Industrial Zone 2.0: Design-Zavod Flacon,

MoscowGrowing large investments

and local projects

David Barrie, 25 October 2009

We love things that are epic….

….but the theme of our everyday lives is increasingly nothing to do with objects but

relationships…

We have created platforms for social interaction…

But what we see out of the window is important…

We prefer this…

…to this…

…this…

…to this…

How can we turn horror in to beauty? And how might we bring all of the energy and

vitality of social interaction to bear upon the places that blight our everyday lives? Places like old factories…

My background is in the media, in producing TV

programmes…

One of the essences of media production is to take the tiny

and turn it in to an epic…

But it is the effective sequencing and evolution of a narrative that helps create a compelling, larger than life, memorable experience…

Since 1991, I have been creating projects that have

generated ideas for or delivered new uses for public

spaces…

What I’ve learnt is that there is a key value connection in the world of real estate and urban

development….

Big project investment ⇄Local project investment

In Cardiff, Wales, an investor responsible for a development valued at over £300m wants

to deliver a mixed-use site that is culturally cutting edge…

But how to do that when the surrounding social and

physical infrastructure is dilapidated…

And the ‘knowledge economy’, as evidenced by poor public

internet facilities lacks investment and energy?

One answer is an initiative that I created and has just

started that aims to integrate and augment online social media networking in the

area…

Another answer is to run an open design ideas event, for everyone to contribute their ideas for the future. This is

what we did last year.

What’s the value of this to the large real estate project?

• ‘Knowledge uplift’ • Supply chains for local news/information for

future tenants• Basic skills training for future employees of IT

tenants• Cultivates thriving market of residential

customers for area broadband suppliers leading to prospective commercial discounts

• Making a market for local communications • Support the marketing of a knowledge economy

Here’s a second example, from Middlesbrough, North-

East England…

A developer is bringing forward the development of a major docklands regeneration

site…

His master plan, overseen by architect Will Alsop, includes

using public spaces for growing food…

But the physical infrastructure of the existing city landscape

is often barren…

And levels of health and lifestyle in the city isn’t

healthy…

With an artist and a designer, I created, designed and

delivered a process in the city that has now been run for

three years in which people across the city grew food, learned how to cook it and

celebrated the harvest in an epic event: a ‘town meal’

An architect was commissioned to draw a new landscape master plan for the town including where people

grew food in our project, historically have grown food

and other green spaces

In effect the capacity of the city to become a productive

food landscape was established and confirmed in

the popular imagination

What’s the value of this to the real estate developer?

• Demonstrator for food growing in the city• Development of economies of scale for localised food

production > economic argument for development of more growing spaces

• Development of opportunity for shared management with local government of public spaces on site

• Development of opportunity for local food offer by hotels and restaurants on site in future

• Marketing emphasis upon well-being in the town > more favourable climate for investors

The value opportunity can happen in reverse. Local

projects can enable new and growing investments too…

In this urban renewal project in Castleford, Yorkshire that I created in 2002, a specialist

team, the local community and a big consortium of public and private agencies delivered a

programme that revitalized 11 public spaces in the town…

The process started by creating a project office from a

derelict, vacant retail unit….

It featured lots of opportunities for people to say what they

liked and didn’t like about their town and how it might be

improved…

The ‘top ten’ places that people wanted to see improve

in the town became the subject of a design ideas

competition…

And local people chose the ideas and designers they

wanted to see happen in their town…

The capital development programme was supported by a huge number of micro art, culture, educational, social and economic projects…

Lol Coxhill in a skip Concept Simon Thackray. Produced by The Shed. Photo: Tony Bartholomew

And formal commissions of new work by international

artists from Europe and Latin America…

Lol Coxhill in a skip Concept Simon Thackray. Produced by The Shed. Photo: Tony Bartholomew

Lol Coxhill in a skip Concept Simon Thackray. Produced by The Shed. Photo: Tony Bartholomew

Across six years, £14.5m of improvements of the town were implemented, with

money sourced from over 20 different sources and work

delivered by a partnership of over 11 public agencies…

The center piece of the project was a bridge that has won

many prizes for its design…

What’s was the value of the initiative for real estate

investment and values? • A process that started with a grant of £100k has now leveraged

£250m of new private commercial/residential investment in the town

• In other words, the local market over the next 10-15yrs is going to enjoy 2000+ more residents

• Existing investors have seen the town marketed in over 20 countries > value uplift

• The principal of risk-taking and design excellence in the town over time is likely to lead to greater confidence and native skills

in self-organisation

This is about a more sustainable, effective investment return, as well as confidence-building, empowerment and an an uplift in the local skills economy. Finally, my latest

project…

A team of us plan to take an empty retail unit in London

and turn it in to a co-operatively owned and

managed grocery store…

The project is modelled on the successful Park Slope Coop in

Brooklyn, New York

Our objectives• Diversify local economy throughmutual

enterprise • Establish principal of shared assets and

resources and collective organization in the High Street

• Develop the scalable use of vacant retail units• Integrate delivery of some local services• Innovate the hyper-local social, as well as

financial economy• Create value uplift in adjacent premises

We’ve only just start the process of creating

momentum for change to support the delivery of the project and its business

plan…

This is our project slogan…

I hope that I have established for you the principle and value of investment in small projects and their value to large ones

in our towns and cities

There is an interdependence here that is important

And also a story about how relationships between product,

audience and investment plays out in the public realm

It fits in to a context of a larger change in the relationships

between audiences and product, large and small, that’s instrumental to the

Internet economy

Global snapshot

• Watch video clips online - 394m

• Read blogs - 346m• Read personal blogs - 321m• Visit a friends social network

page - 307m• Share a video clip - 303m

• Manage a profile on a social network - 272m

• Upload photos - 248m• Download a video podcast -

216m• Start own blog - 184m• Upload video clip - 183m• Subscribe to a news feed -

160m

An age of new narrative that relies critically upon word of

mouth…

Product and value is no longer a one-way transaction…

And real estate investors can ill-afford to sit back and ignore

the social, cultural and economic infrastructure of

place, an attitude exemplified by the phrase…

There is a key connection between all of this and ideas now emerging - led by Cisco Systems in the U.S.A. - on

‘connected urban systems’…

Connected urban systems

Also with the development of ‘intelligent buildings’:

structures that are not just electronically controlled internally but seamlessly connected to the outside

world…

Connected real estate

Thank you!

David BarrieDavid Barrie & Associates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barrie

Blog: http://davidbarrie.typepad.com

Mail: david@davidbarrie.net