rate cuts, trigger a surge in material costs and dampen any enthusiasm for investment risk – all just as things had been looking up. It was clear that, these days, our interviewees are reading reports from defence correspondents as much as the financial pages.
The Iran conflict was not the only issue causing furrowed brows. Architects and civic leaders also wanted to talk about the affordable-housing crisis hitting numerous cities across Europe. Ian Mulcahey, the global director of cities and urban design at architecture firm Gensler, also noted that it had become the biggest and knottiest issue for many of the places that he visits. “Every city we work in seems to have a housing crisis and I still can’t quite work out why. We, as a civilisation, haven’t figured out how to build enough homes for the people that live in our communities,” he says.
The starkness of the issue was underlined by London’s deputy mayor for housing and residential development, who revealed that while London is estimated to need an additional 88,000 housing units every year, last year the figure of new starts was closer to 4,000. Mipim, as part of its Housing Matters event that kicks off the week, sought to put leaders from Barcelona to The Hague on stage who could offer solutions – but there is clearly much work to be done.
Others who visited Monocle were feeling far more optimistic, even sensing some positive changes for the industry. Giorgos Karampelas, creative director at Athens-anchored K-Studio, told us that his company’s take on luxury – free of fuss, using materials well, focusing on a sense of place – was finding new audiences far beyond Greece’s borders.
Snøhetta’s co-founder Kjetil Thorsen said that his prestigious architectural practice was only working with clients keen to raise the bar on genuine sustainability, such as Mehmet Kalyoncu, the developer behind the Ion Riva project on the Black Sea. “I don’t think we’ve ever [conducted] this amount of studies on a particular piece of land,” said Thorsen. “We now know everything – even how the smallest drop of water is moving down the hill. We want to enhance these qualities, let nature tell us where to build and where not to build.”
It was also interesting to see how national confidence was robust in some places, especially in southern Europe. Numerous Italian mayors, for example, were present at the event and throughout the week, we hosted the leaders of Rome and Genoa. Each talked about how they were witnessing a moment of generational change as their cities became centres of technology and innovation, sought to attract talent and deliver on sustainability ambitions. Raffaele Laudani, the deputy mayor for urban planning of Bologna, explained how his city is positioning itself.
“Bologna has become a key strategic European hub for big data and artificial intelligence. We are hosting the second strongest supercomputer in the world for AI, the so-called Leonardo, and around it a new ecosystem of knowledge and technology is emerging,” says Laudani. “We have 80 per cent of the computing capacity of the country and almost 30 per cent of the European one. And now there is a [network] of research centres and the operating university. We are redefining the overall policies around this flagship project that we call the City of Knowledge.”
Though the mood this week was a little strained in places, this is an industry that plans for the long-term and is accustomed to riding out geopolitical squalls. Plus, many opportunities – from data centres (the sessions on this sector were standing room only) to the needs of ageing societies – are not going away. Perhaps that’s why most people left the Palais de Festivals in Cannes looking resolute, even if they were keen to secure a soothing glass of rosé on the Croisette before heading home to everywhere from Berlin to Baku.
Andrew Tuck is Monocle’s editor in chief. To hear more from Monocle Radio’s guests this week at Mipim, listen to the latest episode of ‘The Urbanist’. There will also be a second show from Cannes next week.
