Issues

Figures revitalising a 1980s mall and lifting a San Francisco landmark to new heights

the chairman
Charn Srivikorn
Gaysorn Property, Thailand

March sees the reopening of Bangkok’s Amarin Plaza after an extensive renovation. Renamed Gaysorn Amarin, the 1980s shopping mall, flanked by postmodern Grecian columns, sits in Ratchaprasong, the Thai capital’s retail centre. Landowner Gaysorn Property bought back the building’s lease in 2007, and, after exploring several different plans, it is set to become the final part of a trio of buildings that make up Gaysorn Village.

The initiative is led by chairman Charn Srivikorn. Originally an investment banker, he took over the family business after the Asian financial crisis in 1997. He first worked with Hong Kong Land to redevelop Bangkok shopping mall Gaysorn Centre in a union brokered by LVMH brands. He then went on to build Gaysorn Tower, the most sought-after office space in Thailand.

Srivikorn’s family ties to the area go back to the 19th century and his siblings work alongside him as caretakers of the neighbourhood (twin brother Chai was instrumental in the construction of Ratchaprasong’s elevated walkway, which connected the district’s shopping malls, offices and hotels with the skytrain, transforming the visitor experience).

A respected figure in Asian property circles, Srivikorn describes himself as an urbanist rather than a retailer. He wants Gaysorn Amarin to be a lounge where the entire district can “mingle” – a favourite word. At 62, he has no intention of slowing down (despite nursing a stubborn pickleball injury), with his sights set on developing other parts of Bangkok.

Did you ever consider knocking down Amarin Plaza?
We did. The first scheme with architecture firm Aedas involved merging Amarin Plaza with our neighbouring building, Maneeya. We decided not to redevelop in the end because there’s too much supply in Bangkok. By renovating, we can operate at a lower cost to the competition and still provide quality. And we can always redevelop later, when the market normalises, which we think will take another 10 to 20 years.

Gaysorn will be operating a lot more of the space inside. Why?
Brands used to be the activators of traffic and there was the seasonality of spring/summer and autumn/winter retail and fashion seasons. But today, Louis Vuitton needs to change its visual merchandising every two to four weeks. Smaller brands don’t have the same resources and that creates a gap. So yes, we have had to move from b2b to be more B2C, but we are looking more at placemaking and activating space, not retailing. Activation can come from a civic space and urban areas can be designed to [bring life to] a place or drive a retailing programme.

Louis Vuitton is back as one of your anchor tenants. How did this relationship reignite?
That wasn’t intentional. We had planned for a speciality concept store. But when they heard what we were doing, they came to us. It’s going to be different; they’re not calling it a shop. Louis Vuitton loves to innovate and I think this concept will be a first in Asia. We used to work with a number of their brands at Gaysorn Centre but LVMH changed its strategy more than a decade ago and they needed a bigger floor plate. We didn’t have the space, so they have their flagship stores in Iconsiam, Siam Paragon and Emporium.

You operate a number of residential buildings too. Why did you venture into this alongside retail development?
It’s fun. Also, we can make an impact by bringing in what we’ve learned on the commercial side. Retail is more than just a collection of brands. The way we think and design the customer journey and experience can be applied to residential, which is all about creating the environment for people to enjoy living.

Are your residential developments the biggest revenue contributor?
Well, our latest residential project, Tela Thonglor, generated about THB4bn [€104m] in revenue but that’s project-based. It’s not annualised. The revenue for our mixed-use properties last year was about THB1bn [€26m]; we closed the retail in Amarin. This year it should be about THB1.3bn [€33m] and eventually around THB1.6bn [€41m].

How do you feel about 2024 compared to last year?
Much better. The curve is going up. But looking ahead at 2025 to 2030, we are facing a different geopolitical environment and a lot more unknowns. I went up to Everest Base Camp in search of answers and I came to this conclusion: we invest to improve people’s lives and as long as we are doing that, we are adding value.

Any worries for the coming year?
My wife wants me to spend more time with her but I am not ready to do that just yet.
gaysornproperty.com

Markets to watch

Hong Kong: Best for new homes
While many cities, such as Paris and Berlin, struggle to cope with demand for property, Hong Kong’s supply of new homes reached a record high in 2023. Though these tend to be concentrated on Hong Kong Island because of a lack of terrain suitable for construction further afield, a new initiative that taps into private land is opening up a host of possibilities.

Valencia: Best for rental returns
Investing in rental property is particularly lucrative in the laid-back Spanish city of Valencia, averaging a yield of more than 7 per cent. And while demand is already greater than in Madrid or Barcelona, it’s still growing. Overseas real-estate investment and high availability have helped to drive this boom.

Zürich: Best for co-op housing
Switzerland’s largest city has a long history of supporting non-profit housing. That’s why one in five multi-residential buildings are run by private co-operatives (known by the catchy moniker of Wohnbaugenossenschaft). Unlike in most European cities, Zürich’s co-operatives are not subsidised. They instead follow the municipal government’s century-old formula for calculating rents, ensuring a consistently low rate. Residents are so satisfied that no co-operatives have ever opted out of the model.

Tokyo: Best for retail space
Bricks-and-mortar retail across the globe is on the up and Tokyo is leading the way. Not only does it boast one of the most attractive prime rent-to-GDP ratios but Tokyoites still have a strong attachment to physical retail. This makes it one of the world’s most attractive cities for brands looking to set up shop.

Dubai: Best for hospitality
A buoyant tourism industry in the most-visited Emirate has created significant demand for hospitality spaces in recent years. Even better, the relatively straightforward process of setting up a business in Dubai means that investors are increasingly keen to back new hospitality ventures there.

the co-founders
Lyndsay Caleo Karol and Bill Caleo
The Brooklyn Home Company, USA

Too often, developers are happy to ignore aesthetic and social values to boost their bottom line. The Brooklyn Home Company, based in New York, is trying to do things differently. It was founded in 2007 when real-estate developer Bill Caleo asked his sister, Lyndsay Caleo Karol, and her husband, Fitzhugh Karol, to help him design a property he had bought. The company specialises in renovating and constructing residences according to sustainable principles, integrating art and design features from local creative talent.

How do you do things differently?
Bill Caleo: Developers get a bad reputation for their history of abandoning projects once they’re complete, leaving new homeowners confused and worried. We consciously label all our projects as The Brooklyn Home Company properties, because we want to stand by our developments. I wouldn’t say we’re perfect – issues do come up. But we make sure to take care of our customers.

We also try to do things the right way by surrounding ourselves with craft, supporting local artists. We also focus on the carbon footprint of our buildings. Many years ago, we started studying passive house-building techniques. It involves super-insulating buildings and bringing in filtered fresh air. This lowers carbon emissions and eliminates fossil fuels from the picture.

How did your approach of working with local artisans develop?
Lyndsay Caleo Karol: When we first started out, my husband Fitzhugh and I were in art school at Rhode Island School of Design, so we know a lot of craftspeople, from woodworkers to metalsmiths.

We work with young artists who are still in a discovering phase in their careers. But we also work with older master craftsmen. For 608 5th Street, a Brooklyn townhouse project, we worked with the third generation of a Polish family who are master stair builders. When we come to a project, we often think we know exactly what kind of materials we want to use. But we always learn by working with master craftspeople like them.

What are the challenges when it comes to developing on a residential scale according to passive house principles?
LCK: I’ve leaned on details from historical buildings – architecture from 100 years ago – to create a certain type of romance, an air of nostalgia. Features like fireplaces and gas ranges do create a sense of intimacy. But they’re highly polluting. So I have to focus on creating that sense of warmth through natural materials. Having said that, we’re now seeing the development of induction ranges that are ecologically sustainable.

BC: In our early days, our customers demanded gas ranges. But people are embracing induction now and changing their perspective on what can be considered beautiful and high-end. We’re seeing a shift.
thebrooklynhomecompany.com

the developer
Michael Shvo
Transamerica Pyramid

The flight of businesses and workers from central San Francisco has turned one of America’s most productive cities into a case study in downtown decay. Look a little closer, however, and the green shoots are hard to miss: major investments are happening again in the urban core and the soon to reopen, skyline-defining office tower, Transamerica Pyramid, is a beacon for this revival. It’s also a billion-dollar bet on the city’s office property market.

“The Pyramid is a symbol of San Francisco, no different from the cable cars and the Golden Gate Bridge,” says Michael Shvo, the Israeli-born developer who snapped up the building in 2020 for $600m (€550m). Shvo (pictured) brought in architecture studio Foster + Partners to give his 48-storey modernist skyscraper a top-to-toe refurbishment, ahead of its reopening this quarter. “We’re upgrading the building for the next 60 years,” says Shvo.

Most floors of the Pyramid have been turned into offices and, according to the developer, 80 per cent of these were leased ahead of completion, mostly to venture funds, law firms and San Francisco’s growing cadre of artificial-intelligence companies. A restaurant and skybar are in the works, along with a members’ club by New York institution, Core.

The Foster + Partners team have sought to turn the ground floor into a public plaza, opening up the lobby to the surrounding streets and boulevards with vast and inviting windows, while making space for a coffee shop, architectural bookshop and florist. “My goal here is really to activate the entire city block,” says Shvo, who envisions the Pyramid’s base as a thoroughfare connecting and enlivening multiple neighbourhoods downtown. “We want people to have a reason to come here that’s not just for work.”

Enticing those people back to downtown, however, is going to be a challenge. Shoplifting and flagrant drug use continue to plague San Francisco’s image and the city has been slow to address a dramatic rise in rough sleepers. The city is on the mend but it will take a charm offensive to convince many that the centre is the place to be.

Monocle toured the Pyramid ahead of its reopening and the lobby is particularly impressive, with the diagonal beams that hold up the tower now revealed. The Transamerica campus also includes a spruced-up park of historic redwood trees along with a second tower nextdoor, which has been entirely gutted for a mixture of retail and office spaces, and an adjacent 1930s building that has been reskinned by the Foster team. Both are still some years from completion.

When the Transamerica Pyramid first opened in 1972, designed by William Pereira for the eponymous insurance firm, it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi River. Shvo often tells an anecdote about visiting San Francisco as a seven-year-old and drawing a picture of the building that he would one day own. He’s less enamoured, however, by many of the other blocks that dominate the city’s skyline. “The reason buildings are vacant is not because Twitter decided to cut space; it’s because these buildings are not functional any more or relevant to the needs of today’s tenants,” says Shvo. There is a flight to quality, he adds. “As long as tenants are provided the right kind of office space, they will come to work.”
shvo.com

Five property experts on how we can harness evolving landscapes

1.
The diverse business district

More bang for your buck
Céline Crestin

The high-rise office towers of the Parisian business district of La Défense are home to more than 500 companies and 180,000 office workers. The pandemic not only changed what the buildings are used for; there has also been a shift in what people want from their workspaces, including more common areas, multi-use spaces and access to good restaurants, shops and recreational activities. We have seen a shift towards co-living.

But the key to making sure that La Défense continues to grow and thrive is by mixing functions. Each building should have a floor that is open to the public. We’ve had much success with designing events, including exhibitions and festivals, that interest office workers, students and residents alike. We have been working together with businesses and residences to understand how this neighbourhood should look and function. It’s about bringing people into the area who might not have visited before. But it’s also about giving opportunities to office workers to experience the district in a different way. We hope that this approach will make La Défense the model for the business district of the future.

Since it was first established in the 1950s, Paris’s La Défense has defined not only the French capital’s skyline (it is home to the first skyscrapers built in the Paris metropolitan area) but also its financial markets. Crestin is the district’s chief strategy and sustainability officer and is responsible for making sure that the iconic neighbourhood hits its environmental goals.

2.
The role of the developer

Balancing act
Jin Lin

As a developer you have the opportunity to change city skylines. Because of this, the quality of buildings is something that we at Aqualand are very focused on. Once a building has been built, it’s a perpetual part of a city’s image, so the decisions you make during the development process need to be precise and you need to respect the land you’re building on.

I have the strong view that land is a one-time opportunity: if you deliver an ugly building, it will always look that way; if you deliver a beautiful building, it will always be beautiful. Buildings outlive humans and are like sculptures, works of art, that belong to the entire city. As such, developers have a responsibility to deliver projects that aren’t just suitable from an economic perspective but also have a long-term benefit to a city’s urban design.

Doing so requires patience. With Central Barangaroo in Sydney, for instance, one of Aqualand’s landmark projects, it took many years because we worked closely with the government. In the past, I’ve walked away from developments that completely worked at the feasibility level because I wasn’t satisfied with the overall urban design.

In Sydney, we also hope to address the city’s ongoing housing crisis through a new scheme that focuses on low-to-mid-rise projects. We recognised that large-scale developments typically take at least five years to come to fruition and so we are focusing on smaller, shorter projects. By entering this sector and completing boutique developments more quickly, we hope to free up and provide more housing stock.

Low to mid-rise development is exciting because they’re often mixed-use and community-focused. We see our buildings as hardware and the local businesses and projects that fill the developments and activate the precinct as the software. They’re both equally important.

Aqualand Group is an award-winning Australian owned and operated luxury property, hospitality and investment firm. Lin is the managing director and, over the course of a decade in the role, has overseen a slew of major projects overlooking Sydney’s iconic harbour.

3.
The importance of being prepared

Game plan
Caleb Dunn

What has previously built wealth and property portfolios has been the mindset that if we put a few million pounds, dollars or euros into a particular transaction, then review tenants’ rent every five years, income will go up and up. As a result, detailed scenario planning was often put in the “too hard” basket and the outlook that, “Hey, we’ve done this before, we know how to succeed,” was prevalent.

But that’s all had to shift due to new and different demands in the market. You have the “hotelification” of the office and expectations for services to come with apartments, so the return for investors is far different. Before, particularly in commercial properties, you could be very hands-off and make a lot of gains. But the expectations from tenants or clients are now extremely different.

Owners and investors now need to be even more prepared for a situation to change rapidly. Tools are needed to quickly assess things like rapid increases in interest rates and delayed development time, which affect borrowing costs. Having scenario planning completed is important. For instance, as an owner, would you know what you’re going to do if a tenant does leave? Are you prepared to take on development risk and change the use of the building? Or are you going to put in a concierge and amenities, which is going to increase your chances of getting a higher rent, and increase your return on an investment?

By thinking these things through, rather than just relying on the traditional outlook that property is a super-solid investment – and the mindset that, “We’re always going to have a tenant in this building because commercial real estate is a safe bet” – owners can be proactive, rather than reactive, and not risk losses when circumstances change. This is why being agile and planning for downside – as well as upside – is extremely important. Today, what got you here won’t necessarily get you there.

After working in property and technology for nearly a decade, Dunn co-founded Pantera, noticing his clients’ need for software that could quickly and accurately create robust cash flows and investment models – his proprietary software does just that.

4.
The downtown scene

Focal points
François Trausch

Since March 2020 people have been concerned about what to do with their office space. My initial hypothesis, near the start of the pandemic, was that if you drew a concentric circle of 5km around each city centre, the office buildings within that ring would probably do well and those outside it would struggle.

We now know that in Europe and in Asia this is mostly true: tenants congregate towards the inner city, choosing to give up suburban offices. But this hypothesis was wrong in the US. In city centres in the likes of San Francisco, the downtown is struggling. This problem stems from the fact that, in the US, commutes are typically longer, which means the question for office owners is, “Does my building and its neighbourhood earn my commute?” If not, people tend to stay at home.

In Europe, businesses aren’t facing this challenge: people tend to need to be huddled together to solve problems and work. Despite this, the average occupancy of an office is 50 per cent over the course of a week – at peak times it’s 70 per cent but on Fridays as low as 20 per cent. This means that you still have to cater for that peak period.

So offices are still essential. We need to think about what we do with them outside peak times; how we can make them earn the commute. Do we put a playground on the roof or does the space find another use at night? It’s about making sure that the buildings in our cities are appealing and used for different purposes.

Trausch is managing director of Pimco and CEO of Pimco Prime Real Estate. He is regularly on the Mipim jury and is a global trustee of the Urban Land Institute.

5.
The local champion

Community service
Olaide Oboh

It’s a travesty that in some of our major cities we’re creating significant developments and the local community doesn’t benefit positively from them. At Socius we have made people, not just property, our business. We realised that, as a developer, we can have an effect on people’s lives that goes beyond just housing them; we have the ability to address the health inequalities that individuals and communities face and to create education opportunities.

One of the bigger challenges you face as a developer is addressing ingrained, multi-generational issues. For instance, we’re working in Cambridge: to the surprise of many, it’s one of the most unequal cities in the UK, with significant levels of deprivation. To try to turn this around, we have put boots on the ground, meeting the community to understand what the issues are and identifying which people we need to work with to address them. It’s important for us to build such connections before construction. And once the buildings are built, we don’t walk away. We continue to create the right infrastructure so that the buildings and community can continue to thrive over the long term.

All of this is looking to address the element of mistrust associated with developers. It’s not just PR; it’s about credibility.

Oboh is an executive director at Socius, a property developer that focuses on building relationships with partners and developing mixed-use neighbourhoods.

Plaza Gomila – the colourful construction reviving the former beating heart of Palma de Mallorca

The neighbourhood of El Terreno, especially its epicentre at Plaza Gomila, was once the beating heart of nightlife in Palma de Mallorca. In the 1960s and 1970s it had a joyful, sunny disposition that pulled in visitors and performers alike: Jimi Hendrix and Tom Jones are both reputed to have strutted their stuff here (not together, mind). But then, as mass tourism boomed, a wall of hotels rose ever higher along the Paseo Maritimo, the boulevard that divides the district from the sea, creating a barrier that denuded the views, killed the vibe and pushed people away from the El Terreno strip. Clubs got tackier, bars closed, drug dealing became commonplace. Today? It’s reclaiming its old spirit, in part thanks to the island’s Fluxà family, the owners of the Camper shoe business.

Miguel Fluxà is a fourth-generation member of the Camper business. Now, along with his wider family and the foundations that they run, he is the developer of a standout project at Plaza Gomila, a point where several roads intersect. Designed by local firm Gras Reynés Arquitectos and MVRDV from the Netherlands (the in-demand Guillermo Reynés once worked for the Dutch studio, hence the connection), it’s a series of seven buildings, all in different hues and materials (from tile façades by Mallorca-brand Huguet to locally made pressed-earth bricks) and with varied roof lines to keep things interesting.

This dazzling intervention of reformed buildings (including one of the island’s first brutalist blocks, now painted dazzling white) and newly built elements is a miniature town in itself, with homes to rent, a supermarket, flower shop, café, restaurant, a just-added bakery and offices for Gras Reynés Arquitectos.

Fluxà explains the family’s motivation. “Tourism [on the island] started here; singers and celebrities used to come here,” he says. “It’s part of the history. We thought that it was possible to revive the neighbourhood – to make it more like it was and do something good for the city.” Fluxà says that the project has also demanded flexibility and an acceptance that when you have seven buildings to develop, you have to wait to see where it leads. In terms of motivation, he’s wary of using the “legacy” word. “I don’t care whether people know that we’re involved. We are just giving something back to where we come from.”

Monocle tours the project with Guillermo Reynés, who arrives on his bicycle – a mode of transport that matches the project’s success in being designed to Passive House standards, employing cross winds and external blinds to keep rooms cool and shaded. Reynés explains the colours that punctuate the scheme – a nod, he says, to the Mediterranean location and a neighbourhood that’s equally colourful. He also reveals his deep connection to the area: not only does he have a home nearby; he came here to party as a young man, in the very building that now hosts his offices.

The developer and architects have changed the course of the down-on-its-luck plaza and have created something that serves the people of El Terreno. And while the economics are, of course, a key consideration, it is also clear that all involved want to do something to aid their hometown. To make a difference.

Great expectations 
The project is pulling in many new businesses and now other architects and developers are bringing abandoned buildings back to life. And new nightlife players have arrived, such as an outpost of the upscale Lio cabaret club. But opportunities remain for people wanting to be part of a community making a shift in fortunes for El Terreno.

Read next: The Monocle City Guide to Palma, featuring the best hotels, restaurants and retail spots in the Mallorcan capital

Six buildings from around the globe setting industry standards

From São Paulo to Tokyo, these six projects are setting a benchmark for developers. It can be easy to focus on the bottom line over the quality of the build but the two go hand in hand: smart design can ensure the longevity of a project, making it a smart investment.

best for heritage restoration
Boksto Skveras
Vilnius, Lithuania

It’s rare for developers to give architects the time and budget that a large-scale project requires. But Boksto 6, a mixed-use development in Vilnius, is one such case. Here, London-based architecture firm Studio Seilern was able to sensitively restore six buildings in the old town over the course of a decade. The original site had been derelict since the 1990s, when it was purchased in 2008 by Lithuanian retail entrepreneurs the Oritz brothers.

Vilnius is a Unesco World Heritage site so Studio Seilern – led by the firm’s founder Christina Seilern – needed local authorities to sign off on every detail. The first phase consisted of an archaeological excavation that lasted seven years. Layers of architectural styles spanning 500 years – from Gothic vaults to Baroque structures – were revealed, as well as the evolving function of the site; over the years it has served as a chapel and a hospital. 

This provided Studio Seilern with a visual language for the project, which consists of private residences and offices but also a health club and spa, a restaurant, chapel and performance space across the six buildings organised around a central courtyard. “We were fascinated by the history,” says Seilern. “We also took inspiration from the Alhambra in Spain, with polished steel insertions that mimic reflective pools.”

Since opening in 2022, Boksto 6 has reinvigorated a parcel of Vilnius’s city centre, sparking a wave of regeneration. How about that for a measure of a property development’s success?
studioseilern.com

best for apartment living
Onze22
São Paulo, Brazil

Completed in 2023 and towering above São Paulo’s tree canopy, it’s hard to miss apartment block Onze22. This product of Franco-Brazilian studio Triptyque Architecture was built by overlapping suspended slabs of concrete in a style reminiscent of early Brazilian modernist architecture. It is in the city’s Vila Madalena neighbourhood, its floor-to-ceiling windows and translucent façades offering residents a panorama of the cityscape from every natural-light-flooded apartment. 

For Triptyque’s co-founder, Guillaume Sibaud, Onze22 was a chance to explore how to integrate the natural environment in an urban building. “We’re in an urban area but Vila Madalena is a place characterised by lots of vegetation,” says Sibaud. “It was about inserting the building in that soil and letting nature move through it.”

Triptyque was established by a group of French and Brazilian associates in 2000 and is made up of two studios: one in Paris and one in São Paulo. The resulting back and forth between France and Brazil inspires the studio to experiment with different traditions. “Brazilian architecture has pushed the principles of modernism to the limits, composing spaces horizontally with slabs that allow movement without obstacles,” adds Sibaud. “Onze22 is really in line with this tradition”.

In addition to paying homage to the country’s architectural heritage, the structure also carefully strikes the balance between public and private space – an essential trait in any multi-residential structure – with the building set on pillars, elevating the ground floor apartments to ensure privacy. This sense of seclusion is enhanced by verdant gardens at the base, which provide screening from passersby. In addition to being able to wander through the gardens, residents can also enjoy communal amenities, from workspaces to a gym and rooftop pool. 

The result is a building whose tenants feel as though they are living in a grand house rather than an apartment – a key ambition in Triptyque Architecture’s work. “Giving house-like qualities to apartments keeps cities attractive, as dense but enjoyable spaces,” says Sibaud.
triptyque.com

best mixed-use development
Mercado
Groningen, The Netherlands

For many years, Rode Weeshuistraat, a street running through the Dutch city of Groningen’s northern quarter, languished in the shadows of the warehouses and shops that backed onto it. It’s a situation that Dutch developers MWPO and Beauvast have addressed, commissioning architects De Zwarte Hond and Loer Architecten to let light and life back into the city with the construction of a new building, Mercado, in 2023.

“We were working with a difficult legacy at the start,” says Frank Loer, founder of Loer Architecten. “Over the years, the warehouses in the centre of the city had become empty and unused, leaving the heart of Groningen full of vacant buildings. This applied to Rode Weeshuistraat in particular. We knew we had to transform the street.”

Working in collaboration, De Zwarte Hond and Loer Architecten set out to make their vision a reality. Step one was to demolish a building used for storage, before opening a new square and constructing the mixed-use structure. “We worked with the council to develop a narrative for the area centred around walking,” says Henk Stadens, partner at De Zwarte Hond. Keeping pedestrians and businesses in mind, Stadens, Loer and their teams brought together a mix of retail spaces on the ground floor of Mercado with 41 apartments built on the levels above.

Lush greenery overhangs the building’s boundaries, animating its exterior, while its stepped form means that it doesn’t overwhelm the street. “One thing we’ve noticed people appreciate about the building is its sense of generosity,” says Stadens. “The richness of the building, with its vegetation, the texture of its ceramic tiling and the variation in height captivates people. Often their reaction is just to come up to Mercado to touch it.”

Loer and Stadens are clear that the way for cities to develop isn’t to invest in sprawl but to look for density. “In many ways, urbanism comes above architecture for us,” says Loer. “If you want to change a city, it’s important to consider public space. Then you can think of buildings as actors in your quest to create those conversations and interactions.”
loerarchitecten.com; dezwartehond.nl

Q&A: Muyiwa Oki
Thinking big

Riba President Muyiwa Oki is an architect at construction consultancy Mace Group.

When Nigeria-born Muyiwa Oki assumed the mantle of president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba) in 2023, he made history, not just as the institute’s first black president but also as its youngest. His election was built on a campaign that aimed to, in his words, “have the voices of younger, emerging practitioners heard”. It’s an aim he is furthering at Mipim, as one of the jury members of its Challengers programme: an initiative that invites 16 young real-estate professionals to share visions for how to build a better world. 

Why get involved in a programme championing the perspectives of young people in property?
A key part of my work at Riba has been giving a platform for younger people to share perspectives on key issues in the built environment. That’s what I’m trying to do with the Challengers programme, in which young people write an essay suggesting solutions to the big issues – such as climate change or urban regeneration – and present at Mipim. We had more than 100 entrants from across the globe and selected 16 of them. Some of the ideas aren’t necessarily new but they’re left in the university curricula and aren’t broadcast to a wider audience, such as urban farming and how it could work in places like South America. Our hope is that people at Mipim see these as solutions to real-life problems and don’t stick to the status quo.

Why is it important to look for more of these radical solutions?
People are aware that the real estate, building and construction industry has an effect on the environment. About 40 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions come from construction. We want everyone to live as long as possible in prosperous communities, so we need solutions like these.

What are some of the steps we can take?
It’s about considering the notion of the triple bottom line: people, planet, profit. That has become common knowledge, so now it’s about how to make this happen – and do so in a sustainable way.

best cultural development
Haus 1 at Atelier Gardens
Berlin, Germany

“It’s a modest paint job,” says Jacob van Rijs, partner at Rotterdam-based architecture firm MVRDV. That is one way to characterise Haus 1, an eye-catching architectural addition to an industrial area in the south of Berlin. It has been given an upgrade and finished in sunshine yellow paint.

Step by step
By taking things slowly and involving the local community, developers Fabrix won over what can be a tricky city to build in.

Haus 1 is part of Atelier Gardens, a redevelopment of Berliner Union Film Ateliers (Bufa), the vast studios dating back to 1912 when Germany’s film industry was booming. In 2019, London-based developer Fabrix bought the site and commissioned a masterplan from Dutch studio MVRDV. Berlin is not known for welcoming foreign developers but Atelier Gardens has been met with enthusiasm. It hosts film festivals and launch parties, and thanks to means-tested rents, there is a diverse mix of tenants, from tech companies to micro-farming collectives. Fabrix also involved local stakeholders from the start. “We didn’t just show up with plans,” says its CEO, Clive Nichol. “We spent three years talking.” Haus 1 is proof that a grassroots approach can make even daring transformation easy.
mvrdv.com

best for the elderly
Charm Premier Grand nursing home
Tokyo, Japan

With nearly a third of its population of 125 million now over 65, Japan is leading the way in thinking about how best to meet the diverse needs of its senior citizens. Nikken Housing System, a Tokyo design and consultancy practice, specialises in the subject: it recently won the gold medal for residential projects at the Mipim Asia Awards, for the second phase of an upmarket nursing home in Tokyo it built with Mitsubishi Estate Residence.

With its balconies, picture windows and sleek wooden louvres, it’s apparent that Charm Premier Grand Gotenyama Nibankan is unlike most facilities for the elderly. “The feeling of ‘home’ can get lost amid the handrails and corner guards of nursing homes,” says architect Masahiro Suzaki, general manager of the design team at Nikken Housing System. There are double rooms for couples, cypress and stone baths, a premium food menu and 24-hour nursing. Other services include a concierge, yoga classes and dog therapy. 

The nursing home, in the leafy neighbourhood of Gotenyama, has 37 rooms that can be adapted to residents’ needs, with bathrooms and kitchens for those who want to live more independently. “We’ve tried to create an environment where residents can move in without feeling a major shift in their lifestyles,” says Suzaki. The design also allows for changes as care progresses and takes in the needs of nurses and wheelchair users. 

The dining room and lounge can be accessed from the street so that residents can come and go as they please and air circulates through open corridors, giving the interior a sense of the outdoors. While the home would be too high-end for many, the ideas here could be adapted to different settings. “Architecture can improve quality of life for the elderly,” says Suzaki.
charmcc.jp

best for social housing
Sunflower Houses
Vienna, Austria

For a fresh look at social housing, take a stroll through Sonnenblumenhäuser (German for Sunflower Houses) in Vienna. Part of the Wildgarten, a new residential neighbourhood in the city’s southwestern suburbs, it features 82 housing units across 11 buildings. Austrian Real Estate (ARE), the landowner, commissioned Madrid-based architecture firm Arenas Basabe Palacios for the project, which also features community spaces, shared bike-parking facilities and ground-floor commercial units.

“The construction is the opposite of typical, conventional solutions for suburban environments,” says architect Luis Palacios Labrador of Arenas Basabe Palacios. “It follows neither the model of a garden city nor that of a single-function development of blocks.” 

The buildings have yellow, white or wood-clad exteriors, with south-oriented living spaces that open towards private gardens. A low-maintenance green space known as the Allmende (common land) adds to the community feel. The buildings vary in height and type, with small ones containing single-family and duplex housing mixed with larger structures of apartments. This ensures that all the interior rooms receive sunlight and shows that social housing need not be drab or overly uniform.

The decision to design buildings on different scales has implications beyond the Sonnenblumenhäuser: it provides a model for a variety of investors to get involved, from developers who can create smaller buildings and medium-sized Baugruppen (co-living and co-housing projects) to the city council providing the backing for the largest blocks. “In this way, we open up the forming of the city to a more inclusive process, where all these agents are represented,” says Palacios Labrador.
arenasbasabepalacios.com

Ten principles for designing vibrant and liveable mixed-use spaces

Creating a lively mixed-use development isn’t just about throwing up some buildings and calling it a day. Developers need to make considered decisions to deliver a successful place that matches the ambition of their original architectural renderings. It’s about clever details, an understanding of how people actually use space and meticulous design from choosing the right materials to community-building.

This is the art of crafting spaces that not only house but also connect, where tenants – whether residential or commercial – feel a sense of belonging that goes beyond their address. Here, we get into the nitty-gritty of what makes a mixed-use project truly thrive, proving that vibrant developments are built one thoughtful detail at a time.

1.
Sensory symphony

Building with materials that are interesting to look at will lend character to any development. A case in point is the rippled concrete on the façade of architect Lina Ghotmeh’s Stone Garden Housing project in Beirut. Natural, locally sourced options like stone, timber and clay bricks can help imbue a project with a sense of place.

2.
No blocking

Avoid taking up an entire block with a single, impenetrable structure. Instead, invite public life into the development by shrinking building footprints. Create public spaces and thoroughfares for people to cut through the site, improving pedestrian connections. This will prevent a project becoming a dead zone and better embed it in the city.

3.
Tall order

Cap buildings at five storeys. Why? Well, beyond that, according to Danish urbanist Jan Gehl, residents lose their connection to the street. A good rule of thumb is to ensure that people can comfortably call down from a balcony to the footpath. By capping the height, we ensure that the building’s presence doesn’t overwhelm the street or skyline.

But this doesn’t mean ignoring the needs of street level. Avoid brash glassy frontages and opt for a façade that has clear windows for passive surveillance. The doorway should be flush with the footpath (stepping up or down creates a physical barrier to entry) with awnings set only a few metres above the ground to offer a sense of cosy enclosure.

4.
Human scale

Use visually rich details on the lower levels of a building – think tiled façades, intricate masonry and faceted window frames. Different uses, such as public or private entrances, should be defined by these ideas and expanses of monotonous material avoided. Invite rhythm to keep passersby, or those staying longer, engaged and inspired.

5.
Mix and match

Create a complex whose patronage is, well, complex. Mix commercial, cultural, residential and hospitality offerings for a perpetual hum of activity and spontaneous encounters. Meet the essential needs of the community too: a butcher, baker, dry cleaner and key-cutting shoe-repair shop within walking distance is a boon for any tenant.

6.
Lush lifestyle

Studies have repeatedly shown that greenery can lower stress levels and improve general wellbeing; planting can also filter air and regulate building temperatures. Street-level trees and vertical gardens bring life to the façade (Singapore-based WOHA architects is an expert in this field), providing a cleaner microclimate for tenants.

7.
Civic service

The services on offer should be enhanced by the surrounding public space. In a mixed-use development, make sure restaurants front onto plazas that diners can spill onto when the weather is fine and that there are benches for workers to stop for coffee. MVRDV’s Atelier Gardens in Berlin blends office space with hospitality offerings in a prime parkland setting.

If a development is more residential, make sure there are spaces for visitors to lock their bikes and communal courtyards where neighbours can stop to chat. Danish design studio SLA’s work on the South Harbor of Køge is a benchmark in this, with the residential buildings divided with linear parks.

8.
People first

Prioritise the pedestrian experience, so whether tenants are walking to their cars or between home and café, their time outdoors will be uplifting. Provide generous footpaths, an abundance of crossings and traffic-calming measures such as kerb extensions. Where you have to include parking, do so in a discreet underground location.

9.
Go green

This is about more than using environmentally friendly materials and adding foliage. Architects should embrace the site’s microclimate and use it to enhance their design. Consider annual sun, wind and shade patterns, and position the building so that natural light and ventilation can be put to use in heating and cooling it.

10.
Participation awards

Finally, it’s all well and good to have a beautiful building but without buy-in from the people using it, it won’t be a success. Build a community by inviting continued resident participation: ask for ideas, host town hall meetings and encourage community gardens and public art. All of this will create a sense of ownership and belonging.

Hul le Kes proves that small-city manufacturing can be the right choice

Historically, the city of Arnhem was known as an industrial centre and a focal point for Dutch-German grain trading. But more recently the city, in the east of the Netherlands, has blossomed into a creative hub – a development triggered by the opening of the ArtEZ academy in the early 2000s, which offers courses in fashion design, dance and fine art, alongside a host of other creative disciplines. A number of homegrown labels and boutiques, such as Judith ter Haar’s Jones, have helped build this reputation even further. 

For designers and ArtEZ alumni Sjaak Hullekes and Sebastiaan Kramer (who follow in the footsteps of other famous ArtEZ graduates, such as couturiers Iris van Herpen, Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren), the city’s compact size and sense of community offer an opportunity to return to traditional ways of making clothes and building a fashion brand. In their world, a customer can easily drop by the atelier to ask for an alteration or a repair and know the makers by name. 

Hullekes and Kramer, who were disillusioned with the fashion industry’s waste footprint, founded their label, Hul le Kes, in 2018 with the goal of returning to the basics. Working in a small workshop in the Van Oldenbarneveldtstraat area next to the Rhine, the duo is committed to producing every piece that they design within their atelier’s four walls. More than 90 per cent of the materials that pass through the workshop are recycled and given a new lease of life.

Inside the workshop, sewing machines hum with activity as the Hul le Kes team of 50 tailors, pattern makers and apprentices painstakingly sew, stitch and steam natural or recycled fabrics. “We wanted to get back to the knowledge of manufacturing that is almost non-existent in the Netherlands,” says Kramer. “Arnhem doesn’t traditionally have a strong textiles know-how. The city is known for its fashion and design prowess but not for manufacturing – that tends to happen in India and China. This is the craft that we are trying to renew.” 

Streamlined production allows Hullekes and Kramer to see the process through from start to finish, meaning that their craft is evident in every small design detail, from the hand-crocheted edges on the pockets of parkas to the loose cuts of their trousers, a nod to old sailor uniforms. “The Hul le Kes style is informed by an antiquarian aesthetic, reminiscent of the old-money style of dressing, but reimagined for the contemporary wearer who seeks practicality,” says Kramer.

The names of the garments pay homage to the likes of Dutch author Jan Cremer, US painter Jackson Pollock and French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir – a testament to the designers’ penchant for honouring the past. In the same vein, antique markets are the perfect hunting ground for the duo, who are always scouring French flea markets to find old linens (which often come embroidered with family initials), unwanted tablecloths, blankets and deadstock from the fashion industry, which is most often discarded because of minor defects. Arnhem’s recycling initiatives and The Salvation Army also donate unwanted materials to the brand, as do the locals. As the reputation of the label has grown, Arnhem’s residents now make sure to save yarns from old pieces of clothing and make regular stops at the Hul le Kes atelier to drop them off.

Once the recycled materials are secured, a natural dyeing process follows, using onion peel, avocado skins, rust and walnuts collected from forests and restaurant kitchens, giving each piece its own identity. It’s a lengthy undertaking – the studio only manages to produce some 150 pieces a month – but they’re in no rush because the Hul le Kes ethos doesn’t revolve around trends. Instead, collections are painstakingly developed with both the previous owners of the materials and the brand’s future consumers in mind. “Knowing where your clothes have come from is an important part of the recycling procedure,” says Kramer. Each piece comes with its own passport, documenting its place of origin, the date it was completed and the origins of the fabric. 

Once ready, pieces make their way to the brand’s flagship boutique, which opened last summer. Located in a former ironmonger’s within walking distance of the atelier, the airy boutique also has an events space, where the brand’s creative clientele – a mix of film producers, architects, graphic designers and gallery owners – get together to host panel discussions, see exhibitions or celebrate their own milestones. Opening up their space to others is part of having a “regenerative mindset”, say the duo, so they make sure that part of the shop is always available for clients to hire.

Though Hul le Kes is slowly building up its business – it participated at Florence’s Pitti Immagine Uomo this January – it only plans to work with a handful of retailers who share the same passion for craft and artisanal manufacturing methods. “We like to compare ourselves to a family business where you know people personally,” says Kramer. “We don’t want to lose the sense of where Hul le Kes started.” 

In many ways, the brand has gone back in time by running a business that is so intricately connected with its local community and with slow, handmade production. It is a bold statement that is also decidedly modern.
hullekes.com

Parks and recreation: The disquieting history of urban parks built to make us factory-ready

In 1833 the UK government appointed a parliamentary committee to ameliorate unsanitary living conditions in cities. This committee’s focus was not on building safer housing, improving working conditions or broadening access to medical care but rather on increasing the number of places in which poor folk could go for a walk. Perhaps the emphasis is unexpected, though this was an era in which country air and proximity to greenery was imagined not only to have physical benefits but spiritual ones too.

After months of gathering evidence, the select committee announced itself quite convinced that “some open places reserved for the amusement… of the humbler classes would assist to wean them from low and debasing pleasures” such as “drinking houses, dog fights and boxing matches”. On their day of rest, “a man walking out with his family… will naturally be desirous to be properly clothed, and that his Wife and Children should be so also”. Such a desire for public probity, concluded the committee, will have “the most powerful effect in promoting Civilization, and exciting Industry”.

It might seem odd to think that the urban park is a truly sinister piece of 19th-century technology. In the years that followed the committee’s report, the great era of park building began in earnest, first in the UK and then worldwide. We’ve become used to seeing the park as a much-loved community space that is always, at least symbolically, under threat from greedy developers and lazy council bureaucrats. But the aim of the city park was never the benign provision of green space for recreation. Its aim was to guide and control – to nudge – the behaviour of the urban working classes; to get them out of the pubs and into the air where they could see, and indeed keep an eye on, one another. Most importantly, the park was there to maintain that most valuable of assets, the physical power of muscle: the actual productive capacity of industrial capitalism, now encased in these men’s suddenly valuable bodies.

This is no historical quirk. The ideological relationship between the city and green space – the idea that we need nature to tame and civilise the worst excesses of urban life – is still with us today. It was there in 2019 when London – bafflingly – declared itself the world’s first National Park City (what does that mean?). It was there when the mayor of Paris announced that she would erect an “urban forest” around four of her city’s most famous landmarks. It was there when the UK’s new “tree champion”, William Worsley, declared that urban trees would “improve our health and wellbeing and help grow the economy”.

The ideological relationship between the city and green space – the idea that we need nature to tame and civilise the worst excesses of urban life – is still with us today

It’s not that any of this is bad or wrong. But we would be naive not to think that urban green space is deeply political, that the 19th-century vision of keeping people safely and boringly occupied while maintaining their tired bodies and brains well enough to keep the wheels of industry reliably turning is still very much alive. Maybe then, it’s time to give up on the fetish of the park, even to consider replacing it altogether with something more self-consciously dense and artificial; something with the unexpected joy of alleys and walkways, something that finally builds a concrete wall across the stern, watchful gaze of one’s self-righteous neighbours under the plane trees.

Fitzgerald is an author and academic. His most recent book, ‘The City of Today is a Dying Thing: In Search of the Cities of Tomorrow’, is out now.

Monocle joins Lithuania’s newest conscripts to find out how it defends Nato’s eastern flank

The world is facing a number of hybrid threats. In Europe, the return of large-scale land warfare has led furrow-browed defence ministers to issue warnings about the transition from a “post-war” to a “pre-war” world. There and elsewhere, governments are grappling with the dangers posed by a changing climate and urban anomie. The 2020s have been marked by health emergencies, civil disorder and supply-chain disruption. None of these looks set to abate.

Such times call for calm heads and forward planning. Over the following pages, we look at three examples of countries and organisations doing their best to ready themselves for the worst: conscription in Lithuania, elite police in France and disaster management in the US. This is our Security Survey – at a time when we should all be prepared.

Moments ago, Monocle was forced to abandon its battered station wagon on a mud track under Lithuania’s cloudy skies and hop in the back of an army-issue Mercedes-Benz GD. But now the driver – Sergeant Vidas Stasaitis, clearly doing his best to live up to his title of community outreach officer – decides that he is going to have some fun. Throwing his foot on the accelerator, he launches the off-roader at the lunar-like craters created by the day’s rain. At one point the infallible machine totters at a 45-degree angle, sending its civilian cargo hurtling towards the roof, before the engine wins and it lurches forwards.

Back on solid ground, our destination is a series of fields surrounded by woodland that make up the Lithuanian army’s Zukauskas training area near the eastern town of Pabrade. We’re here to see more than 2,200 military personnel and 300 military vehicles that have gathered for an annual exercise of Nato allies known as Strong Griffin. There may be international hardware on display and troops from Poland, the US and Portugal but Lithuania is clearly leading the show of strength.

The Baltic nation wouldn’t be able to do it without its conscripts – an increasingly important element within armed forces throughout Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. High defence spending and the draft are back, a policy shift that has been vindicated by an increasingly perilous global geopolitical outlook, including ongoing unrest in the Middle East. Global military spending topped €2.06trn in 2022, the highest figure on record. Much of the rise in spending was led by Europe – a trend that looks set to continue. Sweden has expanded conscription to civilian emergency services; Denmark is weighing extending it to women; and Latvia brought back compulsory male military service from the start of this year. Meanwhile, countries from Germany to the UK and France (see box) are having intense discussions within their defence ministries about whether to follow suit.

Battle lines
During the annual Strong Griffin exercise, soldiers acting as opposing forces (look out for red tape on vehicles and uniforms) conduct infantry and armoured offensive operations to test Lithuania’s Griffin Brigade’s readiness.

But Lithuania has been a European trailblazer. It introduced a nine-month conscription for several thousand randomly selected Lithuanian men every year (the age range is currently 18 to 23) in 2015 in the wake of Russia’s smash-and-grab annexation of Crimea. Today the Strong Griffin exercise is taking place amid biting winds that cut across open fields. Two thirds of the soldiers from the Duke Margiris battalion taking part are conscripts; half of the Kestutis battalion’s 400 soldiers have also been drafted. “The main purpose is to prepare the reserves,” says Margiris battalion’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mindaugas Specius, who sounds hoarse after barking orders all day. As well as having a large reservist base with basic military training, conscription is also a way of boosting active soldier numbers that had previously been flagging. “It’s a very good link between the armed forces and society, and a way to show [combat] readiness.”

Combat preparedness is vital as the threat – perceived or real, depending on your point of view – from Russia and its allies looms large. “Our neighbours are unpredictable and unstable so we need to check our readiness every day,” says Specius. “The situation dictates that this type of exercise must be conducted at every possible opportunity.” Having untangled itself from its Soviet past and turned decidedly towards Europe, Lithuania feels a certain amount of vulnerability due to its geographical position. Indeed, Alexander Lanoszka, defence analyst and associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, calls the Baltic state “a small country that sits uncomfortably between Kaliningrad and Belarus” – a reference to the fact that it borders a Russian enclave to the west and what is effectively a Putin proxy state to the east. At one point, along the Suwalki Gap border that Lithuania shares with Poland, these hostile territories are separated by just 65km.

But if Lithuania’s conscripts are anything to go by, no one seems to believe that the country is in any real danger. At the Zukauskas training area, fresh-faced boys in brown-and-green fatigues clutch Heckler & Koch g36 rifles as they perform drills across fields, communicating with central command via Harris Galcon III RF-7800V radio stations. The troops have strips of blue tape attached to their uniforms to show that, in this simulation of a hostile environment, they are friendly forces. Wandering over to talk to Monocle is 24-year-old Vilius Monkunas, who has a confident air and a firm handshake. He is broadly in favour of conscription and says that it provided him with a break from office life in Lithuania’s second city, Kaunas. He might earn less here but with free board and food, he can save. He also thinks that it’s good to defend his country, though he doesn’t believe that the borders are in danger of being compromised. “I don’t feel any kind of threat, to be honest,” he says. “We are in Nato and we have a lot of allies. I’m not scared personally; neither is my family nor anyone around me.” It’s an opinion shared by 22-year-old Gvidas Daukintis, whose accent has an English twang – he moved to Maidenhead with his family six years ago. He says that Vilnius kept “bugging” him about conscription and he even had to pay a small fine for an initial no-show. “I feel safer than ever,” he says, rifle slung over his shoulder. But then he adds something that gets to the core of Lithuania’s conscription policy. “I don’t feel like anything is going to happen but we have to be ready for the unthinkable.”

Lithuania hasn’t shirked away from talking about the potential threat posed by Russia and other bad actors who might be inspired by its bravado in Ukraine. Its foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, has long been vocal about strengthening what he calls “the eastern flank” of the two key blocs to which Lithuania belongs: Nato and the EU. Alongside unwavering support for Ukraine, the country has repeatedly called on Nato allies to increase their presence in the Baltic states. Germany has listened and has committed to the permanent stationing of some 4,800 soldiers inside Lithuania, who it expects to be combat-ready by 2027.

Highlighting Lithuania’s strategic position has its advantages if you are used to being overlooked as a country, according to Mark Galeotti, the UK-based executive director of the Russia-focused Mayak Intelligence think-tank. “All of a sudden, countries such as Lithuania can present themselves as being ready and active,” he tells Monocle. “In a way, that actually makes them more important.” Galeotti also points to the example of Poland, which has upped its status as a central European defence powerhouse by exploring a €20bn arms deal with South Korea.

Show of strength
Some 2,200 soldiers and 300 vehicles are involved in the exercise: US Abrams tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles; Lithuanian M113 armoured personnel carriers and ATV Humvees; and Polish Rosomak armoured vehicles.

Lithuania’s armed forces are never going to match those of Germany, France or even Poland. But that’s missing the point, according to Zilvinas Tomkus, vice-minister of national defence. “Our strength is how we involve society,” he says, referring to how Lithuania builds resilience. “And this is an important thing to know.” He’s not the first Lithuanian official to talk about bridging the armed forces to civilians divide through conscription. And he’s not the first to point to a 2023 poll showing that 86 per cent of Lithuanians are in favour of the military profession, up by 7 per cent from the previous year. Indeed, the Ukrainian experience has shown what having widespread domestic support can mean on the battlefield, even in the face of a larger adversary.

Still, there’s little doubt that conscript life is a big change from the creature comforts of home. Over in Zukauskas, soldiers are arriving back at their muddy temporary home, known in military speak as an assembly area, after the day’s exercises. They wash in blocks of portable-cabin showers and drop off their kits at the large army-green tents in which they’ll sleep on rudimentary folding beds. In an outdoor kitchen, protected from the rain by a tarpaulin, army chefs are heating up vegetable soup for dinner while Kiss’s I Was Made for Lovin’ You drifts from a stereo. Days typically start at 06.00 with lights out at 22.00. It’s not exactly the big nights out and weekend lie-ins that many 20-somethings are used to. “What’s the hardest thing here?” asks Vilius Monkunas, the junior private with that firm handshake. “Probably the rules; to stand in a crowd and for it to be very strict. It’s hard for me as I’m kind of a free soul.”

Despite the rigidity of their new regime, most of the conscripts have positive things to say about the time spent away from screens, learning skills that they most likely wouldn’t have acquired otherwise. No one we spoke to knew how to operate a gun previously. Many now know how to successfully navigate their way back to base from the middle of nowhere in the dead of night using only a map, a compass and a set of co-ordinates. Some, such as 19-year-old Ainaras Paukstis, are even contemplating becoming a professional soldier, though he’s yet to be fully convinced. For others, it has been an opportunity to test mental and physical reserves. “It’s changed me psychologically,” says Daukintis, the conscript with the English twang. “When you’re running or doing exercises, you can’t stop because the leaders are asking you to do it. You just keep pressing on and realise that you can do it – it’s amazing.”

Of course, contemporary warfare needs more than brute force and land troops. “That’s why we need riflemen but also the guy who can operate a drone or use artificial intelligence as a tool to defend and fight against aggression,” says defence vice-minister Tomkus. Indeed, hybrid warfare is increasingly on policymakers’ lips, a term used to refer to non-conventional acts of hostility. For Lithuania, this has meant irregular flows of Middle Eastern and African migrants crossing from Russia-allied Belarus, a phenomenon that peaked in 2021 and has subsequently affected Latvia and Poland. Since the end of last year, it has been the turn of Finland to experience an influx of migrants seemingly funnelled there by Moscow; it responded by closing its border with Russia.

Serve and protect
Male draftees are called from among Lithuania’s 18 to 23 year olds, whereas all 18 to 38 year olds – male and female – in the country are invited to enlist on a voluntary basis. Both cohorts complete the same nine-month service.

Clearly the rumble of armoured vehicles and camouflage paint on soldiers’ faces during the Strong Griffin exercise is more than a stunt. Military spending has risen to 2.75 per cent of GDP this year (up from just 0.89 per cent a decade ago) and there has been a doubling down on compulsory military service, even if many of the draftees we speak to say that they think the decision to join should remain voluntary. Lithuania’s ambassador to Nato, Deividas Matulionis, tells Monocle that although it hasn’t happened yet, “it seems that the political will is there” for Lithuania to move from a partial to a general conscription model in the future. In fact, its parliament’s lower house has already passed a bill that will move things in that direction. At the end of last year, it provisionally approved lowering the conscription age range from 18 to 21, instead of 18 to 23. More importantly, the bill also aims to reduce the number of exemptions that stop people from joining, including for students. It will be put to a subsequent vote this spring and, if everything goes to plan, Lithuania could be drafting some 5,000 soldiers a year by 2027, up from the current maximum of 3,800.

Officials here are keen to underline that Russia should never be underestimated. They draw on the examples of the war with Georgia in 2008 and the Ukraine invasions of 2014 and 2022, which all largely took the West by surprise. It’s an opinion that battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Specius shares, shrugging off the overconfidence of his young conscripts. “Young people might judge the situation differently,” he says. “But when you have to make difficult decisions, you need to understand the situation from all sides. We need to be ready when the moment comes.”

Draft plans: Europe’s conscription debate
So far, the return of conscription in Europe has largely been limited to Nordic and Baltic nations that feel a deeper threat from Russia due to their proximity. But there are signs that countries such as France, Germany and the UK are rethinking military service, a policy that largely fell out of favour in the aftermath of the Cold War. Former UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that he was in favour of conscription as a means to build the reserves, inspired by the Swedish and Finnish models. Grant Schapps, his successor, has been open about the problems facing the army and the need to recruit more people (conscription being an obvious way to do it, even if the British public remain unconvinced). In France, MPs last year approved the largest military spending hike in half a century and Emmanuel Macron is known to be an admirer of military service. His introduction of a four-week voluntary service for teenagers has had a lukewarm reception but he’s still pushing to make it compulsory. As for Germany, its armed forces – the Bundeswehr – are also facing a drop in recruitment. Its 181,383 soldiers are short of the target of 203,000 that Europe’s largest economy wants to achieve by 2031. Conscription, abolished in Germany in 2011, could be a way to solve the problem.

Interview: Kim Bora, award-winning director of ‘House of Hummingbird’

It took South Korean director Kim Bora years to muster the courage to call herself a filmmaker. “I was always a bit embarrassed about loving films so much,” she says from her living room in Seoul. “In a [conservative] society like this, you’re always thinking about how things might not work out.”

Kim, one of the most acclaimed young directors from South Korea, is best known for her 2018 feature debut, House of Hummingbird, which won 59 prizes around the world, including at Tribeca and the Berlin International Film Festival. But success, she says, didn’t come easy. “I’m not this genius who is super certain of her opinions,” says 42-year-old Kim. “I just work really hard. Throughout my twenties I doubted whether film was the right path for me. Even in my thirties, when I finished House of Hummingbird, I thought, ‘This is too hard. I’ll quit after this one.'” What she didn’t know at the time was that the film would introduce her work to global audiences, who were already familiar with the oeuvre of male South Korean directors such as Bong Joon-ho and Park Chan-wook.

House of Hummingbird follows Eunhee, a 14-year-old girl, as she confronts complex questions about her identity, love, sexuality, social repression and more. This all takes place in the newly democratised South Korea of 1994 – the same year a major bridge in Seoul collapsed due to faulty construction. The tragedy is still seen as a symbol of rushed modernity.

Kim was a similar age to the protagonist when the Seongsu bridge fell. Her school years were not particularly happy ones. Kim, who sees herself as a feminist, recalls frequently feeling oppressed in the cookie-cutter South Korean education system. At the Kaywon High School of Arts, where she first studied film, she once had to watch a female student, who was elected as class president, be pressured by her teacher to give up her position to a male pupil – unfortunately not an uncommon tale in South Korea at the time.

“I was livid,” she says. “When I entered my twenties, I began to sublimate this rage into film.” At Dongguk University, she connected with feminist communities and tried to defy widespread prejudice against female directors. But it was during her master’s programme at Columbia University in New York that Kim began to feel nurtured as a filmmaker. “I sometimes wonder whether I’d have realised that it is possible for a woman to make films had I not gone to that school,” she says. “In South Korea, when I wrote a script with a lesbian character, I was questioned why. At Columbia, I was asked about character development, the narrative arc.”

Today, South Korea is a dynamic battleground for feminist movements. But hurdles still remain, including in the country’s film industry, where female directors only contributed to 11.5 per cent of theatrical releases from 2009 to 2018. Even so, Kim is undeterred. She is working on Spectrum, a big budget, sci-fi film based on Kim Cho-yeop’s short story. She is determined to bring gender sensitivity to the film and has faith in her voice. “In my twenties, I approached filmmaking a bit like a child, wanting to express and prove myself,” she says. “Now I want to be a master.”

How do America’s first responders train for the worst natural – or manmade – disasters?

On an Alabama highway, a cargo truck carrying pesticide has stalled while crossing a railway track. A few moments later, it is struck by a freight train transporting an unknown chemical contaminant, which begins to leak. Any number of people could have been exposed. Nearby, at a small hospital in the town of Anniston, a “decontamination line” has been set up in a car park. When Monocle arrives, the scene is a flurry of ambulances; workers in Tyvek biohazard suits are cutting away the clothing worn by victims, who then progress through a long tent where any remaining contaminants are scrubbed away. Instructions are being shouted as more ambulances pull in. A man sits shivering in a white robe, a smudge of blood on his face.

For all the drama and intensity, this is not a real-world emergency but a high-fidelity simulation of what is rather coldly called a “mass casualty incident”. This hospital no longer treats actual patients: the “victims” are local actors or, in some cases, medical mannequins; the people in charge are instructors. This whole exercise, the culmination of a week’s training of emergency personnel from across the US, is happening on the grounds of the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), a 50-hectare complex run by the US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) on the site of the former Fort McClellan, a nearly century-old military complex that closed in 1999. 

Since 1998, notes Kent Latimer, Fema’s director of training delivery, the complex has instructed more than 1.3 million firefighters, police, doctors and nurses in how to act in emergencies ranging from biological-weapon attacks and hurricanes to active shooter incidents. The centre’s unofficial motto is “training the best for the worst”, says Latimer. Most of the instruction takes place in specially designed simulation environments. The former army hospital is now the country’s only facility dedicated solely to training healthcare professionals in disaster preparedness and response. A few metres away, a cylindrical railway tanker sits next to some parked cars. “That’s a simulation of a 4-metre railcar,” says Latimer, with “domes” housing different chemicals. The car was built by Advanced Entertainment Technologies, a Californian company that specialises in theme park attractions and film sets, with a sideline in hazmat training props. Nearby, there’s another car, which can be tipped on its side. In the distance, what sounds like a high-school sports fixture is in progress. “For our public-safety training, we play loud crowd sounds to simulate what it would be like working in a crowded environment,” says Latimer.

Throughout the year, the CDP will run hundreds of these exercises – and with good reason. In 2022, for example, there were more than 1,000 train derailments in the US. In the most notorious case, a train carrying hazardous materials derailed in Palestine, Ohio, a year ago and residents are still reporting lingering health issues. The city halls of Chicago and Milwaukee, which host, respectively, the Democratic and Republican national conventions later this year, have sent emergency responders here for training in how to accommodate large and potentially hostile crowds. In 2017 there were so many natural disasters in the US – hurricanes in the southeast, wildfires in the west, flooding in the Midwest – that the CDP had to suspend training and send its workforce to help in real disaster zones. “So many people have things on their transcripts [school records] and yet, when they get out in the field, can they execute?” says Tony Russell, who helped oversee the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now leads the CDP. He draws on his experience in the Marine Corps. “In the military, we would train under ‘live fire’ conditions,” he says. “So you could hear, feel and smell when someone was firing at you.” He wants the same for the CDP. “You can read it in a book but how does someone react to being really hot or cold, or being stressed out? Until you feel those things, you don’t know – and that is going to affect whether you can actually perform a task.”

One of the most striking examples of the CDP’s realism is at its Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological Training Facility (or “Cobra”). A red-brick building with a soaring central atrium, it looks like a mid-century church that has been fenced off by intimidating coils of razor wire. Formerly the site of the US Army’s Chemical Corps Training School, it is the only place in the country where emergency responders can go for “live agent” training – meaning that they will be exposed to actual variants of nerve agents such as sarin, which was used in the deadly 1995 terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway, and VX, a lethal compound derived from pesticide research. “They are weapons-grade,” says Cobra operations manager James Johnstone. “They will kill you.” 

Nerve agents are so called for their effect on the nervous system. “They will cause convulsions and secretions, and you’ll lose your bladder,” says Johnstone. The facility can also expose participants to biological agents such as anthrax or ricin; there are no known antidotes for these so the CDP uses attenuated, non-lethal versions of them. “We haven’t had a nerve agent down here in seven to 10 days,” says Johnstone, somewhat reassuringly, as we enter the facility. A sophisticated “negative pressure” air-handling system quickly sucks the contamination out of the various bays and through a set of charcoal and Hepa filters. “This is the cleanest air in Alabama,” he says with a smile. Why incur the added expense, and risk to human life, by using actual nerve agents? “We had one responder who came in, he was a 30-year firefighter, he’s been in all kinds of events,” says Johnstone. “As we were getting ready to go into the hot area, he says, ‘I’m not going to do it.'” By adhering to strict realism, the centre hopes to prompt realistic responses. “Practise like you fight,” says Johnstone.

Studies conducted by the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, adds fema’s Latimer, have found that training in actual contaminated environments is superior to artificial settings. He gives an example of a responder wearing a claustrophobic airtight ensemble on a hot day. “When the going gets tough and it’s all hot and sweaty and you’re wearing a mask and you just need a little breath of fresh air…” he says. “What do you think a first responder’s going to do if they’re training in a simulated environment?” He feigns lifting a mask off his face. “You don’t take it seriously because you know it’s a simulation.”

The CDP has spent several million dollars to upgrade the army’s facility from generic “training bays” to a simulated urban environment, a sort of mash-up of Nashville’s bustling Second Avenue (site of a 2020 bombing) and the New York subway. A warren of rooms and hallways, overseen by a control room, have been fitted with vinyl depicting environments ranging from a subway platform (complete with newspaper box and rubber rat) to a bar called Lucky’s. Before responders, clad in Grade A PPE (personal protective equipment), are allowed into the facility, they are exposed to a small dose of isoamyl acetate, or banana oil. “It’s very detectable when you smell it and it’s familiar,” says Johnstone. If participants smell banana, it means that their mask is not working. But it could also mean something else,” he says. “Somebody says, ‘I smell banana oil’, and they’re not smelling banana oil. They just don’t want to go in.” But even this psychological component has value here. “We would rather tap them out here than in the real world,” says Johnstone.

Back at the Anniston hospital, an actor named Ezra Gilreath is getting ready for his star turn. According to today’s script, he is a farmer named Cole Pollard who has lost his legs after becoming entangled in a piece of agricultural equipment. Gilreath, sporting sideburns and a pink shirt, sits on a gurney. His actual legs are tucked out of sight and what the world sees are two bleeding stumps. The crimson appendages are a highly realistic medical training device manufactured by Norwegian company Laerdal. Today’s exercises are all part of an Integrated Capstone Event, a chance for the assembled responders to put their training to work in an intense, multi-hour simulation of a regional hospital facing a sudden influx of patients. In addition to the patients coming from the train derailment, the responders have to deal with the standard pressures of a hospital environment. “We’re a relatively small hospital and our emergency department only has 13 beds,” says Rick Bearden, the CDP’s exercise manager. “On a normal day, in any town in America, those 13 beds will be full.” During a sudden “no-notice event”, the staff must scramble to reallocate scarce resources. To keep things interesting, CDP managers will throw a few curve balls. “This is like the script of a play,” says Bearden, pointing to a computer spreadsheet. Known as the Master Scenario Event List, it contains some 200 events, featuring everything from power outages to cardiac arrests.

One of these events calls for a patient with an emergency double amputation to suddenly appear at the already stretched hospital. Gilreath, the fictional farmer, is one of several dozen live actors the CDP will use. Some lie on stretchers, others shuffle through the “decon[tamination] line” wearing T-shirts reading “I’m naked” so that responders can treat them appropriately. The blood smeared on actors comes from a plastic jug of Ben Nye stage blood; the flavour is “zesty mint, in case they need to put it in their mouths”, says Katelyn Deerman, a training manager at the CDP. If today’s event unfolds like a film, the mannequin ward is the special-effects department. There’s a bottle of Hershey’s syrup (used to simulate diarrhoea), “vomit” (Pond’s cold cream and oats) and a range of latex wounds – everything from gunshot lesions to boils and blisters.

As the morning unfolds, the heart of the action is the hospital’s command centre. Rob Carter, a physician and instructor, says that the administrators are managing the crisis in real time, with everything acted out to the letter. “The emergency department is asking for blood products,” he says. “That doesn’t just happen with the flip of a light switch. We make them call the blood bank.” Faithful to one of the script’s plot points, the hospital’s internal communications are down. “So we have to run down to radiology?” a nurse asks. Carter expresses slight concern over the team’s performance. “The tone of the room is loud, it seems a little disorganised,” he says. The reason, he suspects, is that the person in charge is “getting in the weeds”. Rather than prioritising the big decisions, “they’re trying to fix everything”.

Back in the mannequin ward, Gilreath is ready to be wheeled to the emergency department. The staff cover their ears. “Ezra is the best screamer,” says Deerman. Suddenly, it’s go time. Gilreath unleashes a series of Oscar-worthy cries of “My legs!” as he is wheeled into the glaring light of the emergency ward. A team of nurses surrounds him, the doctor introduces herself. “You can come with me, ma’am,” a nurse says to the mother. “No,” she says repeatedly, her face a knot of anguish and concern. “I’m not leaving him.” His vitals are checked, tourniquets applied. “We got fluids?” someone asks. “Let’s get him up to the operating room.” The patient is whisked out, trailing blood on the gleaming floor. The room goes quiet. 

At some point in the next few weeks there will be a new crisis – a hurricane or an earthquake – and a new cast of characters. Simulating these sorts of emergencies helps to resolve a real-world dilemma. Events like these don’t happen so frequently that emergency responders can learn on the job but they are common enough that someday these responders will get the call – and it won’t be a drill.