The Architecture Of Commercial Success

2024 Author: David Durham | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 02:26

The famous MIPIM exhibition, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, is taking place in the cozy town of Cannes on the French Riviera. This is a development and investment exhibition. This is a special audience and a special way of self-presentation and perception of information. Countries, cities, companies from all over the world bring their projects to MIPIM in order to find additional funds for their implementation. Architecture here is an idea, an image that can and should be sold. And the better the architecture, the more successfully it sells. And architects act here in a capacity that is not the most familiar to us - professionals who are able to produce a product that will be successful in the market. In Russia, some time ago, in the professional environment, it was customary to lament the lack of respect for architects on the part of their clients, developers and investors. So, at MIPIM, an architect is respected precisely as a bearer of "secret knowledge" capable of making a commercially successful object from abstraction, from a set of words and numbers. The architectural quality of projects is becoming almost a key factor in assessing the prospects for investments.

And as a measure of quality and prospects, a special MIPIM Awards was invented, which is awarded to both architects and their customers. Every year during the exhibition, its participants can put forward their buildings and projects in several nominations, and an independent international jury, which includes both designers and officials and experts in related fields, determines the winners. One in each category, without second and third places, so as not to devalue the concept of "best". The nominations reflect not only the main typologies of commercial real estate, but also the most important trends that determine the vector of development of development projects.

The nominations covered the best innovative green building, office and business project, residential project, shopping center, building reconstruction, urban environment reconstruction, best project of the future. They also chose "the best object of the best" - this is a special jury award. This year, three more national ones have been added to the traditional nominations: "Best Russian Project", "Best Brazilian Project" and "Best Turkish Project". These three countries acted as official partners of the MIPIM festival in 2014 and therefore received separate awards.

The awards ceremony did not suffer from protractedness, but sparkled with a variety of lighting effects that created a truly festive and at the same time relaxed atmosphere. An excellent entertainer, detailed comments of the jury members on the criteria for evaluating applicants for each nomination and sincere words of gratitude, which, as if at the Oscars, were uttered by all the laureates, turned the ceremony into a magnificent architectural holiday, where professionals were happy to honor their colleagues who have created outstanding projects.

Since the nomination for the MIPIM Awards is paid, and the competition in each nomination is extremely high, the authors of a project or building must be absolutely sure that their project is the best before daring to enter the fight. Not surprisingly, among the projects included in the shortlists for each nomination, there were really very bright and already crowned with various awards from all over the world. All the more honorable and prestigious is each prize awarded on a warm Cannes evening on March 13, for winning in competitive nominations and in national categories. One of them was the Best Russian Project award for the VTB Arena Park project, received by a team headed by Andrey Peregudov, General Director of the Dynamo Management Company and VTB Arena Park project manager, and with one of the project authors, Sergei Tchoban. managing partner of the SPEECH bureau.

Now that Russia has the MIPIM Awards in its treasury, we can say with confidence that the system of relationships between customers and architects has begun to change from the previous distrust to mutual respect and constructive cooperation, in which everyone brings their abilities and professionalism for the sake of a common ultimate goal - perfect and effective architectural structure that meets the highest requirements - including in terms of profitability.

Best "project of the future"

Best Futura Project