Over the past ten years, London and other cities have seen many high-rise buildings go up alongside attempts to market them, mostly to overseas buyers. But what really interests me is how to create a community out of a high-rise. That can still feel like a very abstract idea – I wouldn't have even considered building a high-rise if they still had the image they once had. That's changing. But you have to be dynamic to create a sense of community – gardens on multiple levels, lobbies next to entrances to hotels and restaurants. You have to push on ideas that bring people together.
The fact is, too many residential developments merely mimic what's been done before. A lot of property developers are too often tied to shareholders – it's all about maximising profit - so the temptation is to play it safe and ensure that whatever they do sells. And the simplest way to do that is look at precedence. But residential development should be about breaking the mould – not being different for its own sake, but because it moves on the way we live. When I first did loft-style homes in the UK, it was not about imposing an idea, but giving people a big open space and allowing them to make what they wanted of it. Taking that kind of approach is risky, but there's always a demand for new ideas in a market that often doesn't have any.
Of course, there's a lot of work between developing an idea, building consumer confidence and the final product. I'm a skier and there's a big difference between imagining the mountain and being at the top ready to ski down. And certainly, the property market in the UK faces a lot of issues, affordability being the most obvious, which is why I think a proportion of any new building has to be offered to those other than for whom the money is not a problem. In mainland Europe, owning property isn't seen as being so essential; people are comfortable with the idea of renting. Shifting that psychology won't be easy, though. We all understand the sense of security in ownership. But if there was a better understanding of how renting worked on the continent, I think the benefits would be more appreciated.
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I do feel property development can be a force for good, depending on the motivation, and certainly there's room for improvement. Gentrification, for example, is often framed as a negative thing – that it simply means it's less affordable, that it pushes out the artists and small businesses that made the area interesting in the first place. But gentrification does bring in a cultural diversity and new ideas, which is what makes an area feel like it's alive again.
We forget that an area is about more than nice shops and restaurants, it's about the culture. When an area has its own culture, it's no longer just an annex to central London; it has its own pulse. Besides, who wants to live in some kind of gated community? The biggest highs I've had have been when we've given a new lease of life to a redundant building and when that in turn has given the scene around it a new lease of life too, perhaps by encouraging other developers to the area.
Plenty of them have regarded many of the projects we've done to be insane – look at St Pancras. But that worked out in the end. There were times when I was ready to walk away from the whole project, but we'd already pre-sold the apartments. And my father had always said one of the most important things in life is to maintain your credibility. People have to trust you.
HARRY HANDELSMAN is a property developer, the founder of the Manhattan Loft Corporation and the man who pioneered loft living in the UK. Since then, his many diverse projects have included the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, Ealing Studios, the Hackney fashion hub and, most recently, Manhattan Loft Gardens in Stratford, east London, a 42-storey residential tower. manhattanloft.co.uk
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