Building the Chinese landscape

Peter Goldsmith, chairman of Haskoll China [Photo/Cecily Liu, China Daily]

A decade of expansion has allowed the British architecture firm Haskoll to successfully penetrate the booming Chinese real estate market. With more than 80 projects across 42 cities, their Chinese endeavors have superseded business on their European home turf.

Peter Goldsmith, chairman of Haskoll China, says that localization is a key factor in their success.

'Our client base is almost 100 percent local Chinese developers. We haven't come in on the back of international companies, which is what I originally expected', Goldsmith says.

Goldsmith believes that European firms, with their long tradition of detail-oriented design, can be a source of invaluable expertise to Chinese clients. Embellishments can be invented rather than merely reproduced from a book.

Haskoll's edge comes from its emphasis on creativity and a holistic approach that seeks to integrate the development with the surrounding context. Accordingly, it emphasizes overseas education and work experience amongst its employees, who are predominantly local Chinese.

Founded in 1974, Haskoll made tentative forays into China from London from 2004 onwards. Goldsmith and his partner Henry Yang waited for the local real estate market to progress beyond cookie-cuttermass housing and iconic superstructures before establishing their Beijing office in 2010.

"From 2004 to 2007 and 2008, our level of expertise was not well appreciated in China. [Now], a lot of our developers wish to hold and manage their projects, and are concerned about its long-term success. This has been to our advantage," Goldsmith says.

Haskoll's portfolio ranges from island holiday resorts to university campuses and office towers, but they specialize in commercial, retail and mixed-use developments, which are areas of architectural practice sometimes dismissed by other firms in the market, says Goldsmith.

"Many architects are more interested in the aesthetics of their project than achieving the developer's aims. We always advise on a fundamental level, meaning we will tell our client if their proposed layout is nonfunctional or inefficient," he says.

An early success for Haskoll in China was for the Shimao Group with Nanjing Road West, a wearydepartment store occupying prime space along Shanghai's main shopping thoroughfare. Over six months in 2010, Haskoll gave it a complete overhaul, transforming a 'concrete box, covered in tiles', into a vibrant hub with a wraparound glass front that took full advantage of the view of Renmin Park.

Gaining a foothold in China has not been without challenges. A different environment mandates a drastically different approach to design.

Two noticeable ways in which the Chinese market differs from the West, says Goldsmith, are in terms of speed and scale: 'Our clients often challenge us to complete a project within some ridiculous time frame. We always deliver, and they may end up being the ones that delay. We pride ourselves on meeting deadlines unheard of in the West.'

In addition, Chinese developers are presented with unique challenges almost unheard of in Western cities: 'Property development giants like Wanda are often the first in their area – they lack context, and are building in the middle of nowhere. They should act as catalyst for the development of a whole area beyond their immediate site."

But China's rapid urbanization, particularly in its third and fourth tier cities, also permits Haskoll to embark on projects of colossal scale in locales that, Goldsmith believes, are 'in desperate need of a heart'.

Haskoll recently won a bid to develop 43 hectares of the CBD in Jiaozhou, on the outskirts of Qingdao. This 'master plan' development involves integrating office buildings commissioned by different developers along the main waterway. Swathes ofgreen parkland running between the buildings open out the development for public use.

Haskollhas also been tasked with rejuvenating the historic city center of Kaifeng for the Shengrun Group. 50 hectares of low-density development, organized around communal courtyards and encirclinga lake, harmonize with a city whose ancient structures represent the pinnacle ofSong Dynasty architectural achievement.

"The Kaifeng project consists of 700,000 square meters of primarily low-density residential housing. Because it is a place of great historical and cultural value, we cannot disturb the subterranean foundations," Goldsmith says.

Having worked in both China and the UK, Goldsmith says the speed of development in the two markets have their respective problems. Whereas property development in China can proceed at the expense of environmental protection, developers in mature markets like the United Kingdom are mired inexcessive bureaucracy and face regulatory hurdles.

" [In the UK], you can spend years trying to get planning approval. The process becomes more laborious and cumbersome. In China, a decision is made, then followed through," says Goldsmith.

Nevertheless, Goldsmith believes that the European modelof urban planning, and the wealth of architectural and design acumen derived from it, is one worth aspiring to in China.

"The future calls for high-density city centers in China, and this is ecologically sound. China will have to move to a mixed mode of transport in the future to avoid snarling up the city center with traffic. For example, they may have to repopularize the bike," he says. Chinese cities can also learn from their European counterparts to maximize the utility of space, Goldsmith says.

"Beijing isn't walkable, and it needs to be. In town planning terms there is such a waste of land. We need to apply the same attitude taken to growing vegetables in Southern China – where every bit of land is used up – to urban development elsewhere in the country," he says.

London, he concludes, is viewedby Chinese as a good model of city development because of its openness to mixed-use developments and new solutions. He cites King's Cross/St. Pancras station in North London, where the EuroStar terminal is located,as an example of intelligent blending of commercial and functional space.

"It is more than a transport hub, becoming a tourist attraction in its own right, and exemplifies a new way of approaching stations that China needs to take on board."

Looking into the future, Goldsmith says that the profit incentive alone is not enough to ensure that livable, sustainable cities flourish in China; the initiative must be government-led. Development of a viable public realm is key: 'The value of a project is increased by integrating, not segregating it from the surrounding developments, even if we think of it as in competition with them.'