Manfredi Catella, CEO of COIMA and president of the Riccardo Catella Foundation

Manfredi Catella is the CEO of COIMA, the real estate company behind Porta Nuova in Milan, one of the most important real estate developments in Europe. He is also president of the Riccardo Catella Foundation which aims to promote sustainable and responsible urban development by improving and animating public spaces. Here, Catella discusses transforming urban environments, mixing business with philanthropy and how technology advances sustainability efforts

LUX: The Riccardo Catella Foundation has had an interest in promoting sustainability long before sustainability became a buzzword, how did this come about?
Manfredi Catella: The Riccardo Catella Foundation was established in 2005 in honour of my father, the entrepreneur Riccardo Catella. At the time, not many entities were focused on promoting ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), or impact indicators in investments, and we felt it could be our contribution to set up a non-profit organisation committed to promoting sustainable territorial development. We also have the ambition to educate communities about the effects of climate change and what actions need to be taken to fight and prevent this phenomenon. We do this through a citizen engagement program of civic-cultural projects within the realm of green and public spaces in the city of Milan. We believe it is important to listen to citizens in order to understand their vision for the urban space surrounding their homes and integrate programs and services that can improve their quality of daily life.

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LUX: What is the most exciting philanthropic project you are currently working on and why?
Manfredi Catella: At the moment, the philanthropic project where we are dedicating a lot of our energy to is The Riccardo Catella Foundation’s management of Milan’s third largest park, BAM (Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano), which we undertook together with COIMA on behalf of the Municipality of Milan. It is the first public private partnership in Italy that allows a private foundation to manage such a vast public and green space in the city centre. The 10 hectares of the botanical garden, which was developed by COIMA as part of its Porta Nuova development, is a ground-breaking project that aims to involve companies, non-profit sector, and citizens (BAMFriends) in the management of a public area. In addition, we animate the park through a cultural program based on four pillars: open-air culture, education, wellness and nature.

BAM (Biblioteca degli Alberi Milano) is Milan’s third largest park, managed by The Riccardo Catella Foundation

Ensuring the safety of the local community in the outside spaces has been particularly important since the start of the pandemic. We have been increasing services to enable greater green mobility over the past year. The changes are visible to park visitors. In outdoor areas, new bike racks have been set up, with information on anti Covid-19 measures, sanitising gel dispensers and continuous sanitisation services for floors, children’s playgrounds and communal areas. Safety is the starting point for a series of inclusive initiatives such as Wi-Fi enhancement and the launch of the Porta Nuova Milano app, which is designed to book events and services in the area.

LUX: Please explain your workings in neighbourhood community management?
Manfredi Catella: COIMA believes that the only way for the built environment to help fight climate change and to promote diversity is to integrate them into the basic economic, social and environmental model of every real estate development and by setting measurable objectives and transparently reporting on those objectives. We believe in placing nature and humans at the centre of all real estate development and urban regeneration schemes. In Porta Nuova, we have created a thriving urban environment that enables constant interaction between nature and architecture. There are walkways, green spaces, and piazzas with spaces created for exercise, relaxation, and socialising, all of which welcomes 10 million people every year. It includes Biblioteca Degli Alberi Milano (BAM), an innovative urban park and botanical garden, which plays host to a diverse programme of cultural events and activities for residents, workers, and visitors alike.

Read more: Michelin-starred high altitude dining in Andermatt

LUX: Why do you think it is important to mix business with philanthropy?
Manfredi Catella: In general, the corporate approach to philanthropy has really evolved, and over the last ten years in particular, there has been a shift towards a model of collaboration and sustainable, long-term initiatives. It is important to mix business with philanthropy because corporations have a highly influential role on the social and natural world in which we live. It is also important as sustainable business models have a strong track record of delivering superior returns. Corporate philanthropy is no longer about simply giving money and walking away. By using the skills, tools, and approach of our business, we can continuously monitor the impact of our work and ensure it is having the best possible outcome for those who need it.

The pandemic has highlighted the fragile nature of our world and we believe that business has a duty to create positive change and a sustainable future as we recovery economically from Covid. This led us to establish the COIMA ESG City Impact Fund in 2020; an investment fund focused on sustainable urban regeneration. We aim to use this fund to redesign new physical and social models for housing, tourism and urban regeneration of neighbourhoods and believe that sustainable real estate can play a central role in a post Covid recovery. As responsible managers of institutional capitol from all over the world, we believe can help shape the future.

Bosco Verticale was designed by Boeri Studio, and built and managed by COIMA as part of the  Porta Nuova development

LUX: Apart from sustainability projects, are there any other philanthropic causes you have a particular interest in?
Manfredi Catella: Since 2018, we have been promoting an important social inclusion project through the Riccardo Catella Foundation, together with the Dynamo Camp association, called the Porta Nuova Smart Camp. It is an inclusive and innovative project for children both with and without serious pathologies and disabilities. Nature, sustainable architecture, and technological innovation are topics at the centre of the camp’s activities, along with incorporating the values of the Foundation and the community of COIMA’s Porta Nuova development.

LUX: How has working closely with local communities over the last 10 years changed your outlook on real estate development?
Manfredi Catella: We are recognised as a sustainable real estate company because it has long been our goal to create projects with a strong positive social and environmental impact on its community. The past year has reaffirmed that we all need to continue conducting our business and investing in a responsible way. The past ten years has taught us that it is essential to always look at the bigger picture. For us, this means that we look at a neighbourhood scale instead of a single building. By doing this, we can effectively redevelop urban spaces and provide a selection of amenities to better serve a variety of city users. For example, the COIMA ESG City Impact Fund has just acquired the railway yard of Porta Romana in Milan, together with Covivio and Prada, and we are very excited about exploring this neighbourhood scale development.

Read more: Alia Al-Senussi on art as a catalyst for change

Through our passion and experience, we have also developed our own sustainable vision called COIMA Roots which focuses on driving sustainable, economic, and social performance across our developments. COIMA Roots has been created in line with our belief that humans and nature should sit at the heart of all urban regeneration and development. To accomplish this, our set of values, or roots, are nature, beauty, affordability, human, happiness, ethics, service, and knowledge.

LUX: What were your principal goals when creating the Riccardo Catella Foundation?
Manfredi Catella: When we started the Riccardo Catella Foundation, our goal was to actively support the local economy and to promote the culture of sustainability and innovation in territorial development. We also wanted to make sure we were improving the quality of urban life and public green spaces through the foundation’s cultural projects. I feel that the challenge to create a place of nature, inclusion and growth in the heart of the city at the BAM park will be one of our challenges over the coming years. We are working to create a park that engages the community through a rich cultural programme inspired by sustainability but at the same time would like to create a sustainable business model that could be replicable for other parks in other cities around the world.

A street art project at BAM in Milan

LUX: The Riccardo Catella Foundation has been around for almost 15 years. What has been the most significant change in sustainability during this time?
Manfredi Catella: Two main drivers: awareness and technology. When we began the foundation, sustainability and climate change was not a common topic as it is today. In recent years, we have witnessed a major shift and an increased awareness and now all players, from the public administrations to corporate to citizens, are recognising the need for urgent concrete action. Also, today, we have technological solutions that before were not available and it is fundamental to stay at the forefront of these technologies to continue to push the bar in integrating these solutions in development.

LUX: Which regeneration projects by others have particularly impressed or even inspired your philanthropic efforts?
Manfredi Catella: When we began working on the proposal for the management of BAM, we visited many parks around the world, including The High Line in New York and Millennium Park in Chicago. Then we worked on creating our own interpretation that would integrate well into the city of Milan.

LUX: Is there a major difference in approach between European, Asian and American organisations involved in philanthropic urban regeneration programmes?
Manfredi Catella: Across Europe, philanthropic engagement is an integral part of corporate social responsibility and reinforces related strategies. More and more companies of all sizes are dedicating financial resources, products, knowledge, and time to the common good. The world of philanthropy is renewing itself and dated foundations are starting to make way for a new approach to charity that incorporates social purpose and sustainability through impact investing. We believe that impact investing will become mainstream and that the positive environmental and social contribution will be integrated into traditional investments. We are dedicated and are working actively in that direction.

Find out more: coima.com

A seafront villa at the Ritz-Carlton residences in Bodrum, Turkey

The concept of the branded residence was born in New York in 1927 when The Sherry Netherland Hotel began offering privately owned apartments overlooking Central Park. Since then, almost all major hotel groups have jumped on the trend, launching collections of luxurious, fully-serviced apartments and villas across the globe. Here, Dana Jacobsohn, the Senior Vice President of Residential Development at Marriott International discusses consumer trends, the impact of the pandemic, and the launch of the world’s largest branded residential complex to date

Dana Jacobsohn

1.Why do think branded residences have become more popular in recent years?

The comfort of buying into globally trusted brands like The Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis is becoming even more important to buyers as it ensures the very best in services around the globe. All members of our dedicated residential staff go through over 150 hours of training annually and I think that level of service really appeals to buyers, especially during these unsure times.

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2. Has the pandemic brought about any changes in your sector of the real-estate industry?

Our branded residences business has been resilient, and we have seen strong consumer confidence despite uncertainty caused by the pandemic. The live, work and play phenomenon is a trend that we are seeing across our properties. Vacation homes are now becoming places where people stay for longer periods of time. Many of our residents are working from their homes, so they want to have offices and workstations that seamlessly fit into their lifestyle. We expect to see more vacation homes to become a primary place of residence in the future.

3. How do you engage your owners?

Our teams of dedicated residential staff often become like extended family to our residents. Staff members quickly become familiar with owners’ preferences, their pets, and family, so there’s a very deep level of personal engagement within the communities.

Often in our residences, we’ll have an owner’s lounge, and a place where, say, a celebrity chef comes and does a cooking instruction. However, due to the pandemic, we’ve had to get even more creative with our programming and how we engage with owners. For example, at The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Los Angeles,  the staff delivered food to residents during the pandemic, and we organised a cooking class via Zoom.

A render of the living space inside a St. Regis branded beachfront villa

4. Where have you seen the most growth in recent years?

While the majority of our branded residential portfolio is in North America, more than 75% of our pipeline projects are outside the US. We are seeing strong interest from markets in Asia and the Middle East.

Read more: Professor Peter Newell on why the wealthy need to act on climate change

5. What is the most common demand from buyers?

With over 100 locations across the globe, Marriott International’s branded residences portfolio offers something for everyone from beach-front resort-style properties to ski chalets in the mountains or homes that are within walking distance to restaurants in a bustling city. Our buyers’ lifestyle preferences vary, but the common thread is that they all want beautiful design, and trusted services. I think those will always be most important elements to a buyer, regardless of the location.

6. Can you tell us about latest project in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam?

We were thrilled to announce this dual-branded project, The JW Marriott Residences and Marriott Residences, Grand Marina, Saigon earlier this year. Located in the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, the project marks the largest branded residential project in the world and is anticipated to include close to 4,200 residential and office units. Each private retreat will offer access to an array of high-quality hotel-like amenities and on-demand services for residents.

Find out more: marriottresidences.com

Andermatt’s newest apartment building Altera features twelve luxury residences

Andermatt Swiss Alps is the hottest destination in Switzerland right now. The sustainable ski/golf/mountain living resort in the mountains in the centre of the country achieved record property sales last year and that’s set to increase with the recent launch of two more luxury apartment buildings. Buy while you can…

A recently published report revealed that Andermatt Swiss Alps made a total of CHF 76.9 million in 2020 from its property sales, an increase of approximately 25% from 2019 and the highest figure in the resort’s history.

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While the pandemic continues to have devastating impacts on global tourism, the demand for Andermatt’s luxury alpine residential properties has continued to rise. The majority of apartments in the Frame and Alma buildings, which launched in the summer of 2020, were sold out within several weeks, and there are only a few residences left in the resort’s newest buildings, Koya and Altera, which launched in March.

The open-plan living room in one Altera’s apartments

The interest is partly due to the rare investment opportunity (it’s difficult for foreigners to be able to buy apartments Switzerland), but also thanks to the resort’s development as a thriving year-round destination.

Read more: Tasting with sustainable Napa wine producer Beth Novak Milliken

Since the start of the project in 2007, a total of more than CHF 1.2 billion has been invested to transform what was once a sleepy ski village into one of the most exclusive and dynamic alpine resorts. It’s part of central Switzerland’s largest linked ski area which offers high-altitude cycling and hiking routes in the summer, and home to luxury hotels such as The Chedi Andermatt as well as slope-side Michelin-starred restaurants.

The interiors of Koya’s apartments are inspired by Japanese design

Andermatt’s latest residences

Located in the village’s car-free area known as Andermatt Reuss, Koya and Altera each offer a distinct atmosphere complete with sophisticated design details and luxurious owner amenities.

Koya’s stylish, Japanese-inspired, mezzanine-style apartments are already sold out, but Altera offers twelve, equally beautiful residences for contemporary Alpine living. Each room has been carefully designed to maximise natural light and highlight the staggering views of the surrounding mountains through tall, floor to ceiling windows. The building also features a communal ski room, residents’ lounge with an open fire, a spin studio, sauna, and relaxation area.

For more information, visit: andermatt-swissalps.ch

October is not usually known as a ski month. But at the Andermatt Swiss Alps development, you can cruise the slopes down the 3000m Gemsstock in the morning, and be back for some witches’ brew at the Chedi in the evening.

There are many time-honoured ways to get thrills and excitement on Halloween; skiing, traditionally, has not been one of them. Yet if the fancy catches you, that is exactly what you can do this October 31, on one in Switzerland’s most serious ski mountains.

The Andermatt Swiss Alps ski region, located bang in the centre of the country, is opening this October 31 with its top run, descending from a dizzying 2955 metres, the first to open, followed by two steeper and more challenging glacier runs later in November.

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Andermatt’s Gemsstock mountain, where the action is taking place, is one of the most exciting in Switzerland. From the top you can see over to Monte Rosa, near Zermatt, on the Italian border to the southwest, and to Piz Buin, on the Austrian border, to the northeast. There is a vertical drop of more than 1500 metres from top to bottom. Many of the pistes are north facing and benefit from big snowfall caused by the “barrage effect“ of winds sweeping across north-western Europe and hitting the Alps. In simple terms: lots of snow.

Andermatt’s 3000m Gemsstock mountain

This year, after a hot autumn and early September, temperatures plummeted and the mountain has already seen several significant snowfalls, augmented by their own “snow farm” which preserves snow from the previous winter throughout the summer and feeds it into the slopes for the next season.

Read more: OceanX founders Ray & Mark Dalio on ocean awareness

Sadly, Halloween skiers won’t be able to take advantage of the full vertical drop down to the village at the bottom, which will only open in December. But the village of Andermatt itself is a new gem of the Alps, a tiny traditional village of cosy shops and restaurants augmented by a new luxury development.

The Chedi with its private ice-rink (above), and Japanese restaurant

Aficionados will know that its highlight is the Chedi hotel, with its Japanese at the Chedi restaurant at its heart. There is also a burgeoning new residential development village created around the Piazza San Gottardo up a little further along the road, with apartments – uniquely, open for purchase by foreigners – restaurants, shops, bars, two hotels (one already open) and even a concert hall.

A rendering of Andermatt’s latest apartment building Enzian

Later in the season proper you can also sample Michelin-level fine dining on the other mountain, Gutsch. For the moment though, it’s time to put on a Halloween costume, book your place in the cable car up the mountain (a new service for coronavirus times) and whizz down from the top on your broomstick, or even the latest pair of Stöcklis.

Find out more: andermatt-swissalps.ch

Mulberry Square townhouses at Chelsea Barracks

The exclusive Chelsea Barracks residential development in London aims to be the epitome of contemporary luxury living. It also draws on a wealth of traditional artisanal craft heritage, from specially designed and made oak furniture to bespoke light fittings, to forge a new historically significant landmark, as Mark C. O’Flaherty discovers

Some of the heftiest books lining the shelves of the world’s libraries are devoted to the history of London. The tale of Chelsea Barracks warrants a whole chapter of its own. It is an epic story, with handsome accents. Built as a home to Victorian infantry battalions, the original architecture stood for nearly 100 years. Since the 1960s, various plans for the site have been discussed but not materialised, but today Chelsea Barracks is a landmark again – a residential development that combines contemporary British craft with heritage inspiration. From the public artwork in the grounds to the finishings, light fittings and balustrades of the townhouses, Qatari Diar have brought together a nation of artisans.

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The ongoing story of British craft is told from numerous perspectives, and has culminated in more than just a landmark – there is also The Chelsea Barracks Collection. Under the direction of Albion Nord, the studio responsible for the overall look of the townhouse show-home interiors, an 11-piece capsule of designs has been commissioned from many of the artisans involved. Each object is handmade and represents the highest level of British craftsmanship, creating a dialogue with the Georgian squares of Belgravia. Wine glasses and tumblers echo the glassware produced in the 18th century, while the Belgravia Lamp references the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns of local buildings. “It is inspired by the orders of classical architecture,” explains Ottalie Stride, creative director at Albion Nord. “It has strong London connotations.”

The Chelsea Barracks Collection, designed by Albion Nord, includes the Elizabeth Side Table made by Rory Stride (above) of Stride & Co

You can see the broader strokes of the style in London-based designer Tord Boontje’s floral elements on the townhouse balconies – the wild roses, peonies and apple blossom of the British countryside, so often showcased at the nearby Chelsea Flower Show – all forged in metal by West Country Blacksmiths, based in a 17th-century workshop in Somerset. From the physicality of their creation, to the greenery of Belgravia, they connect numerous threads within the narrative of Chelsea Barracks. These aren’t things you can take home – they are home.

Boontje’s work to date has been almost exclusively for interiors, so to have his petals adorning a façade is significant. They also form a link with the landscaping outside. From one of Boontje’s balconies you have a radiant view over the perfect floral grids planted by award-winning landscape gardener Jo Thompson and landscape architect Neil Porter. This is one of the most arresting and modern green spaces in the city today.

Read more: How Andermatt Swiss Alps is drawing a new generation of visitors

The best kind of design is often site-specific, taking visual cues from and creating a dialogue with its setting. All of the artisans involved in the development studied the site, its environment and and history. Using designs by Albion Nord, the artisans at Marina Mill created for The Chelsea Barracks Collection silkscreened upholstery in a diamond pattern that references tiling inside the restored Garrison Chapel on the grounds. Other designs by Albion Nord took inspiration from the floor plan of the Royal Hospital Chelsea. As much as upholstery, Marina Mill have been weaving history, too.

Chelsea Barracks is a style and brand as well as a prestigious residential address. The Chelsea Barracks Collection incorporates many elements that link the development to history. A metal and leather pendant lantern is inspired by the flashlights used by soldiers in the first world war, while the Barracks Bench has been created in homage to the Egypt-mania that captured London society in the 18th and 19th centuries. A collection of ceramics, titled Radnor, play on the history of porcelain in the area. Silversmith Nicholas Sprimont was the founder of the Chelsea Porcelain Factory, which from the mid 1740s became the tableware maker for the royal family. “They were the first important porcelain pottery manufacturer in England, so it’s great to bring this material to life,” says Stride.

The Collection also includes Westminster glassware made by Stewart Hearn

Some of the furniture created with the homes, and The Chelsea Barracks Collection, in mind – including a bench, bedside table, side table and writing desk – come from the Stride & Co workshops in West 38are beautifully crafted objects from carpenters accustomed to making only 15 to 20 pieces in a year. Each desk is made from a single piece of oak for consistency of grain. Detail is everything, and so is the story behind each piece – the side table is inspired by the British fondness for tea-drinking, which took hold in the mid 18th century. Other pieces are battalion inspired. “The Wellington Desk made by Stride & Co is inspired by a traditional campaign desk,” explains Stride. “It would have been used by officers and their staff during a military campaign. Our design here aims to retain the portability and simplicity of the original, whilst including special details such as the lion-claw feet and the Chelsea Barracks rose mark, featured on the key to both the desk and the bedside tables.”

Tord Boontje’s specially commissioned metal floral decorations on the townhouse balconies

Like Boontje, bespoke light designer Sharon Marston looked to the history of the Chelsea Flower Show before starting work. Marston’s background flags up her instinctive approach to light and materials. Her career began in jewellery and costume design, working with Bella Freud, Paul Smith and the English National Opera. She creates objects that are luminescent, ethereal and elegant. The British flora is a constant inspiration. The two Willow chandeliers she created for Chelsea Barracks evoke the weeping willow tree found in the English countryside as well as landscapes by Turner and Constable. She was also keen to emphasise the inherent Britishness of the formal properties of her pieces. “Craftmanship is at the heart of my approach,” she explains. “The artisans I work with are small cottage industries dotted around the UK, ranging from glassblowers and ceramicists to metalwork engineers. My close relationship with each is what brings the intricate detail of my work to life. There are approximately 2,000 pieces of hand-crafted decorative components made from woven bronze mesh spread across both chandeliers, taking many weeks to create.”

Mulberry Square gardens, planted with fruits, herbs and flowers

Many of the works carried out for Chelsea Barracks pushed the boundaries for their creators. Reedway is an engineering company involved in the nuclear, space and marine industries. The ornate balustrades they created for the residences were inspired by the work of Arts and Crafts visionary William Morris and made using high-pressure water cutting on metal, usually employed in aviation, so making something very much 21st century. Reedway also worked on artist Conrad Shawcross’s tree-like sculpture at the development, Bicameral, constructed from anodised aluminium and installed permanently in the grounds.

What the designers and artisans behind the new Chelsea Barracks have done is take the romance of a classical Georgian home and refract it through the lens of today’s style but grounded it with Victorian muscle. The method in which that style has been crafted tells a story that has depth and longevity, one that will develop for generations to come.

Restoring the past

The Grade II listed Victorian iron railings during their restoration

The Victorian railings at Chelsea Barracks were given a pass when the government was requisitioning cast iron for the war effort in the 1940s. Grade II listed for more than ten years, the railings have now been restored to their original grandeur as part of the new development. The development team at Qatari Diar worked with the foundry Paterson Engineering in Scotland on what became a complex task. The original railings were moulded 150 years ago, and despite their apparent uniformity, there was no standard fitting. Each component had to be logged before removal for restoration. Back in their original place, they look magnificent. History has been refreshed and a link has been forged between the new architecture and the Victorian era that made these five hectares world famous. “They mark the border of Chelsea Barracks and pay homage to the history of the site,” explains Richard Oakes, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Europe and Americas at Qatari Diar. “Together with the Garrison Chapel, the railings are now all that remain of the original 19th-century barracks, and their preservation and restoration has been a journey all of its own and one that we’re extremely proud of.”

Find out more: chelseabarracks.com

This article features in the Autumn 2020 Issue, hitting newsstands in October.

The penthouse apartment at Alma, one of two apartment houses to become available in Andermatt

The transformation of the village of Andermatt in the Swiss Alps into a place for permanent residence or seasonal getaways is taking more than just the rich amenities already there. It is the care and imagination with which the developers are creating the architectural environment that is drawing in investors, too, as Jenny Southan finds out

You want an escape, away from the crowds, to use year-round and as attractive in summer as it is in winter. It needs to be somewhere secure, clean, easily accessible, with excellent facilities; somewhere your family can indulge in outdoor sports on the doorstep, and then gather for a home-cooked meal, or zip out to the local high-class Asian restaurant in the evening. It should also feel like an attractive investment, in a desirable country in which property is hard for foreigners to acquire; and in a location where there is strong demand for holiday rentals, to provide income when you are not there.

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Welcome to the new apartments being developed in Andermatt in the mountains of central Switzerland. In a country where new-build apartments available for foreigners to buy are almost unheard of, the two new buildings, Frame and Alma, sit aside a central square in the brand-new development village of Andermatt Reuss. They are all part of the spectacular Andermatt Swiss Alps development, which has seen a previously sleepy and marginal ski village in a spectacular location transformed into one of the pearls of the Alps, via a $2bn investment by global place creator Samih Sawiris and his company Orascom.

Panoramic windows in Alma’s penthouse apartment

The development starts at The Chedi Andermatt hotel and restaurant complex, on the edge of the old village, through a rebuilt railway station and gondola lift station, to the hotel, retail and residential complex at Andermatt Reuss, which features the central Piazza Gottardo around which the new apartment buildings are located. Owners have access to the huge indoor swimming pool, spa complex and concert hall at the Radisson Blu Reussen hotel next door, and Piazza Gottardo has a big sports shop, restaurant, bar and other retail to come. The 18-hole golf course, one of the most beautifully located and eco-friendly courses in Europe, is nearby. Zurich airport is just over an hour away by car or train; and speaking of cars, all the parking in Andermatt Reuss is underground, meaning there is no traffic.

Read more: British artist Hugo Wilson on creating art from chaos

The five-floor Frame apartment house has been designed by Swiss architectural firm OOS with a younger generation in mind. It features 34 apartments (one-bedroom and duplex, some with double-height ceilings) that have been designed to feel airy, generous and bright, despite being compact in size at 50–60 sq m. Bay windows, for example, provide space for sofa beds.

There are also communal areas on the ground level that include bike storage, and a ski room and workshop where you can do repairs. There is a chill-out lounge, a sauna, a courtyard with a fire pit, and the Hearth, which is an entertaining space with a kitchen where you can have drinks or dine with friends. The developer Andermatt Swiss Alps (ASA) says: “You can cook food yourself, get one of the restaurants to deliver or have one of the chefs from the local hotels come in. It’s also a place where, if you are thinking of going out for a week’s hike, you can invite your guide in for a coffee and plot your course.”

Frame features a communal dining area with a kitchen

While the exterior of Frame is based on the look of the handsome rendered buildings already in existence in the village, another apartment building called Alma draws its inspiration from local traditional wooden architecture. The developer says: “Our ambition is that in 20 or 30 years’ time the new and old parts of the village will blend together so it will look like one destination. We always ask our architects to look at the wealth of architecture here but interpret it with a more modern eye because we don’t want it to be a pastiche.”

However, the developers don’t want to create an ‘architectural zoo’ – as the developer puts it, “Everything has to have harmony”. Tasked with designing Alma, which sports dark, over-lapping timber cladding, was Dominik Herzog from the Zurich architectural firm Herzog Architekten. Located on the western edge of Andermatt Reuss, Alma has 11 two- and three-bedroom apartments (measuring 122–169 sq m) that have living rooms with fireplaces, bathrooms with freestanding tubs and large picture windows looking out on to the mountains and the Reuss river. There is a sauna on the ground floor.

Frame’s exterior has been designed to blend in with the village’s existing buildings

The developer says: “The spaces are satisfying, nurturing and enriching. They are not shouty or flashy. They are thoughtfully detailed. Every single apartment has 180-degree views, sunken corner lounges that are heavily upholstered and sheltered balconies so you can go outside even when it’s snowing or windy.” Although Frame and Alma are different from one another, both are firmly rooted in a sense of place. “Their use of materials has been informed by the existing architecture and they have been very careful about how they open up their buildings to the surrounding landscape. The windows almost become the artwork on the walls,” says the developer.

ASA also wanted a car-free environment so much of the investment (millions of dollars in fact) has gone underground to make a double-storey basement of car parking, storage and services. The result is a healthy, liveable, pedestrian-friendly village. The developer explains: “Some people live here full time and others use their property as holiday homes. We have a lot of local clients from Italy, Switzerland and Germany who come for weekends over the season in summer and winter, but also investors from China and Singapore who come and use it before it goes back into the rental pool.”

Open Season

The winter season on Gemsstock runs from 31 October to 25 April, and the Andermatt-Sedrun-Disentis season runs from 19 December to 11 April. These dates are, as always, dependent upon the prevailing snow conditions.

For more information visit: andermatt-swissalps.ch

This article features in the Autumn 2020 Issue, hitting newsstands in October.

Conrad Shawcross’s sculpture Bicameral at the pedestrian entrance to Chelsea Barracks.

Chelsea Barracks has already established itself as one of the most desirable places to live in London. Its gardens, with their planting schemes, public artworks and open access, are adding to the city’s continuing and defining history of garden squares, as Anna Tyzack reports

There are many measures by which London could be said to be the greatest city in the world. It is a (possibly the) financial and business hub; a crossroads between the Americas, Europe and Asia; a cultural centre that combines 2,000 years of history with being on the world’s leading edge in creativity in the 21st century.

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It is also the world’s most liveable great city. Yes, there are surveys published in trendy publications each year that tout the virtues of earthy locations in crispy-clean countries. But successful, ambitious humans want to live and work in a place where they can be surrounded by their peers: to be right in the heart of a city teeming with global leaders in finance, the arts, creativity, science, philanthropy and international trade. And yet they also crave a standard of living. Their villa on Cap Ferrat for summer and lodge in Aspen for winter have infinite light, space, nature; and London is the only city of its level in the world that can offer these semblances of space and green alongside its myriad other draws. London is the greenest city in Europe: almost 50 per cent of its surface area is parks, gardens, natural habitats or water.

In the most authoritative measure of its kind, London and New York regularly swap places at number 1 and number 2 slots in the Knight Frank Wealth Report Global Cities Index: but for the ‘lifestyle’ subsection, London is, in 2020, at the top.

Bourne Walk at Chelsea Barracks

One unique aspect of London lifestyle is its garden squares. They developed naturally as spaces for inhabitants to relax and play as the city grew; became protected in law; and now many of them are the most desirable addresses in the city. Garden squares in London can be public (run by the local councils) or private (owned and used by the local landowners); the best are hives of culture, leisure and joy.

And now there is a new crop of squares coming to life. Uniquely, they are in central London, an area not known for its propensity to be developed. They are the creation of Chelsea Barracks, a new super-luxe five-hectare residential area built between super-prime neighbourhoods Chelsea and Belgravia on the site of what was for 150 years an army barracks.

Read more: In conversation with ballet dancer Sergei Polunin 

It is also unique in its concept and ambition. Rather than build yet another cookie-cutter set of branded residences inside an enclosed compound, sell them off and take the money, owner Qatari Diar is in for the long term: the aim is to create a new neighbourhood, not just for those fortunate enough to afford the residences lining the new streets, but to welcome anyone who is drawn in by the beautiful and distinctive urban planning.

And the squares. There are two hectares of garden squares and public spaces, open to all, in the development: in all, seven new squares are being created. The idea is that residents can enjoy them permanently, and through an artfully curated cultural programme, visitors can pass through, linger and enjoy the first, and last, new area on this scale likely to be developed in central London for, well, probably ever.

Whistler Square is named after the artist James Abbott McNeill Whistler who once lived in Belgravia

They are also very much not a recreation or pastiche of existing garden squares. “Our gardens are very different from the traditional idea of railings around a set of trees and a lawn – we didn’t want rules or hostile architecture giving any sense that people were being segregated,” says Richard Oakes, Qatari Diar’s Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Europe & Americas. “Given we were working on what is going to be the most exclusive addresses in London, we had to find a new way of considering what is a garden square.”

This takes a delicate balancing act. The open spaces at Chelsea Barracks (which amount to a lot more than just garden squares) are aimed at attracting visitors and establishing the area as a cultural hub; while residents still feel a sense of exclusivity.

Read more: Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicolas Bos on the poetry of jewellery

The landscaping is contemporary in style, while referencing the traditional garden square, with water features to bring a sense of calm and tranquillity and bulbs and flowering trees such as magnolia to add colour and structure throughout the seasons. The red Chelsea Barracks rose, inspired by the intricate petal-shaped window in the restored Garrison Chapel, and cultivated for Chelsea Barracks by grower Philip Harkness, features prominently in the planting. “The gardens provide a spectacular new front door for Chelsea Flower Show, which takes place next door, at the Royal Hospital,” Oakes says.

Here and above: Mulberry Square’s garden planted with lavender, rosemary and strawberries

In Mulberry Square, for example, residents overlook a shallow water rill and a fragrant garden planted with lavender, rosemary and strawberries, a tribute to the patterned canvases of artist Bridget Riley. Here there are benches to sit on with a book or to enjoy a peaceful moment listening to the sound of the water.

Read more: How Gaggenau is innovating the ancient art of steam cooking

Meanwhile Whistler Square, in the northern part of the Barracks, is named after the artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who lived in Belgravia and Old Chelsea. It has as its focal point a bronze-edged Cumbrian black-slate scrim, no deeper than a finger nail, decorated with fragile etched lines to represent the lost rivers of London.

But culture, as much as gardens, is at the heart of the development. Garrison Chapel, which forms the centrepiece of the development, is a restored, listed and significant historical structure. It has been painstakingly restored by a host of British artisans including lime plasterers, fresco artists and stained-glass experts and will once again be a place for locals to gather. The new bell, an exact replica of the damaged original, was commissioned from Britain’s last surviving bell maker, John Taylor & Co of Loughborough.

Strikingly positioned, it will be the centre of an art and culture programme, which will spill out into the squares and spaces. It will involve performance art and installation as well as static art, with a focus on giving young and emerging artists a bedrock in the centre of London, an area for so long dominated by art dealers rather than artists. Striking also is the focus away from just retail: life, space and culture, rather than transaction, is what this new area aims to be about.

Public artwork at Chelsea Barracks

A tree-like sculpture by Conrad Shawcross is the first public artwork to be installed at Chelsea Barracks. Casting dappled shade onto Dove Place, the pedestrian entrance to the development, Bicameral comprises 693 components and stands 8m in height. It can be  seen, as Shawcross explains, as an Arcadian symbol for reason, humanity, rationalism, progress and hope, and it was designed to pay homage to the craftsmanship found at the Barracks. The sculpture was created entirely without welding; its interlocking forms are held together by techniques derived from Japanese wood joinery.

Chelsea Barracks in numbers

• Apartments in Chelsea Barracks cost from £5.25 million.
• Townhouses, each with a roof terrace, spa with pool, gym, garden and private garage, cost from £38 million.
• The Garrison Club is for the exclusive use of residents. With all the advantages of a private club, amenities include a 1,800 sq m spa and gym; private cinema, games room, residents’ lounge and business suite with two boardrooms.

Find out more: chelseabarracks.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue.

Steam cooking can preserve the nutritional value and flavour of delicate vegetables such as mushrooms

The ancient art of steam cooking has gained new impetus with the revolution in healthy and mindful cuisine. Lisa Jayne Harris looks at the artful kitchen innovations from design-led German luxury appliance maker, and chefs’ favourite, Gaggenau

Alice B. Toklas, the celebrated 20th-century literary salon hostess, had one golden rule for cooking: “one must respect the quality and flavour of the ingredients”. Steaming is the most direct way to achieve her objective; it is an efficient way to cook that leaves the food tasting exclusively of itself. Just consider the simple excellence of steamed asparagus with French butter, one of Toklas’s stand-by dishes for entertaining.

Phil Fanning, the executive chef and owner of restaurant Paris House in Woburn and Gaggenau culinary partner, agrees: “You’ve got nowhere to hide with steam: It’s all about the quality of ingredients.” This is essential when you are working with delicate seasonal vegetables like asparagus, new potatoes or peas, but it is just as significant with good quality meat, baked goods or pastry.

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However, healthier eating is another powerful motivator behind the steamed food trend. Boiling vegetables reduces much of their nutritional qualities, such as vitamins C and B1, and other mineral salts readily dissolve in water. Lightly steaming does not disturb the food’s cellular structure or its aromatic compositions the way boiling does, so you preserve more vitamins as well as the colour and texture for a more health-conscious cuisine. “Gentle steam cooking can actually improve the nutrient status of food like asparagus, spinach and tomatoes,” advises registered nutritional therapist, Catherine Arnold, “It makes their nutrients more bio-available to the body.”

Gaggenau’s 400 and 200 series combi-steam ovens are ideal for the precise cooking of seafood

Gaggenau has pioneered steam cooking in the home for the past 20 years and continues to do so, including combination steam ovens: “Whether you’re cooking in pure steam, or in combination with traditional heat, you’re getting the health benefits of steam cooking, as it maintains food’s nutrients, colour and shape,” says Gaggenau’s category manager, Simon Plumbridge. Steam can improve other healthy eating habits such as juicing, too: “Our juice extraction setting gently steams hard-skinned citrus fruit such as oranges, so you get a much higher juice yield without impacting nutrients.”

Steam cooking is also gaining traction with chefs and home cooks because of the innovations in steam-cooking technology. For all its benefits – puffed soufflés, sumptuous bread, those crisp layers in a croissant – mastering the technique used to require an intimidating level of precision. Today, keen cooks are investing in internal temperature probes, gadgets and state-of-the-art appliances to emulate high-end restaurants at home. “The UK’s food scene has massively improved in the past 30 to 40 years, and this growth in skill and quality is reflected in passionate home chefs’ kitchens too,” Fanning reflects. Our private kitchens are becoming more technologically advanced, and ovens that enable amateurs to cook like professionals are both a luxury and an enabler of creativity.

Embracing both the old and the new makes us all better cooks. “Lots of traditional techniques benefit from having precise control over the humidity,” says Fanning. “Take bread for example. For the perfect crusty baguette, you need about 30 per cent humidity for the first five minutes and then very little for the remaining bake. In a traditional convection oven that requires guesswork, but it’s easily and consistently achieved in a combi-steam oven.” Brands like Gaggenau are making this trend for precision steam cooking more accessible. Their combi-steam ovens can be controlled to within one degree, which continually revises the estimated cooking time based on temperature-probe readings from three different sensors. There is no more guessing: “Steam in its basic principle is an ancient way of cooking,” says Plumbridge. “But controlling the level of steam in combination with a fan is only achieved by modern technology – and that’s what brings professional results into the domestic home.”

Read more: Fashion designer Erdem Moralıoğlu’s guide to east London

Steam is also about convenience; rather than waiting for an oven to preheat, a good steam oven heats to temperature immediately. When you combine that with smart, Wi-Fi-enabled technology that lets you control the oven remotely from your office, or even set the bread to prove whilst you’re watching TV, you have all the benefits of ancient cooking just a voice command away. “Connectivity in the home has a lot of momentum at the moment,” Plumbridge observes, “But we’re more interested in future-proofing, so our ovens have the capacity to integrate with apps on any system such as Alexa or Cornflake smart homes.”

As much as new food trends are about keeping pace with technology, steam cooking also allows you to take your time. Next generation combi-steam ovens can sous-vide for up to almost 24 hours on a mains-connected water system or 11 hours with a tank, and cooking meat low and slow with a good level of humidity means it won’t be subjected to heat expansion and contraction, allowing for a more tender and juicy dish. Chefs also use steam to impart more subtle flavours into a dish, laying herbs under a piece of salmon to infuse the fish or steaming couscous in a traditional couscoussier, in which spices, onions and meat cook in the lower compartment and impart their flavour to the grains above.

“Remember that with a combi oven, steam doesn’t have to be 100ºC,” Fanning advises. “You want to cook vegetables as quickly as possible at that temperature, but steaming a piece of turbot at 60ºC or even lower will give you a much more delicate result. Oxtail or lamb shanks can be very gently cooked sous-vide in a combi-steam oven for hours with virtually no chance of overcooking, and duck legs, pork belly, haricot beans or lentils – if vacuum packed with a fat or oil – can be very gently and accurately made as a confit.”

Icelanders have steamed their bread buried next to hot springs for generations and Chinese steaming baskets have been piled with fluffy rice buns and hot dumplings for thousands of years. Steam cooking might be an ancient art, but revolutionary technology, a modern regard for putting ingredients first and a drive to lighten up our diets means that the technique is equally relevant today. True innovation combines the heritage of centuries of steam cooking with precision and performance that inspires. “That’s why Gaggenau ovens are all hand finished,” Plumbridge says. “Only when you piece a product together by hand, the good old-fashioned way, are you actually putting soul into a product. And that’s what really means something to people.”

Gaggenau’s factory on the French-German border

Precision Engineering

Darius Sanai takes a rare tour of the Gaggenau factory, pictured above, on the French-German border, and is struck by the melding of industry and creativity

The huge sheet of matte-silver metal looks, somehow, tempting and edible as it sits on the machine bed, like a giant slice of space-age food about to be sliced and diced. Lasers home in on a pattern of points on the sheet, and an instant later, it has a precise latticework of holes and is being washed clean. A few metres away, an operator is in charge of a machine that bends metal. It bends it a tiny bit, almost invisibly, but the bend makes all the difference, our guide explains, as it allows the finished product a smooth, textured finish with no sharp edges.

There is a lot of this in the Gaggenau factory; a lot of working with metal, bending and shaping it, machining it, turning it from sheets, delivered through an entry doorway in one building, into the slick kitchen appliances so beloved by professional chefs.

Yet metalwork was not what I expected when walking into the factory of a manufacturer of the world’s leading kitchens. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect; my experience of factories is confined to manufacturers of cars and watches. Both of these are very obviously made of metal in a way high-end ovens, cloaked in a kitchen design and so proud of their electronics and technology, are not. Yet there is far more metalworking going on at Gaggenau than in, for example, the Mercedes-Benz factory at Sindelfingen an hour’s drive to the east, or the IWC watch manufacture at Schaffhausen an hour’s drive to the south.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar & the artistic revival of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

Perhaps this ought not to be surprising. We are after all in a real factory, rather than a mere assembly plant where components made elsewhere are put together. Gaggenau may now be synonymous with expensive homes, but, as a timeline in the visitor experience centre where we had arrived earlier demonstrated, it has a history in metal. It was founded in 1683 as Eisenwerke Gaggenau, an ironworks which made everything from agricultural machinery to road signs, by Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden. Gaggenau itself is a town in the Black Forest of Germany, which, catalysed by von Baden, became a significant industrial centre and still houses one of the biggest Mercedes-Benz factories.

Gaggenau also made stoves, and eventually specialised in the high-end, highly designed, highly technical kitchen appliances it creates today, eventually moving to its current site from its original home. From the sloping road leading to the current factory in Lipsheim, you can see the curved outline of the Black Forest clearly. “I live there, it takes 30 minutes to cycle in every day,” one of our hosts tells me cheerily. The fact that he lives in Germany and we are just across the border in France’s Alsace is irrelevant: this is the new Europe, and there is, in effect, no border.

It’s a scenic setting for a factory, and also an interesting one: just down the road is Bugatti’s factory (really, a very chic assembly plant), so you could in theory pick up your Chiron and then watch your new steam oven being made. (Actually, the factory tours are not yet open to the public, which makes it even more special.)

The factory is a series of buildings each of which is filled with numerous sections and stations doing different creative activities. Gaggenau’s production process is still very manual; there are 350 workers, many of them trained in astonishingly particular skills pertaining to components or electronics of particular products. There is an air of extreme concentration among the small pods of workers, but unlike in watch manufactures, you don’t get the sense that you are the nth tour to visit that day. Workers are not slickly trained to respond to your questions; some of them are so lost in concentration in operating a particular piece of hot, huge or smelly machinery that they seem surprised to see you there.

What does remind me of a watch factory, or perhaps a pharmaceutical firm, is a ‘clean room’, which we observe from the outside. The room, which sits in a corner of the factory, and the people inside, assembling delicate electrical components of Gaggenau ovens, look like characters in a sci-fi movie of their own.

There is, in another section of the factory, a testing station, where every creation is subject to testing on its accuracy, function, and so on. I lingered a minute or two here, eager to see a malfunctioning multi-thousand-euro oven chucked on a scrapheap (or actually, returned to production to be corrected), but it didn’t happen.

The tour ended and we walked back to the Experience Centre, with its view of the Vosges and walls of the latest steam ovens, slick and architectural, beauty made out of, if not exactly chaos in the factory but certainly industrial creativity. More interesting than any watch manufacture I have been to.

Find out more: gaggenau.com/gb

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

The One&Only Kéa Island resort is situated on a 60-hectare beachfront site on the west side of the island

Due to open in 2021, One&Only Kéa Island is a luxury resort offering private residences on the little-known Cycladic island of Kéa. The development is being overseen by global real estate investor Dolphin Capital Partners in partnership with Kerzner International and will comprise 75 beachfront villas alongside the hillside homes. Here, we speak to DCP’s Founder and CEO Miltos Kambourides about the project and why Greece is set to be the next big destination for luxury residential developments

Miltos Kambourides

1. Can you talk us through your vision for the One&Only Kéa Island development?

Our vision for One&Only Kéa Island is simple and ambitious: create the ultimate luxury resort with private residences – not just on the Aegean shoreline, but for the entire Mediterranean. That is a bold statement, however, we are committed wholeheartedly to delivering this project and our vision for turning Kéa into a world-class destination, for the community of Kéa, the visitors it attracts, and the new residents of the resort.

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2. What are some of the challenges that you’ve faced with the project?

With any project there are always challenges, you’d be naive in thinking that wasn’t the case. Having been responsible for a number of leading hotel and residences around the world – such as Amanzoe [Greece], Amanera [Dominican Republic], Pearl Island [Panama], – we are used to the usual challenges that such ambitious projects face.

For a development of this scale, challenges such as building permissions have been a lengthy process. However, we are committed to getting this right, and considerable thought and detail has gone into every element of One&Only Kéa Island.

3. Do you gain inspiration for developments through your own travel experiences?

Greece is home, and while I always draw inspiration and ideas wherever I go, as they say: home is always where the heart is. Being able to work on another iconic Greek project means so much to me personally, and to Dolphin Capital as a leading Athens-based developer, and together we are looking forward to creating another world-class destination.

The resort will include 75 villas, as well as a limited number of One&Only Private Homes available for purchase.

4. What has it been like working on Kéa Island?

Despite its proximity to Athens, Kéa is still an undiscovered island. We enjoy the support and encouragement of the locals, Athenians and citizens of the world who call Kéa their summer home.

Kéa is an island full of picturesque villages with quintessential blue, white and terracotta coloured villas surrounded by olive grove filled landscapes and pristine turquoise beaches, it’s one of the most scenic islands in the Cyclades. So overall, not a bad place to work!

Read more: Knight Frank’s Andrew Hay reveals where he would invest $200m on real estate in emerging markets 

Working closely with the community is critical for any project, no matter how big or small the development is. We are extremely committed to developing in unique locations and supporting our local economy, to create incredible destination retreats. One&Only Kéa Island will present a beneficial return to all: creating new jobs, sensitively developing the region and offering investment.

An example interior of one of the luxury villas

5. Where do you predict the next desirable location to be for luxury residence developments?

It is without a doubt definitely in Greece. Greece is thriving at the moment. Where exactly, I couldn’t tell, but I am looking forward to seeing what the future holds.

6. Where’s next on your travel wish-list?

I spend nearly half of my time travelling, which is exciting and means I get to see some incredible destinations. Due to the nature of my job, and my passion for exploring the world, I’ve been lucky enough to visit 137 countries. So with regards to my wish list, it has got to be somewhere I haven’t yet been. I am constantly in search of new places to travel to, over the next few months I’ve planned to go to Tunisia, New Zealand and Madagascar, and can’t wait to keep adding to this list.

For more information visit: oneandonlyresorts.com/kea-island; dolphincp.com

Picasso Towers is a €225m residential development including luxury penthouses and apartments

Picasso Towers is Málaga’s latest luxury residential development, featuring 213 apartments on the seafront. Conceived by Sierra Blanca Estates in collaboration with Metrovacesa – and with endorsement from Antonio Banderas – the project aims to transform the Spanish city into more than just a holiday destination. Here, LUX Editor-in-Chief Darius Sanai speaks to Pedro Rodriguez, the founder of Sierra Blanca Estates, about the challenges of the project, creating demand and Málaga’s future

Pedro Rodriguez

LUX: Can you tell us your story and how you came to work in development?
Pedro Rodriguez:  I studied tourism and I was the top producer of tourism to Spain from the United States for more than 10 years. I actually worked for Thomas Cook more than 40 years ago. And even though I was very successful as a tour operator there was something that made me consider making a change. It was actually two or three things I think. Number one and most important, was when Spain joined the European Union back in ’85. At that point, I was reading a book that was about Megatrends, which was written by a sociologist, and he came to predict what was happening already in the USA. People and companies establishing the North Industrial coal estates were moving to the Sunbelt, especially to California and Florida, looking more than anything for quality of life – obviously in Florida, as you know, they have a tax advantage also. This transformed Florida into one of the most successful states in the USA. Well, I didn’t have to be a genius to think that if I was going to make an investment back in ’85 it should be in Spanish real estate, because the same thing [that happened in Florida] was probably going to happen in Spain. So that was how I started. I invested in real estate, but from day one, I invested in only what I considered was going to be the best project for the future.

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LUX: When did you decide that Málaga would be a focus with Picasso Towers?
Pedro Rodriguez:  We started to buy the project five or six years ago. At that time, people were very sceptical that we could even build this type of project. Almost everyone was sceptical, but when we explained the idea to Antonio Banderas, who is our ambassador, he agreed because he is somebody that will do anything to promote the city where he was born. So we explained the philosophy behind the project and how we wanted to contribute to Málaga as a residential destination.

Successful people want to enjoy the fruit of their success and as these people are looking to invest in real estate, they are thinking about where they want to live, but also where they want to establish their own startups, their own companies. That is what is going to help to transform Málaga not just as a vacation or residential destination, but as a community of all nationalities.

A render of an apartment’s interiors inside Picasso Towers

LUX: Is it a challenge that people do not tend to think of Málaga as a location where you’d buy a very high-end holiday home?
Pedro Rodriguez: Málaga has been projected as a cultural destination in the last 10 years, and it has been celebrated in many interesting films. Also, as you know, it’s an old city – it’s more than 2-3,000 years old. It has not only the old town, but also the Roman area. We invested and started to look at Málaga with great interest because of the way it was growing already, the attention that it was getting from entrepreneurs from Spain and all over Europe. We thought that the interest was going to bring a demand for a higher quality product, and the kinds of apartments that we are building did not exist before in Málaga. You are right that Málaga doesn’t at this point offer housing or apartments with the design or the quality that Marbella offers already, and that is what we realised.

We can already see that the demand is increasing from a variety of interesting people, who are part of the new society that it is coming to the city. It has always been my philosophy to create an end product that would be of a design and quality that will exceed whatever is on the market. There is always a demand for something very special, and the quality of the project is what generates the attention, and desire of people. I think that we are contributing a very singular, unique product with Picasso Towers, and it is helping the city to project itself as a residential destination with a quality product that didn’t exist before.

One of the towers is dedicated to luxury lifestyle amenities including three swimming pools, a premium spa, fitness centre, private cinema, playroom, co-working area and nursery, as well as incorporating the latest technology and security.

LUX: A few years ago, you published an article about how people were opposed to one of your projects in Marbella because they thought it was too big, too sophisticated for the location. Have you had similar challenges with this project in Málaga?
Pedro Rodriguez: When you are creating something unique or special that the city’s society is not familiar with, you have to accept that you will have people who don’t really believe in it. But that is normal. If you create – in whatever area or industry – something that’s special, you cannot expect the majority of people to agree and understand what you are creating otherwise it would not be original, it would not be special. That was my idea in Marbella, yes, when we began to build the Sierra Blanca. It is a special destination in Marbella, and people were thinking that it was crazy because we were investing 20 or 30 million euros of today’s money [the project was 30 years ago]. In Málaga, when I was conceiving the idea for Picasso Towers, people were sceptical as to whether Málaga was ready for that kind of project. They were proven – and we are still proving – that they were wrong. Fortunately, there is a growing number of local and international successful entrepreneurs that are changing Málaga day by day.

Read more: Why you should go to St Moritz now for perfect snow

LUX: Is it true that Málaga is becoming a tech and business destination as well?
Pedro Rodriguez:  Absolutely. New and important international companies are being established quite frequently in Málaga. It is happening almost everyday.

LUX: Are you expecting the buyers of Picasso Towers to be international?
Pedro Rodriguez:  We haven’t really started the international promotion yet, but right now, we already have Swedish or Finnish investors, but mainly Spanish. We have Real Madrid soccer players that have invested in at least four or six apartments. Eventually, it will be home to a great variety of people from almost anywhere.

LUX: Finally, what other developments do you have planned for the future?
Pedro Rodriguez: We have an excellent project under construction right now in Marbella that it is without question, the best apartment project to be built in the city in the last 20 or 30 years at least. We are really proud to say that we have come to an agreement of doing branding with Fendi Casa, and the apartments are excellent alternatives to luxury villas. It is obviously a nice apartment, but at the same time, we want to create a country club lifestyle.

The first phase of Picasso Towers apartments will be ready by the end of 2021, and the whole resort is expected to be completed by 2023. For more information visit: sierrablancaqualityestates.com; metrovacesa.com

Grevillia is a waterfront residence on the port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on the market for €56m

Lord Andrew Hay. Image by John Wright

Lord Andrew Hay is Global Head of Residential at Knight Frank, the international real estate consultancy, and has built up property portfolios for some of the wealthiest people in the world. In this regular column, he is handed a theoretical sum of money by LUX and asked how he would invest it. This month, we asked Lord Hay where he would buy if he had £50m to spend on a single home

“If you had £50m to spend and could buy a property anywhere in the world – where would you choose?” It sounds like a question you’d ask your friends at a dinner party and actually is something I get asked quite regularly. My answer often changes as there are so many places around the world where I’d love to live, but having just returned from my summer holiday and with the thought of sunshine and the Mediterranean fresh in my mind along with this healthy budget, I would have to choose Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Riviera.

Cap Ferrat is glamorous yet unspoilt. It has been a firm favourite of aristocracy and Hollywood celebrities over the years and is arguably one of the most exclusive addresses in Europe. It is easily located between Monaco and Nice, accessible both by car and helicopter making it a huge draw for wealthy clients looking for a second or third home and is somewhere they go to escape.

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As we describe in the latest Knight Frank Prime France Report, the 1.3km forested peninsula is home to around 500 spacious villas on large plots and has one of the strongest international buyer profiles on the French Riviera. The Eastern side is home to the best beaches, the Port and the old town, it offers the widest array of amenities, whilst the west has a steeper coastline and good views. There are two Michelin-starred restaurants – La Voile d’Or and Le Cap and the small marina has around 560 berths.

Contemporary interiors of luxury villa Grevillia

When a client arrives on Cap Ferrat, they always ask for homes with direct access to the sea and that’s what I would look for. And, with Knight Frank recently opening its sixth office along the Cote d’Azur in Cap Ferrat, and its 22nd office in France, my team would be primed to help me.

Two properties in particular stand out to me. The first being Grevillia, on the market for €56m. This is an exceptional, waterfront residence on the port of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. It is a beautiful modern estate, comprising a principal villa, a secondary villa and a guest house – ideal for someone like me with a large family and friends who regularly join us on holiday.

Villa Neo is built into the hillside above the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer, on the market at €15m.

The second is Villa Neo, on the market at €15m. Significantly under my €50m budget but it is a perfectly presented villa, built into the steep hillside above the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer and provides idyllic Riviera scenery. The villa’s wide terrace, infinity pool and principal rooms face the Mediterranean Sea so by day the small sail boats moored in the azure water provide a languid but ever-changing picture while after dark, the lights of the peninsula gently sparkle against the night sky.

Read more: Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards 2019

Property prices on Cap-Ferrat range from €2,000,000 to over €200,000,000 with the most active band between €5,000,000 and €10,000,000. Prime property prices have increased by 4 per cent in the year to 2018 but this is a most extraordinary market, one that resonates far and wide with international buyers and also those based in Monaco looking for a nearby escape with a slower pace of life. The unique homes on glorious Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat make the market anything but predictable.

Cap Ferrat not only has a timeless quality which my wife Claire, being half-French, would adore, but it also has one of the broadest international buyer profiles of all the markets on the French Riviera. This helps protect owners’ exit strategies by ensuring the market isn’t dependent on the economic fortunes or currency shifts of one particular buyer nationality.

Find out more: knightfrank.co.uk

The entrance to the Moxy Hotel in Chelsea, NYC

President of Lightstone Mitchell Hochberg has put his stamp on New York with multiple real-estate developments, including luxury residences 130 William Street and 40 East End Avenue. In partnership with Marriott International, Lightstone are also developing lifestyle hotel brand Moxy, which has multiple properties spread across the US, Europe and Asia. LUX speaks to the entrepreneur about succeeding in a saturated market, New York real estate and working with the world’s biggest architects. 

President of Lightstone Mitchell Hochberg

LUX: Lightstone is one of the largest privately held real estate companies in the US with your focus mainly in New York City. How do you succeed in such a saturated market?
Mitchell Hochberg: We’ve been able to distinguish ourselves by staying true to two common threads – across each of the various real estate segments in which we develop, each of our projects is entirely unique and as well, features a strong design aesthetic.

For instance, with our Moxy hotels, we saw an opportunity to be the first to develop an affordable micro-room, macro-amenity lifestyle hotel in New York, defining a new category of hotels amidst a sea of luxury lifestyle and lacklustre select service properties.

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In each of our projects, we strategically partner with architects and designers who have a strong design aesthetic, allowing us to create buildings that are provocative but contextual with interiors that are functional yet memorable. With our first two Moxy Hotels, for example, we worked with Rockwell Group to design the restaurants, bars, and clubs and Yabu Pushelberg for the rooms – both known for their luxury projects and unconventional choices for an affordable product, but key to creating the well-designed environments that make our properties special.

In the condominium space, we’ve partnered with two leading architects to design 130 William and 40 East End Avenue. At 130 William, we worked with world-renowned architect David Adjaye to create a 66-story building that pushes against the conventions of tall glass towers with a hand-cast concrete façade that will surely redefine the New York City skyline. At 40 East End, we worked with Deborah Berke, Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, to create a boutique condominium that represents a modern interpretation of local historic architecture.

LUX: Do you have a favourite residential area in New York?
Mitchell Hochberg: There’s an enclave on the Upper East Side of New York abutting Carl Schurz Park and Gracie Mansion (the Mayor’s residence) called East End Avenue. It’s a beautiful, bucolic neighbourhood that is fully immersed in the natural surroundings of the East River and the park, with nothing commercial in sight. In this setting, you have the advantage of both being in Manhattan and simultaneously not really feeling like you’re there – a result of the harmonious combination of the waterfront, the park, and the low density residential buildings. It’s the neighbourhood where we’re currently developing 40 East End Avenue, a boutique condominium, and it’s actually the one that I live in.

Read more:  Life on the thrillionaire trail by Geoffrey Kent

LUX: You’re currently working with Marriott International to develop their new lifestyle hotel brand Moxy. How did that come about?
Mitchell Hochberg: After spending many years investing in and studying the hospitality market, we saw an opportunity to develop a new type of lifestyle hotel that could offer efficient rooms at an affordable rate without sacrificing design. In the U.S., everything is bigger – the cars, the TVs – and indeed the hotel rooms. So at the time, nobody was doing this. The Moxy brand incubated in Europe, where travellers have long been accustomed to smaller room sizes, and we felt it had the potential to align perfectly with our vision. So as our ideas evolved, we decided to approach Marriott about forming a partnership to bring the Moxy brand to the United States. We have a longstanding relationship with Marriott, and as the most highly regarded international hotel brand with over 110 million loyalty members, we knew that they would prove to be a huge asset to our developments. Together, we reimagined Moxy for the New York market.

130 William Street’s view over the East River, NYC

LUX: How does your approach to developing for hospitality differ from other projects?
Mitchell Hochberg: The short answer is it doesn’t. What we’ve learned from our hospitality projects is that our guests don’t want to stay in their rooms – they crave social connections and memorable experiences. So our design has to accommodate that, with lobbies, bars, and restaurants that appeal equally to locals and integrate into the fabric of the community. Our residential projects – from rentals to luxury condominiums – all take this philosophy into account. We dedicate immense amounts of space in each of our projects to amenities – from the 20,000 square foot courtyard complete with a year-round greenhouse at ARC, a rental property in Long Island City, to the IMAX Private Theatre at 130 William (one of the first in New York City), we design spaces that our residents want to spend time in. Similarly to our Moxy hotels, we also consistently activate our residential properties with innovative programming, from wine tastings to yoga classes, allowing our residents to interact and get to know each other. That’s where the magic really happens.

Read more: Maryam Eisler’s Icelandic photography series

LUX: What’s been the most challenging project for Lightstone so far and why?
Mitchell Hochberg: It would have to be Moxy Times Square. From a pure design standpoint, the project had just about every challenge you could think of. The building was an adaptive reuse of a 110-year old office – not exactly an easy canvas for the flexible, vibrant, and memorable spaces you see today. Working within the confines of an existing building is always challenging, but in this particular instance the building was also landmarked, meaning we had to preserve the façade and all of the windows as well. The sheer scale of the project also brought its own complexities – the hotel is 612 keys in total with over 22,000 square feet of lobbies, bars, restaurants, and meeting spaces, including the largest indoor/outdoor rooftop bar in New York City.

Despite all this, I think the biggest challenge was bringing something entirely new to the New York City hotel market. We had to prove ourselves to guests who had never seen anything like this before, and convince them to buy into our “deal”: in exchange for an affordable rate, we could provide a room that’s efficient but stylish, along with public spaces that are engaging and well designed.

Moxy’s luxurious lounge bar at Times Square, NYC

LUX: What are your future predictions for the real estate market in NYC?
Mitchell Hochberg: The real estate market in New York over the long term is always going to be strong. There will obviously be hills and valleys based upon macro issues, but you have to keep in mind that New York City is an island and there’s only so much space. People will always want to live here, work here, and visit here, and as a result it will always be a strong market.

LUX: Will Lightstone ever expand overseas?
Mitchell Hochberg: We’re currently discussing investments and development overseas. I think our first projects will probably be somewhere in the UK where we’re a little more familiar with the language and business customs, but we are always open to new opportunities.

The botanically inspired Fleur Room at Moxy Chelsea, NYC

LUX: How do you switch off from work-mode?
Mitchell Hochberg: One of my biggest passions is travel – I try to travel as often as possible. I’m naturally very curious, and find that my creativity is often sparked by wandering around and getting lost in cities and fully immersing myself in all aspects of the culture, which is both fascinating and inspiring. While I do switch off when I travel, appreciating architecture and design, as well as learning how different people live, serves as the inspiration for a lot of the development we do. In Italy, for example, which is one of my favourite places to travel, I’m constantly awed by the art, architecture, fashion, and yes, even the food. But above all, I’m struck by the genuine warmth of its people. You’ll see a lot of that reflected in the restaurants and bars and Moxy Chelsea. For example, Feroce, our Italian restaurant, took inspiration from some of my favourite spots around Italy: the Caffé and Pasticceria from the bar culture in Italy, where people visit the same spot for an espresso and cornetto in the morning and an Aperol Spritz in the evening; the outdoor dining garden from my favourite restaurant in Rome, Antica Pesa; and many of the design details from my favourite restaurant in Milan, Da Giacomo.

When I want to completely chill out though, there’s nothing better than being on a beautiful beach. One of my favourites is Belmond Maroma in Riviera Maya, Mexico. It is casual and relaxed but with incredible service reflected by the culture of the local team who treat you as if you are in their own home. It is the epitome of barefoot chic!

Find out more: lightstonegroup.com and moxy-hotels.marriott.com

St Moritz at night

St Moritz, in Switzerland’s Engadin, is an Alpine paradise in winter, with some of Europe’s best hotels for your skiing vacation. But it could be yours all year round with exclusive chalets for sale. Emma Love reports on the latest Savills offerings and the virtues of Alpine living

It’s hard to imagine that the celebrated ski resort St Moritz was once better known as a summer destination. That was until Johannes Badrutt, the founder of the legendary Kulm hotel, won a bet. The story goes that in the autumn of 1864, he was enthusing about St Moritz as a winter destination to four sceptical English holiday guests. Badrutt suggested that they return in December and if they didn’t enjoy their stay, he would not charge them. The four ended up staying until Easter, marking the beginning of winter tourism in the Engadin valley.

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Luxury chalet Chesa Lumpaz

Of course, these days St Moritz is globally renowned as the glamorous go-to, year-round Alpine resort where everyone from Claudia Schiffer and Robert de Niro to the Swedish royal family has been spotted. It has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, popularised sports such as ice cricket and snow polo and is home to the Cresta Run, a world-championship bobsled run made of natural ice – not to mention it being home to Michelin-star restaurants, Bond Street-style designer fashion boutiques, and  glitzy bars, clubs and hotels. “Historically and geographically, St Moritz has long attracted a crowd with a heavy Italian influence, but in the past couple of decades there has been a steady flow of international billionaires buying chalets here. They are attracted to the sophistication of the resort,” says Jeremy Rollason, head of Savills Ski, who specialises in the sale of chalets and developments in super-prime Alpine locations.

One of the four master bedrooms, all fitted out in contemporary style but with traditional materials

While many of the top one per cent choose to base themselves in traditional ski-in, ski-out Suvretta (where a car is needed to get into town), the latest Savills property on the market offers something rather different – the rare chance to own (and rent) a seven-bedroom lakeside house right in the heart of St Moritz, next door to the Badrutt’s Palace hotel and just ten minutes’ drive from Samedan, the private-jet airport. “Chalet Chesa Lumpaz is one of those rare propositions; it’s contemporary rather than futuristic, quiet yet close to the main shopping precinct and has extraordinary views,” Rollason says of the property, which is for sale POA. “The designer Nico Rensch has expertly combined modern design with St Moritz flair.”

Read more: Why Blue Palace in Crete is a springtime paradise

Spread over five floors, the 890m2 house has a private wellness area (which includes a gym, hot tub, steam room, sauna and massage room), a ski room (with boot, helmet and clothes heaters) and an open-plan living area designed for socialising. “The house was built to entertain, with the living room at the top because you want to have the view when you’re awake not when you’re asleep,” explains Oli Stastny, whose company PPM Exclusive Services manages fully serviced private villas in St Moritz. “The aim with the design was to fuse local materials such as stone and wood in a modern way while keeping a cosy, Alpine feel. For instance, the bedrooms have wood-clad walls.”

There is not one master bedroom but four, all at the front to take advantage of the views of the lake. They are fitted with sliding walls so the configuration can change depending on the guests staying. Yet Stastny echoes Rollason in stating that it is the uniqueness of the property and its location that makes it truly special. “This is one of the only single standing houses in the centre of town, the rest are apartments. It’s also connected by an escalator that goes down to the lake and up to the shops and Badrutt’s Palace.”

The living room (above) and view from the living room on the top floor of the Chesa Lumpaz chalet

This feature could be especially handy for anyone attending the annual New Year’s Eve dinner at the hotel, which is one of the hottest events of the winter social calendar. Other unmissable dates for the diary include the long- established St Moritz Gourmet Festival every January, which is known for attracting star chefs from around the world (this year the line- up included Guillaume Galliot from Caprice at the Four Seasons Hong Kong and Nicolai Nørregaard from Kadeau in Copenhagen). And, in the summer, a jazz festival held in the Dracula Club (Norah Jones, Nigel Kennedy and Curtis Stigers were highlights in 2018); the annual gathering of vintage cars, the British Classic Car Meet; the Engadin Festival featuring ten high-calibre classical concerts and the Tavolata weekend, a celebration of food and music.

All of which proves that while winter sports might be one of the biggest draws to St Moritz – the resort is at 1,850 metres which means an excellent snow record and world-class skiing – there is plenty to entertain visitors in the summer months too. “These summer festivals are a great way of getting property owners back into the resorts as an alternative to the French Riviera which, especially last year, was extremely hot,” says Rollason. “In the summer you can windsurf on the lake and cycle the mountain trails. St Moritz is a genuine dual- season resort.” Exactly as Johannes Badrutt suggested all those years ago.

Find out more: chesalumpaz.com and savills.com/countries/savills-ski

This article was originally published in the Summer 19 Issue

Summer in Andermatt with bike trails, the historic village streets, the Radisson Blu hotel and the new golf course

Andermatt is rapidly becoming one of Switzerland’s best year-round Alpine destinations. Already famed for its winter sports, the resort is now offering activities, accommodation and dining for summer, too, thanks to a major new development. Rob Freeman discovers the joys of the village’s new season

As the winter snows melt on the slopes above Andermatt, the year-round allure of this Swiss village becomes apparent. Thanks to the charm and the beauty of its summer meadows carpeted with white, blue, yellow and pink Alpine flowers, the resort has become a multi- faceted, all-season destination.

As glorious as it is in winter – Andermatt is now a world-class winter-sports centre and part of central Switzerland’s largest linked ski area – the resort, thanks to some remarkable developments that are taking place there, is equally stunning in the summer. In many ways, the contrast between the verdant valleys and the glistening white peaks above in summer makes this landscape even more striking.

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Andermatt’s parish records go back 800 years, with many of its houses being centuries old, so it’s small wonder that there is a palpable sense of history and tradition in its streets. With such a background, it’s intriguing to see the village enter a new phase, underlined by the recent opening of the elegant shopping and dining square, the Piazza Gottardo, which is part of a visionary development by Egyptian investor Samih Sawiris that will see the village double in size. There’s a distinct yet subtle style to this new car-free area, known as Andermatt Reuss, of which the Piazza is the centrepiece. The trick is having every building individually designed by one of more than 30 Swiss and international architects to create an eclectic rather than uniform appearance.

Each new building, as architect Christoph Langenberg, the project manager of the developer Andermatt Swiss Alps, explains, pays homage in one respect or another to the traditional styles of the local architecture. The Edelweiss apartment building, for example, has distinctive shutters with chevron patterns in contrast to the broad arches that protect balconies against the sometimes severe weather. But its most extraordinary feature is its exterior colour, which starts from a dark base and gradually lightens as it rises until seeming to fade into the sky. Diamond shapes are scored into the façade, with wavy lines accentuating the lightness. In another building, House Wolf, the design incorporates the careful gauging of the sculptural effect of the roof overhang.

“The buildings are clustered together more closely than is usual in new projects like this,” Langenberg adds. This is deliberate, to reflect the traditional way in which these villages evolved. The buildings have always been close together for warmth and security. We wanted the new developments to be an extension to the old village, rather than something separate.” One to five-bedroom apartments are available, and the whole project, which will include 30 individual chalets, has no purchase restrictions for foreigners.

The square, complete with fountain, is fringed by shops, restaurants and bars. Restaurant Biselli already epitomises Piazza Gottardo’s village spirit and, from 8am to 11pm, is a focal point for holidaymakers and residents. Occupying the ground floor of the six-storey House Alpenrose apartment building, the restaurant is also a bakery, providing rolls and croissants every morning, and a chocolate shop where the chocolatier can often be seen creating little masterpieces. It also has a small section selling holiday necessities such as milk, butter and jam, even toothpaste. The softly lit restaurant, which is romantic and stylish, has a menu embracing dishes such as goose liver mousse with cognac and truffles, and sea bass baked in puff pastry, as well as local specialities such as tarte flambée of onions, bacon, sour cream and mountain cheese, and dumplings with roasted pork belly.

Read more: Maryam Eisler in conversation with Kenny Scharf

The Mammut sports shop opposite is a high-end ski-rental shop in winter and a bike, hiking and climbing emporium in summer. A Victorinox store has a large selection of Swiss Army and kitchen knives, designer luggage and watches. A pharmacy and small supermarket will soon join the line-up.

Radisson Blu Hotel Reussen

The impressive Radisson Blu Hotel Reussen opened recently, and its Spun restaurant, highlighting Swiss and Italian cuisine, also fronts onto the Piazza. The hotel also has a fitness zone including two saunas, steam bath and 13 treatment rooms and extensive gym, as well as a 25-metre public indoor pool with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the mountains of the Urseren Valley. A new concert hall with state-of-the-art acoustics and seating 700, designed by British studio Seilern Architects, is attached to the hotel. Further accommodation for the village will include a hotel aimed at families, featuring a water-slide through reception!

Summer offerings include walks from gentle strolls to challenging hikes, and climbing for novices as well as experts. Also popular are e-bikes with auxiliary motors to tackle distances and gradients that would otherwise be out of the question. The Four Headwaters Trail links the nearby sources of four rivers, the Rhine, Reuss, Ticino and Rhone. The 85-km family-friendly route can be split into day trips or a five-day tour staying at huts. And days out on the Matterhorn Gotthard Glacier Express are spectacular. There’s no more marvellous way to enjoy these glorious mountains.

Andermatt’s 18-hole golf course

The new 18-hole, par-72 championship Andermatt Swiss Alps golf course

Designed to complement its spectacular natural setting, Andermatt’s 18-hole golf course is immediately adjacent to the village. Although it only opened as recently as 2016, it has already achieved the highest possible accolades, including being named Switzerland’s Best Golf Course in the World Golf Awards every year since. Designed by renowned German golf-course architect Kurt Rossknecht, it has the feel of a Scottish links course and meets international tournament standards. Importantly for holidaymakers, it is open to the public on a pay-and-play basis.

Find out more: andermatt-swissalps.ch

This article originally appeared in the Summer 19 Issue.

Exterior render of the new One Monte-Carlo residences in Monaco

The new One Monte-Carlo development could just be the swankiest place in the world for you to hang out with your money, your trophy spouse, and your Ferrari

Wander to your living room window, glass of Cristal in hand, open the balcony door and step out into a view of the Casino de Monte-Carlo, and beyond it, the Mediterranean. Feel the need for an emergency handbag? No problem, a flagship Louis Vuitton is just downstairs.

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Welcome to One Monte-Carlo. To call the development, created by Richard Rogers, the celebrated British architect, and Bruno Moinard, ‘interior architect’ to the stars, lavish would be a dramatic understatement. Built next to the Hôtel de Paris on Casino Square, and opened amid much champagne this spring, One M-C bring new heights of extravagance to a principality not exactly unknown for its swanky places for you and your money to live.

Render of One M-C residences and public space

Designed by Richard Rogers, One Monte Carlo houses 37 luxury apartments and dozens of retail stores

Moinard, responsible for the contemporary yet warm interiors of luxury temples such as the Plaza Athénée and Château Latour, tells LUX that, “in line with the vision of Monaco’s future, we used materials that give life and humanity to this exceptional project”. Combined with Rogers’ curvaceous forms, this gives One M-C a sense of the mountains overlooking the city. Some of the principality’s bland 1960s apartment blocks must now be feeling ashamed of themselves.

The catch? You can never own in One M-C: the apartments are available for long-term rental only, and most have already been snapped up. Worth selling your LaFerrari for a year’s rental? We would.

Find out more: montecarlosbm.com/en/hotel-monaco/residences

This article was originally published in the Summer 19 Issue

The K11 Musea retail complex forms part of the Victoria Dockside development

Entrepreneur Adrian Cheng and landscape architect James Corner are transforming Hong Kong with a multi-billion dollar development plan. Leading architecture writer Mark C O’Flaherty reports

Every city wants its own High Line. Designing an urban park that sits cheek by jowl with super-prime real estate is a difficult task, and the benchmark is the 1.45-mile-long repurposed structure that runs north from the once run-down – nay, degenerate – Meatpacking District in Manhattan. So, when Adrian Cheng (son of Hong Kong billionaire Henry Cheng and executive vice chairman of real-estate behemoth New World Development) was looking for someone to transform the world-famous but tired TST waterfront area of the Kowloon Peninsula into a 21st-century destination for recreation, he turned to James Corner of Field Operations. Corner is perhaps the world’s most celebrated landscape architect right now – the man behind the engineering of the High Line, as well as the new Domino Park on the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn. After six years of work, Kowloon’s Victoria Dockside – which has already taken significant shape and is scheduled for completion late next year – looks set to offer a new gold standard for urban planning.

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“The High Line was an epic success,” says Corner, without any hint of a self-congratulatory tone. “It is much-loved by people from all over the world.” At the same time, he sees the High Line as something unique to its Manhattan context, flanked by landmarks and the neighbourhoods of the Meatpacking District and Chelsea. It can’t, he believes, be duplicated. “Every city does seem to want its own High Line,” he says, “but other cities should better evaluate and imagine how public spaces can be designed for them that are authentic to, and resonant with, their own contexts. With the Hong Kong project, all we did was simply amplify the power of the existing context – improving accessibility, designing places to sit and linger, and provide shade. The new design will recall many characteristics of the old TST, while pointing ways forward to its future.”

The Mount Pavilia residential complex is part of New World Development’s Hong Kong portfolio

Corner first visited Hong Kong in the 1990s, the decade that saw sovereignty handed from the UK to China. If there was any worry that the handover would stem growth on the island, it was misplaced – this continues to be an electrifying hub of culture and commerce, developing at an incredible rate. Corner started work on the US$2.6billion, three-million-square-foot New World Development project in 2012, and has been visiting every 10 weeks since then. “The city has always appeared vibrant and cosmopolitan to me,” he says. “But even more so in recent years, especially now that it is actively shaping public access and space around the harbour front, investing in new cultural facilities, and prioritising liveable, walkable and sociable city space.”

Corner’s waterfront design includes lots of shaded areas

For years, the Avenue of Stars on the Kowloon waterfront has been on every tourist’s list of must-dos in the city. The statue of Bruce Lee here has been photographed as much as the light show that bursts into to life across the skyscrapers of the CBD on the other side of the harbour. But, as waterside thoroughfares go, it’s hardly up there with the pleasures of the Southbank Centre in London or Sydney Harbour. It was never somewhere you’d want to linger – particularly when heat and humidity hit typically intolerable levels. “We have improved access to shade with numerous trellises, trees and other canopies,” explains Corner. “The experience will be richly varied, fun and engaging – it is social, global, spectacular and at the same time humanising, fun and special.” Looking at renderings of it from above, it mixes inside and outside elements with graphic élan. It will redefine the look of the city.

Read more: Bruno Schöpfer, Managing Director of the Bürgenstock Selection, on the future of luxury hospitality

One of the many things that makes this project so different from other urban park commissions with which Corner has been involved, is Adrian Cheng, an art patron and gallerist as well as a developer. He has a unique fluency in the language of urban culture. While there’s already a fully operational 15-floor limestone-and-bronze office tower at the new Victoria Dockside (Mizuho Bank and Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank were two early adopters of the space), and a revenue-spinning hotel and shopping complex with a glass corridor at the heart of the masterplan, there will also be a sunken amphitheatre with curved glass walls surrounding it, and a constantly changing collection of public art on view. One of the first pieces to be installed when the project is finished next year will be Elmgreen & Dragset’s Van Gogh’s Ear – a swimming pool turned upright, deep-end down, originally installed at the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Channel Gardens at Rockefeller Center in New York City in 2016. It will, inevitably, be photographed with the same fervour as the Bruce Lee statue.

The 15-floor K11 Atelier office building is already open

The aforementioned shopping complex has its own cultural agenda. Christened the K11 Musea, it takes its name from the K11 Art Foundation that Cheng founded in 2010, and which he continues to head. Like the new Whitney in New York, it has incorporated numerous terraces into its design, which stops it looking like a hermetically sealed institution. Instead, the green layered spaces that punctuate the elegant, rounded architecture bring human and plant life to the skyline. The K11 retail complex will host live music, exhibitions and numerous other cultural events according to Cheng who, in addition to his cultural responsibilities in Asia, sits on the board of the Museum of Modern Art PS1 in New York and is a member of the International Circle of Centre Pompidou.

Hong Kong entrepreneur Adrian Cheng

“Adrian is a true visionary and inspiration,” says Corner. “He is of course a developer and his primary business is development for both retail and lifestyle, but his passion is art and culture, so he works very hard to bring richly textured practices of art and culture to his development projects. This is why he is so passionate about the outdoor public spaces – these are not simply frontages to his development, but more active platforms for social life, for civic engagement, public participation, art and culture. His vision is civic, generous and inclusive.”

Read more: Why you should be staying at the Park Hyatt Paris-Vendôme this September

Cheng’s other developments include The Pavilia Hill (pictured here) and Skypark rooftop clubhouse (above)

Landscape architect James Corner

As far as the dynamic of the public outdoor spaces of the new Victoria Dockside goes, there are valid logistical parallels with the High Line. “Like the project in New York, it is tightly dimensioned,” explains Corner. “But we were still able to provide spaces to sit, gather and look at views, and plantings to provide colour and shade, as well as water features and lighting for dramatic effect and art for social enrichment.” The two projects also share an issue in terms of the choice of the greenery. By its very nature (being essentially a raised, elongated platform), the High Line had a very thin allowance for soil. “We used a planting palette that is robust and attuned to those kinds of conditions,” he says. “The same is true in Hong Kong, where we do not have ample soil, but we do have stress from sun, heat and typhoons – so again we needed a careful planting palette with adequate maintenance and oversight.” The result will look perpetually fresh, green and inviting.

One may wonder for a moment, in a global city where every square inch has to wash its own face financially, what the quantifiable value of recreational space is. At a time when you can shop online and choose to work remotely, it may in fact be priceless. Traditional urban office and retail space is undergoing a global reboot, and Victoria Dockside is a particularly stylish example of the phenomenon. It offers a profoundly pleasurable experience. “Cities are economic machines,” says Corner, “and the new Victoria Dockside significantly improves economic value, while at the same time enhancing public space experience for everybody. Parks, squares, gardens, courts, terraces, promenades, waterfronts and so on, are fundamental to improving the liveability, sustainability and social equity in our cities. These are investments that only add value. It is a win-win – a transformation for both the economy and the people.”

View more of James Corner’s projects at: fieldoperations.net
Learn about Adrian Cheng’s K11 Foundation: k11artfoundation.org

520 Park Avenue, under construction, seen from Central Park

Gennady Perepada is New York’s go-to real estate broker who curates lavish lifestyles for his elite, high-net worth clients. LUX Editor-at-Large Gauhar Kapparova finds out how he does it

Gennady Perepada

Two years ago luxury real estate broker Gennady Perepada organised a surprise on behalf of one of his clients. The man had bought a family holiday home in the Hamptons, without telling his wife. “I arranged a helicopter to take them for a ride along the coastline so she could see it from the sky. He said to her, ‘Do you like this house with the pool? Well it’s already yours’. When they landed, there was a limousine with champagne waiting to pick them up,” he recalls. “It was a very romantic presentation, a personal show of this amazing property.” Yet while this particular man went to impressive lengths to show off and celebrate his purchase, many of Perepada’s clients – foreign and American high net-worth investors, who, as a rule, have a portfolio of real estate around the world – don’t even view a million-dollar apartment in person before they buy (they see a video instead).

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“My clients don’t need to come to New York to make a deal. Our lawyers are experts in international investment,” says Perepada, who set up his company, One & Only Realty Inc, eight years ago with lawyer Edward Mermelstein and thinks nothing of flying between three continents in a week for meetings. “The problem for many clients is that often they don’t have enough time – and that’s what I can give them.” Which he does, not only by finding and securing the most exclusive properties in New York and Miami but also by offering a 24/7 concierge service where no request is seemingly too obscure. “For my clients, I take care of everything from A to Z. Everything,” he emphasises. “For one family from the Middle East, I sorted out medical insurance, kindergarten for the children, connecting the cable television channels in their apartment.”

520 Park Avenue overlooks Central Park as visualised in this render

He reels off other examples. A client with a daughter studying for an MBA at New York University for whom he found an apartment and arranged a housekeeper to fill up the fridge with food every week; another who needed knee surgery so he organised a private hospital and the best doctors; the morning he spent at a dealership test driving new cars for a client’s wife. His phone is never off, and he is constantly on call, all day and all night, as his clients attest.

It’s all a far cry from 1990 when Perepada immigrated to the US with his family from Ukraine and worked as a taxi driver and as a stall holder at a flea market to survive. Looking for a career, he chose real estate because of the buzz that comes with property. He began by selling regular apartments but soon realised that he needed to find his own niche – the real estate elite. “In real estate trading, create your own market and your own clientele, do what no one else has done,” he says.

Read more: Meet the Swarovski x Design Miami/ Designers of the Future

Fast forward to today and he has 18 members of staff, including two personal assistants, looking after the needs of around 30 clients at any one time (he is currently looking at the possibility of opening offices in Dubai and London). Between them, his employees speak Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic (among other languages) to support those clients who aren’t fluent in English, and he has relationships with key property developers in both New York and Miami. “I know every building, every developer, they call me when something new and unique comes on the market because they know I have the contacts with the high net-worth buyers,” he says. “I understand the mentality of my clients and I have lots of experience with what kind of property I need to deliver for them.”

Manhattan’s now super-desirable Upper West Side

Key to his success is always anticipating his clients’ needs before they know what they want themselves. “When my clients buy a property, before they’ve even thought about it, I’ve got a team of interior designers putting together proposals down to the tiniest details, such as electric blinds, paint colours and smart-home technology.” On top of this, he also looks after real estate management, which involves everything from collecting rent on a property to repairs and full-scale renovation.

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If it sounds all-consuming, that’s because it is, but Perepada says he wouldn’t have his job any other way. “I love my job; I don’t like it, I love it. It gives me the opportunity to meet and communicate with very interesting and significant people from all over the world. My clients are normal people and they feel very comfortable with me, so they call me like a friend.” They often comment on his endless energy and enthusiasm, he says, and are so happy with the service he provides that they sometimes give him presents. “Last year, one lent me his yacht to enjoy so I spent a week during the summer in Monte Carlo.” In fact, he usually spends at least one month during the summer in the south of France, partly on holiday, partly networking.

Many clients are repeat business (his motto is “return to those who are trusted”), who enlist his services as much for the lifestyle he offers as the property he sells. “Call me, buy a nice apartment and after that I provide a luxury lifestyle,” he concludes. “Trust me and I will take care of everything.”

Find out more about Gennady Perepada’s properties and services: oneandonlyrealty.com

This article appears in the Summer 2018 issue of LUX, on sale now worldwide.