As you get older the years seem to slip by a bit quicker?
Looking back 2011 was pretty special in many ways. Certainly from a work perspective it was challenging. I can’t help but wonder what 2012 will bring – I’ll have a go at that little conundrum tomorrow!
So, what of 2011? Well the highlight was undoubtably the Wedding. No, not that one, the one where my ‘little’ girl married and became a Smillie. It was a proud day – and, for the first time in my life I dressed up as a girl – not once but twice. I wore a kilt and took on the mantle of Anni-Frid from Abba. People told me I wasn’t too good at the lipstick…
Jak, my youngest son who passed his driving test in 2010 got his first car – so can now drive me around, which is brilliant. He has also had two jobs! Adam continues to wait for Spielberg to spot him, but in the interim has moved on from his supermarket job and is now raising money for a charity.
We managed New York twice – which was a low-count year! It still remains my favourite place and I’m expecting we’ll be back there very soon. But I also managed to squeeze in a second trip to Shanghai and also a first trip to Istanbul with The University of Nottingham. Shanghai is worth a trip if you get the opportunity – I still haven’t mastered the language! Istanbul was an amazing City – I wished we had more time to look around.
My golf hasn’t moved on – despite two trips to Scotland. It is still a great place to go if you like the game described as a good walk spoiled! My handicap is resolutely stuck at 14. If only I could play to that!
I was also in Copenhagen when they had their worst storm for 30 years. That was for our friend Alan’s 50th birthday – which he was trying to keep secret. I know someone (who you know) who will be 50 in 2012. We may be keeping that one quiet!
One of the best ‘corporate’ events of the year was my trip to Downing Street – my claim to fame is that I spoke to an audience at Number 10. And not everyone can say that. It was a great night – especially as I have been into the Houses of Parliament earlier in the day.
There were lots of other good moments too, but I figure you will soon get bored of the list!
Monday morning started early – 9am (7am UK time). It’s not ‘my’ time. Especially as Costa / Starbucks hasn’t caught on here. The coffee isn’t great…
The density of buildings is plain to see in Shanghai
I am at a conference with 350 people from 43 Countries. The day started with some keynote talks and a reminder about the importance of sustainable technologies. It was suggested that the top five issues facing the world in 2011 are – Energy, Water, Food, Environment and Poverty. In that order. Energy is going to become a major issue as our cities and communities grow.
The most interesting of the talks was by Prof. Peter Lund from Aalto University in Helsinki. He reminded us that whilst 50% of the population live in Cities now, by 2040 this will increase to 70%. Energy demand in Cities is currently 65% but by 2040 this climbs to 80%. This is a huge challenge to this who shape our cities. But the technical part of Peters talk was centred around the way in which the cities lose roof-space as they increase in density – losing the potential to have solar panels. The comparisons of places like Los Angeles with its urban sprawl and Shanghai with its sky-reaching towers is stark and quite logical. Places like Shanghai will rely on the outlying neighbourhoods – whereas LA can effectively produce its power locally.
It did demonstrate the downside to tall buildings and high density schemes…
There were other talks about materials used in buildings – one such talk was given by my friend at the University of Nottingham, Dr David Tetlow – he i researching ‘phase change materials’. These are clever material which alter their state when heated (or cooled) and improve a buildings thermal efficiency. I realised today that some of the work being done around us is really rather clever.
We had a formal dinner last night – held at the side of the pool – it was a spectacular setting – even if there was too much food!
PS – in case you were worried – we have overcome the language barrier – I have moved and can now see the sea!
I can’t believe it is 12 months since I first went to Shanghai – a year ago I visited the City with Nottingham City Council and The University of Nottingham. I spent a fascinating few days with the University at a conference aimed at Sustainable Technologies. I also got to see the World Expo – which was fascinating.
One year on and we hit Istanbul. I have been invited – and this time I am speaking at the SET (Sustainable Energy Technologies) conference.
I have written a joint paper which addresses the question of whether green property attracts premium prices*. It’s not an easy question for various reasons. The paper is lengthy and can’t really be published in a blog post. You would fall asleep! I will though, after the conference ends, put it on its own ‘page’ on this site. I would welcome comments and observations. I don’t expect the findings to be popular!
I am in Istanbul this morning where the conference starts today and, assuming the technology works, I’ll do some updates on anything interesting I come across.
We also get a chance to see some of Istanbul after the conference ends – I am looking forward to this. I’m told that this is one of the most photogenic places in the World – so you may see some images… I’ll try to limit it to twenty images (which I guess will be as difficult as my attempts in Nottingham over the last few weeks – see here).
The one thing I won’t be doing is Turkish Delight – which ranks alongside Mushrooms as food of the devil in my book.
If it goes quiet, you will guess that I can’t work the Turkish wi-fi!
*PS – the answer to the question is no for commercial property and yes for residential… in Nottingham at least!
As anticipated we went to Malmo in Sweden yesterday. Malmo is a 35 minute train journey from Copenhagen – you venture across the Oresund Bridge (which is like the baby version of the bridge linging Shanghai to Ningbo I went on last year).
The Turning Torso - Malmo
I especially like the Vastra Hamnen district – the harbour area. This is where you can see, actually you can’t miss, Santiago Calatrava‘s “Turning Torso” building. It stands out from miles around and is the centre-piece of this area of urban renewal. The whole place has fantastic public open spaces – water features run through the houses and shops.
What I noticed most was the massive development taking place – tower cranes and new roads are plentiful. It has really changed a lot since I was there 3 years ago. It is good to see – and the oprices of some of the hosuing stock was not as expensive as I imagined. A floating hosue boat (that description doesn’t do it justice) was £360,000?
We found an excellent coffee shop on the southern tip of the area – Espresso House – cappucino and cup cakes went down well.
The town is also really nice – an ecelctic mix of old and new – some buildings dating back to the 1500′s, other modern glass efforts. Public squares feauture too – the Eurpoeans do squares much better than us?
And that was it – we headed back across the water to Copenhagen – and an evening around the Tivoli Gardens. We started with dinner at that quintisentially Danish restaurant – The Hard Rock Cafe. We can’t be accused of not being immersed in the local culture? It took so long we ran out of time to look around Tivoli – we are hoping to go back…
Since Tivoli was a place we considered on our Sheriff of Nottingham tour a few years ago, I think we need to see it.
But, today was really about Malmo. I love the place. The Harbour area is, in my opinion, how buildings should sit in their environment. 10/10 Malmo.
I blogged some time ago about the fantastic UK Pavilion at the China Expo. It was lovingly known as the Seed Cathedral – and really was something the UK could be proud of (which cynically I thought made a change!)
This week I was trawling TED – which s much better than the TV most of the time! And I came across a talk by Thomas Heatherwick – the Architect who designed the Pavilion. The talk meanders around some of his other fascinating projects before explaining the theory behind the Seed Cathedral. If you have a spare 15 minutes and are interested in Architecture it is well worth a look. You can find the video here. Unfortunately TED don’t let me embed videos as Youtube do…
If you regularly read my blog, you will know that I have been to China twice in the last 12 months – both times to Shanghai. I was amazed to see the level of development. When we went to Ningbo, I couldn’t quite understand how you could build a city – but my questions were simply lost on the City Planners. They didn’t understand why we were questioning the demand side of the equation.
When I was in Shanghai in March I drove past hundreds (I don’t exaggerate) of apartment blocks being built. The scale of development is eye watering.
This week, my friends at Nottingham University sent me this link on You Tube. It is worth watching it! It shows the side of China the officials don’t want you to see. In essence (if you haven’t got 15 minutes) there are estimated to be 64 million empty apartments. The Mall visited by the reporter is simply empty – although they have a nice web site.
This is all rather worrying! At the end of the report the question was whether there would be an uprising and civil unrest. On the face of it you would worry, but my experience of the Chinese people is that they are incredibly tolerant; the State rules with a rod of iron.
Shanghai is a difficult place to describe. It’s big, brash and noisy – it demands that you pay attention! I have had a couple of days to reflect on what I saw this time. And what I learned.
Although a couple of weeks ago was my second trip it takes you a while to adjust and comprehend the place. But to put some things in context:
* 21 million people live in Shanghai – 1.3 billion in China as a whole.
* GDP growth in China has been 11.2% on average for the period 2006-2010 – the Government target is 7% over the next 5 years.
* China is now the Worlds second largest economy (the US is still the largest)
* The UK imports £24bn each year but only exports £7bn – the UK Government want this to equalise.
* Inflation is running at 4.9%
* By 2015 half of the Worlds building will be taking place in Shanghai.
* 400 new Cities are being built and their average size will be the size of Birmingham!
* 15 million people are moving away from the Countryside to the Cities each year – by 2020 900m people will live in Cities.
* China was the largest producer of CO2 in the World in 2020
It is quite difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of what is going on here. I find it hard to explain in words – even looking at some of the brochures I brought back don’t really explain it. We just don’t see ‘development’ like this here in the UK. I’m not sure it is happening anywhere else in the World in this manner.
So is it good?
One of the speakers at the Conference I attended was quite damning – he raised the issues of corruption – there are four or five construction companies doing all of the work. Someone is getting very rich.
Then there is the ‘green’ aspect – and you can’t help but wonder if there is lip service being paid to the issues. On more than one occasion I heard stories about the ‘green features and standards being designed in, but not bult in. The latter simply because there is so much going on it cannot be all checked.
But my real issue is that when you peel back behind the veneer some of these buildings are not actually very good. Whilst we might develop buildings for 65-80 years, I am not convinced that the stuff being thrown up is at that standard. I wonder if they will last 20-25 years! I will return to this point again I think….
Valuation can sometimes be complex, but on occasion there is a simplicity which can be quite stark. I drew this picture above to a group of people at the conference I was at in Shanghai. Whilst I ‘think’ in pictures, many of them didn’t, but immediately spotted the issue.
There is a difference between the cost of a building and its value. We measure buildings differently for each. For cost we generally take the external dimensions. For value we take the internal measurements. If in my simple buildings above suggest £200 per unit to build and £325 per unit of value, the calculations will be 12x12x200 = £28,800 for cost to build and the resultant value is 10x10x325 = £32,500.
One of the big ‘easy’ solutions for buildings is to improve insulation. We are told that this single element could reduce our carbon footprint by the most significant amount.
So my ‘green’ building on the right has walls twice as thick – allowing for extra insulation.
The calculations – as you can see – build costs are the same but the value is 8x8x325=£20,800. Not only is this £11,700 less, but the builder loses £8,000!
I accept that I have simplified the calculations, but you can see that simply increasing the insulation depth has a significant effect on value.
We still have a lot to do in trying to increase the thermal efficiency of a building – whilst making sure that the usable space delivers value.
My mate John Lyle carried out an experiment a couple of weeks ago – where he stopped using his iphone. I do know that he has gone back to using it.
My last few weeks have featured quite a lot of travel – 22,500 miles and three different time zones. One of the trips was holiday but Cannes and Shanghai were work.
...and then you've got some more
I don’t think I am unusual in my office or profession in the amount of emails I get each day. I average somewhere between 90-110. I guess that a third are junk, another third are where I am cc’d and the rest are for me.
Email management has become a major part of the working day. And when you are away the matter becomes something of a major task. In China I had a slow internet connection which made dealing with the ‘management’ even more of a chore.
I have been reading a book by Malcolm Gladwell – ‘The Tipping Point‘ – which is really interesting. And in his final chapter he talks about an ‘immunity’ – meaning that we are becoming slightly removed from the process of communicating. Research has shown that people are more argumentative in email than in face to face meetings. They can hide behind an email. As we become inundated with email we tend to switch off. I know that I do. If I am faced with 100 emails then I need to find a quick way of filtering, so some get deleted without reading past the title – or in some cases the senders identity.
I frequently unsubscribe to sending lists but can’t help that this makes things worse. I think sometimes this just validates my address!
And my other bugbear is that the ‘reply to all’ button should be disabled. Especially from circular emails, viz. “Will you sponsor me in a cycle ride for xyz charity” – “yes” from 15 people is not funny.
And today I had an email from a Company offering me to do a mailshot to 500,000 businesses for £599. Half a million junk messages!
I read somewhere a suggestion that all staff be given an allowance – say £1 per day and were then charged 5p per email sent. So once you stepped over 20 it started to get deducted from your salary! Genius…
My second trip to Shanghai comes to an end today with a long flight back to the UK this morning. It is an odd flight because it takes around 12 hours, but I ‘win’ back the hours I lost travelling East. So I take off at 11.30am Shanghai time and land (hopefully) at Heathrow around 4.00pm UK time.
The Butcher of Shanghai
Yesterday I had a day to myself – what my office colleagues would call a ‘Jolly’. But it was Saturday!
My day started in the Lanes of Taikang Road – I went there last time I was in Shanghai. I think it’s a great place – lots of narrow lanes to get lost in. The place is mainly ‘art’ orientated but the coffee at Kommune was as good as my Starbucks tipple. The food market left me a little queasy – although they will kill the animals for you. Fresh isn’t the word. I had light lunch at the Liuli Museum nearby – the building is great and the food wasn’t bad either.
The metro in Shanghai is brilliant for getting around – and is very cheap – around 27p or 37p depending on how many stops you go. It got me across the River into Pudong where I wandered around the Financial District. The tallest building in China is here – The World Finance Centre – all 101 floors of it. By 2014 it will have been usurped though – by the building next door which will stretch to 128 floors and be 200m higher!
Next was probably one of the worst bits of Shanghai – The Bund Sightseeing tunnel. I can only describe this as a tunnel with fairly lights. It was truly awful. I can only describe it as a 2 minute ride into a 1970′s disco. It features now at the top (or bottom?) of my World Class Attractions (not) category.
It didn’t take long on The Bund for me to find the Rolex Dealers – and £30 for a Gold Perpetual Oyster isn’t bad? I could have had a Louis Vuitton bag too – but I was concerned about how much I could carry back.
My day finished back in Xiantiandi – to meet up with some of the Conference goers I had met this week for dinner… How quickly the time has gone!
