This Wednesday (27th July) saw the ULI UK summer drinks, with over 120 property professionals crammed into the Sir Hugh Casson room at the Royal Academy of Arts (RAA). Focused on the future of London’s heritage buildings, and hosted by the Young Leaders Committee, it was forward-looking in more ways than one.

Liggy Bass, Senior Project Managerat the Royal Academy of Arts, gave an overview of the ambitious Masterplan project that the RA is currently undertaking to mark their 250^th Anniversary in 2018.  The Sir David Chipperfield scheme encompasses both 6 Burlington Gardens and Burlington House, and will include a 260 seater lecture theatre, a new learning centre, a dedicated Collections gallery, new art handling facilities and a fully refurbished suite of galleries. The project also includes a significant amount of historical restoration, particularly to the façade of 6 Burlington Gardens. One of the pinnacles of the project is a suspended concrete bridge that will link the two buildings and transform the RA into a magnificent 2.5 acre campus.

The vision of the Masterplan is to pay homage to the prestige of the past, whilst driving and implementing an expanded vision for the future- all in time for the 250^th Anniversary.

Next, Josef Hargrave, Global Foresight Manager at Arup, carved out the scale of the challenge facing the real estate industry as we grapple how to preserve the past while building for the future. Change is constant, he said, and technological shifts driving disruption elsewhere in the economy would soon start impacting the built environment hugely.

Comparing and contrasting photos from two papal inaugurations, two momentous occasions in their own right, Hargrave demonstrated the pace of innovation over the past decade. In 2005, when Pope Benedict XVI was elected, there appeared to be one lonely phone capturing the event. Come 2013, when Pope Francis was anointed, everyone in the crowd seemed to have a mobile, or indeed a tablet (not the kind Moses would recognise).

But it is not just technology that is rapidly evolving – society is too. As Hargrave noted: London isn’t just growing, it’s growing older. There will be 68 per cent more people aged 65 or over by 2040, and that has huge implications for healthcare and housing.

The changing climate, another major concern of our time, led many to pause for thought. But the coming digital revolution gives us case for hope Hargrave argued. The arrival of 5G, and the rapid expansion of the Internet of Things that would entail, allowing us to fashion smarter, more reactive environments that are less resource intensive.

Finishing with a quote from Ove Arup, his company’s founder, Hargrave laid the foundation for the evening’s next speaker, Richard Coleman, principal at townscape and heritage consultant, Citydesigner. From Ruskin to Churchill and Steiner, Coleman listed the philosophical inspirations that guide his design decisions.

Shooting through a number of case studies, it became clear that to Coleman context is king. King’s College’s Strand redevelopment plans proved so controversial because they didn’t properly consider the importance of the history of the surrounding area. Somerset House was the first official British government building that wasn’t a palace, and this fact required its setting to be more carefully considered.

But above all, developers have to justify the quality of the design of their buildings in heritage areas said Coleman and this requires objective analysis. That quality is often lost through ‘value engineering’. He is also concerned that the very tall buildings are getting out of scale with the historic townscapes they are within. Not enough careful analysis of the effects is carried out. We are going to need to become much better at this.

As the speeches finished, the size of the challenges facing London – building homes for an expanding, greying population, tackling climate change, future-proofing new developments, all while preserving our built heritage – seemed daunting. But enjoying a drink in Burlington House, the 19^th century mansion home to the RAA, which stands on one of the busiest roads in London, it felt like we hadn’t done a bad job so far.

Words by Tom Roberts, BlackstockPR