Gensler’s Richard Harrison explains why BCO Conference is better than Mipim and why it’s a privilege to take a building into the next chapter of its life.
What brings you to BCO Conference?
I come every year. It’s better than Mipim. It’s a much more focused and concentrated sector of the market that I’m particularly interested in, all present under one roof. You see the people you want to see, in an environment where they’re relaxed. It’s a place to have a grown-up conversation. Because everyone’s on the same track; we’re all working towards a common goal.
What’s the goal?
One key challenge is doing the right thing in terms of transforming building stock and assets that are no longer relevant to their location. London’s becoming very polarised into areas of the city which are highly valuable for all the usual reasons – transport, talent etc – and those where the value’s fallen away. There are million square foot buildings that don’t make sense any more. Economically it’s not viable to continue to maintain that building stock in its intended use. Hence we’re finding that offices don’t really stack up in terms of value. And often they don’t stack up from a carbon perspective now that legislation has been revised to address carbon targets. We need to be addressing these stranded assets and looking at what they could be, whether that’s residential, education, life sciences or even cultural.
We’re looking at opportunities to use ground floor spaces as social spaces and making them much more accessible as a ground plane. It anchors the building in its surroundings. Allowing the public in transforms the building at ground floor level. It gives vibrancy and buzz where you used to have a sterile corporate model with a reception desk and a vase. Reception spaces used to be deliberately defensive. Now we’re peeling back the layers both physically and visually. It’s all about designing for the human experience and acknowledging that our buildings have a huge influence on our wellbeing. People are realising quite quickly that there’s a mutual benefit, even if it’s just about being able to attract a tenant to an asset that has been struggling.
What’s in the pipeline for Gensler?
There’s an awful lot of building stock coming up for renewal – embarrassingly some of them are projects I worked on – which will be fascinating. A decade ago the buildings we were looking at to refurb were much more risky. They were that much older. The risks weren’t known. They were built when regulations weren’t so stringent. They were all built to different standards. But now a whole raft of millennial buildings are coming up where the bones are amazing. There are no hidden nasties. They have proper floor to floor heights. The proportions are amazing. A good example is City Hall, which we are just taking to planning. I’m fascinated by the challenge of taking a building into the next chapter of its life.
Source: Architecture Today