Pan Shiyi real-estate developer,media darling,and gazer into China's real-estate future is hanging up his prognostication hat. These days, he says,sitting in a sunlit office in his signature SOHO New Town building, I rarely talk about what the future will bring,even for the next year,even to my own employees. Is that a faint look of relief on his face
It's a shame,because for nearly fifteen years Pan has been known for his uncanny anticipation of the twists and turns of China's highly unpredictable real-estate industry. In the early'90s,after building what is now the Van tone New Century Plaza,he gambled that companies would spring for offices priced at three times the market rate-and won millions,Later,as the head of SOHO China,he foresaw-and helped create-Beijing's booming Central Business District,and created a mixed residential/office architectural style that has become de rigueur for all the hip developers.
Pan plays his cards closer to his chest these days-so much for asking if we should wait until after the Olympics to buy an apartment. I stopped talking about the Olympics years ago, he says. This time the relief is obvious.
But if the future is out of bounds,that still leaves the present-the recent Pan-related buzz is that he's abandoning mixed-use construction, which he pioneered with SOHO,in favor of pure office buildings.
First of all, he says, the success of the mixed-use buildings has been proved by their popularity:almost 100 percent occupancy. So why move away from them? Over the past ten years all the focus has been on residential housing,while commercial spaces have been ignored. Commercial buildings are built as maopi fang(concrete shells),then non-professional companies come in and do non-professional interior design. But shops and offices deserve the same thoughtful design as homes.
So what's Pan's vision for the office of the future?He recalls a recent visit to an Apple flagship store in New York: The actual retail space was tiny,a fraction of the whole store. There was a training center upstairs,and the downstairs was a display area. You can see the same trend everywhere,in cell phone stores and fashion shops:the space looks more like an art gallery than a shop. Pan hopes to provide spaces where companies can explore new permutations of commerce,employment and lifestyle.
But Pan has by no means abandoned the concept of mixed-use. Warming to the subject,he starts in on Beijing's urban planning: The idea that each area of the city has a specific function - you live in Fangzhuang,work in the CBD,Haidian is for education and high-tech is going to cause huge problems for Beijing .All these purely residential suburbs:that's an enormous mistake It means everyone's got to spend all day running back and forth,and the city simply can't support it.
Instead of single,mixed-use buildings,Pan advocates mixed-use areas-apartments,offices and shopping centers all near one another. That way you don t have to drive everywhere;maybe you only leave your area once every two or three days.
Another change he's been trying to push is non-walled apartment complexes. People like walls around their apartment because they think it's safe. Actually,it's more dangerous. All those dark corners,no one around anything could happen. Knock down the walls,he says,and you let life into the area as well as easing the traffic,which otherwise has to squeeze between isolated compounds.
Pan has found that he has little sway over city planners,but this might be the only place his influence doesn't stretch. Pan's media-savvy is legendary. In an industry whose players mostly prefer to avoid the limelight. He gives interviews and photos at every chance he gets and there's a very good argument that his prophecies-with the help of well-placed media exposure-are often self-fulfilling.
Some of the exposure is just for fun the film Aspirin in which Pan stars alongside Mei Ting,opened in theaters in February,and he very nearly made a Chinese version of Donald Trump's reality show The Apprentice( I turned out not to be very appropriate, he says,adding: I've never once had to say you re fired to an employee ).
Though Pan has projects around the country and regularly travels abroad,it is still Beijing where he feels most at home,both literally he lives in his own Jianwai SOHO building and professionally. China is in the midst of creating a new style,a new aesthetic sense. We are an the verge of a renaissance, he says,and Beijing is at its forefront.
Asked about the foreign styles and foreign architects changing the face of the capital he says There's no sense in talking about European architects,Chinese architects American architects There is only good and bad and the way to tell the difference is to ask, Does it belong to its time Building new courtyards now is of no use to the Chinese people. Preserve the courtyards that we have,but don't use modern techniques to build new ones. Reproducing China's past is a mistake,and reproducing foreign things is also a mistake. This is the 21st century. We should build things that belong to the 21st century.
There's no doubt that Pan expects to see China's new,21st century spirit emerge from its capital. Beijing encompasses all kinds of people,all kinds of ideas. People here are very open-minded,very accepting. Everything fits in here.
