Construction in Serbia is at a record level and all factors agree with that statement. Architecture inevitably participates in making a profit. However, in such market circumstances, the influence of architecture on profit is little visible. That is why architecture is often perceived by the general public and clients as an instrument of beautification, and not as an articulating factor of investment, which by definition is, says Lela Alempijevic, executive director and partner of the architectural studio Zabriskie, for eKapija.
Architectural studio Zabriskie deals mainly with commercial architecture and design of residential and business complexes, and the projects on which they are engaged are the subject of investment cycles of clients. As our interlocutor points out, clients therefore have the two most common and ultimate requirements:
– The first to achieve maximum sales with an architectural solution, ie. areas for rent that urban plans allow, and the other is to realize the typologies of apartments or business premises at the request of the market – says Alempijevic.
It often happens, as he states, that the architectural analysis of the location shows that it is possible to get better functional solutions if the sales area is not maximized.
– However, so far it has not happened that clients give up sales squares at the expense of other qualities. The reason is of a market nature, because the price of land decisively affects the price of a sales square. In the real estate market, the formation of the price per square meter is still dominant, and not according to the total value structure of the real estate. The second reason is that the demand for real estate is higher than the supply, so mostly everything that is built is sold relatively quickly – said Alempijevic.
– These circumstances result in the fact that there is currently a lot of generic architecture that satisfies almost only the maximum square footage and market typologies. We architects eagerly await future market circumstances, in which our clients will compete to sell a square, so the quality of spatial organization, materialization, application of new technologies, the language of modern architecture and innovation will be recognized even as crucial moments for making a profit. This is the case in more economically developed environments. Such a moment is certainly coming to Belgrade, and in our office we are working to be ready for it – states Alempijevic.
In Belgrade, there is a growing trend of building tall buildings, and as Alempijevic says, that is a consequence of the lack of free locations and the increase in the price of land, so tall buildings are inevitable for big cities.
– The biggest advantage of living and working in tall buildings is that the activities rise above the zone of noise, pollution, views become more attractive, but at the same time people’s stay is moving away from the ground. Moving away from the soil and nature, the attitude towards open spaces for living, as well as the issue of the possibility of satisfying social integration with the necessity of physical distancing of users, will certainly be new topics in the light of the covid epidemic. Both investors and architects need to recognize and respond to user requests brought by Covid to housing, business, public and all other city functions.
It remains to be seen when and to what extent Belgrade will be exposed to new global trends, but many, even these topics, concern urban plans. We are witnessing cases where plans change with the motivation to meet the demands of capital. Such an aspiration is perfectly fine because it is a city and an economic artifact, Alempijevic points out.
However, it is very important that this does not exclude issues of context, ie. healthy settings of the facility that will enable various activities, animation of the entire part of the city with new architecture, contents and functions that raise the value of use, and thus indirectly and in the long run the value of invested capital, states Alempijevic.
It is known that there are buildings in Belgrade that have been individually successfully articulated but have not come to life in the area and the community has not accepted them.
– It could be said that every new facility in the city opens a discussion with the environment. It can be an unconditional acceptance of the context, it can be a conflict that stimulates change and development, but it can also be a conflict that closes new possibilities. In this part, architecture and architects have a significant role, all the more so because this aspect is not legible to clients through input economic factors because it becomes relevant only during the exploitation of investment in a particular environment, but it certainly has an impact on profit – concludes Alempijevic, eKapija reports.
