The Filipino collector Robbie Antonio has developed an ambitious plan to bring prefab museums to the masses.
Continue readingStarchitect For A Steal: This Developer Is Selling Prefabricated Private Museums
Meet The Trump Business Partner Who’s Also The Philippines’ New Trade Envoy To The US
by Abram Brown, Forbes India
Image: Jason Quibilan for Forbes
Robbie Antonio winds his way through full-scale models of the apartments that he and his father, Jose, are selling in a new residential tower in Manila. The units, which start at $160,000, are accented by cool greys and blues, and like many other Antonio projects, they’re a co-branded affair, featuring minimalistic, Armani-designed interiors.
The Armani partnership is evocative of the Antonio business model. In the 31 years since Jose founded the $230 million-in-annual-sales Century Properties, the Philippine economy has blossomed, and they have responded to the growing demand for increasingly plush apartments and offices with the first condominiums in the Philippines, an ultraluxe Manila tower called Gramercy Residences and a man-made beach with a beach club designed by Paris Hilton. They often work in partnership with Western brands like Armani, Missoni and Versace—and, full disclosure, with Forbes Media. The Antonios broke ground last year on a Forbes-branded Manila office building. A few blocks away from Forbes Tower is a Trump-branded, Antonio-built residential tower. The $150 million, 57-storey tower is nearly ready to open. “Trump has been a very positive experience,” says Robbie. And most of that experience has revolved around the friendship he has forged with the Trump children Ivanka, Eric and Donald Jr.
The Antonio-Trump relationship has morphed in the last couple of months. Back on October 13, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte named Jose as the Philippines’ special envoy for business and trade to the US. An Antonio spokesman says Jose’s role is a “non-governmental, non-policymaking” position. He says, Jose’s “priority is the enhancement of the Philippines’ and US’s business relations.” And who could better strengthen business relations between the Philippines and a Trump America than a Trump business partner?
(This story appears in the 28 April, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
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In Trump They Trust: The President’s Global Web Of Business Partners
by Forbes India
A previously little-known batch of billionaires And tycoons from Around the world suddenly find themselves in An unprecedented position: how do you cash in on A partnership with the president of the United States of America? from the Avaricious dealmakers to the Abandoned deals, meet the world’s 36 mini-trumps
The night before Donald J Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States, his recently opened Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, serves as the capital’s de facto inner sanctum. Barricades ring the place; if you don’t have a room or a reservation, good luck getting in.
As with any club worth its gilt, secret, concentric rings of exclusivity sit in plain sight, and one starts near the lobby bar, which is lined with bottles of Dom Pérignon and draped with a giant American flag. There, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, Trump’s billionaire Indonesian business partner, sits on a plush sofa, texting with Trump’s billionaire Dubai partner, Hussain Sajwani. Eventually, they meet, and Tanoesoedibjo later posts an Instagram picture of himself, Sajwani and their wives mugging for the camera in the lobby of the Trump International Hotel.
Upstairs, Phil Ruffin, Trump’s billionaire partner in Las Vegas, has taken up residence in $18,000-a-night accommodations. The presidential suite, Ruffin says, was reserved for the president-elect. When he later complained about the price to Trump, the president demurred. Ruffin might need that money: His wife, Oleksandra, a former Miss Ukraine, has hit it off with Sajwani’s wife over their mutual love of expensive jewellery.
All told, at least 14 from this community of partners, from Turkey to India to the Philippines, attended the inauguration festivities. “People often talk about partners as not necessarily friends, almost as if they’re mutually exclusive. ‘If you’re a partner, you’re not a friend, and if you’re a friend, you’re not a partner,’ ” says Eric Trump, the president’s son and co-chief of the Trump Organization, who now sits, with brother Don Jr, at the nexus of this global network. “I think that’s a bad way of thinking.”
All these friends, old and new, mixed with an awesome amount of power and money, do not produce a good recipe for eight hours’ sleep. Joo Kim Tiah, a Malaysian heir who would shortly unveil the world’s newest Trump tower, in Vancouver, eventually complains: “Do you guys know what time it is?”
“I’m sorry, Mr Tiah, we can’t turn the music down,” the hotel staffer responds. “This is once in a lifetime.”
Indeed it is. Never has an American president taken office with such immense and complicated assets. Nor has one brought along a busload of rich partners who, by dint of previous deals and brand association, stand to reap profits in real time, as the president serves.
To better understand this global network, Forbes looked into each of these 36 partners, travelling to five countries to interview more than a dozen of them. In the process, we made the following discoveries:
• A potential business partner in Russia says he exchanged messages with the Trump family as recently as January.
• Ruffin and the Trump Organization are considering a Trump casino in Las Vegas, perhaps bolstered by a federally backed high-speed rail connection to Los Angeles—a matter that Ruffin says he’s discussed with the president himself.
• Trump’s partner in Indonesia, Hary Tanoesoedibjo, intends to use the Trump playbook to become president of the world’s fourth-most-populous country within 10 years—and has recently been accused of playing a role in an alleged plot to frame a top Indonesian government official for murder.
• Trump’s attitude towards Muslims spurred, in part, a family feud among his partners in Turkey.
But perhaps the most interesting tidbit comes in the aggregate. Trump’s network extends to at least 19 countries. And these guys (yes, they’re all men) share a set of consistent traits, even as property developers go. This group is uniformly rich—seven are members of the Forbes billionaires list; many more claim centimillionaire status. They reflect their partner—a mélange of bombastic marketing, over-the-top style and political connections.And all of them are trying to figure out, to various degrees, how to cash in on the 45th president.
Eric Trump motions to a small TV in the corner of his office in Trump Tower. “If I turn on the TV—let’s just see—I will bet you that [my father] will be on the screen in some way, shape or form.” He picks up the remote and clicks the power button. An anchor, fresh off a commercial break, stares straight into the camera: “A hearing in federal court today could allow hundreds of people who were deported under President Trump’s original—”Eric smiles as he turns off the set. “I see him up there all day, every day. And I realise how big of a magnitude the decisions he makes and the things he has on his plate.”
His father’s presence in the business extends beyond his office television. In January, Trump stood in Trump Tower and announced that he was handing over control of his business to his sons as part of an effort to separate it from his presidency—though by putting his assets in a trust, he’s really just parking his holdings rather than divesting from them. And because he knows exactly what assets are in the trust, it’s anything but blind.
Trump’s network extends to at least 19 countries. and these guys (yes, they’re all men) share a set of traits
A month later, Eric seems to acknowledge this dilemma. One minute, he promises to never talk about the business with his father while he serves in the White House. Less than two minutes later, he says he will update his father on the company’s finan-cials “probably quarterly”.
He also claims that the business is following through on its plan to hand over profits at its hotels from foreign dignitaries to the US Treasury, even though the Trump business partner in Las Vegas says there is no such thing happening at their hotel. The pledge was intended to resolve concerns that the president would violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, a barely litigated section of America’s founding document that prohibits federal officials from receiving “any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state”. A group of legal scholars and bipartisan ethics experts have begun the lengthy process of suing Trump. “He has all of the conflicts of interest that he had before,” says Richard Painter, the former chief ethics lawyer for George W Bush, who is one of the lawyers facing off against him in the suit.
Some of Trump’s foreign partners are already finding themselves politically popular in their home countries. The Philippines’ strongman president, Rodrigo Duterte, appointed Trump partner Jose Antonio to serve as a special envoy to the US just before Trump’s November victory. In India, billionaire Mangal Lodha is developing a 75-storey Trump building while serving as a regional vice president of a major political party. Indonesia’s Tanoesoedibjo is building up a following as he mulls a presidential run.
“We have incredible relationships with the people we do projects with,” Eric Trump says. “You want somebody who trusts you. You want to be able to trust them.”
For all the clumsiness around how detached the president is from his business, from a management perspective, little has changed for the foreign partners. Although 85 percent of Donald Trump’s $3.5 billion fortune is wrapped up in stable buildings and golf courses in the US, the most dynamic part of his business are its foreign licensing and management deals, which garner an estimated 3-5 percent of revenues without adding any risk. And Eric and Donald Jr have for years served as deal scouts, logging hundreds of thousands of miles to find and close foreign partnerships. “He gives his sons a lot of autonomy to make the company’s decisions,” says Paulo Figueiredo Filho, who partnered with the Trumps in Brazil. “They were already conducting 90 percent of the business, even before the presidency.”
The Trump fils took an informal approach to vetting potential partners, relying, like their dad, as much on gut as numbers and analyses. “We’re a little bit of an insular company in that the vast majority of this stuff, we just do ourselves,” Eric says. “The first criterion that we look at if we’re going to do something with somebody else is ‘Are they a good person?’ . . . That’s the way it has to work. If you’re looking at documents, if you’re looking at contracts, something is deeply wrong.”
The brand attracts a certain type of partner—flashy and ambitious. In the Philippines, Jose and Robbie Antonio also designed a beachclub with Paris Hilton. Dubai’s Hussain Sajwani has forged a $3.7 billion fortune selling real estate and tossing in extravagant add-ons, including BMWs and Lamborghinis. In Russia, Emin Agalarov works alongside his billionaire father, Aras, on real estate projects, while also moonlighting as a pop star (Trump once made a cameo in one of his music videos).
These are not the types of businessmen to ignore the fact that they are now tied to the most famous, controversial person in the world. Trump’s own organisation himself has shown how to exploit the moment. During the weekend of the inauguration, guests swarmed the Trump hotel in Washington, DC, paying upwards of $70,000 for a four-night stay. At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, initiation fees reportedly jumped from $100,000 to $200,000 in January. The property is now worth an estimated $175 million, roughly 15 percent more than it was six months ago, as its historical significance increases seemingly by the week.
“From a business standpoint, is the presidency beneficial?” Eric Trump says. “You have to look at it both ways. If you’re talking about existing assets, they’re doing amazing. If you’re talking about as a whole, we’ve made sacrifices in order to allow him—and he’s made sacrifices in order to allow him—to take the biggest office in the world.”
Ditto for his partners. The crew swanning around the inauguration was clearly thrilled, both with the proximity to power and with the opportunities that might afford. Agalarov says he would probably be working on a Trump Tower in Russia if the US real estate mogul hadn’t launched his campaign. A different partner in the nation of Georgia says the Trump Organization asked to cancel its deal in order to comply with the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
(It is unclear why the Trump Organization might think its Georgia deal would have caused constitutional issues but not Trump’s other active foreign partnerships. A Trump Organization lawyer wouldn’t comment.) And just before he entered the White House, Trump said Hussain Sajwani offered him $2 billion for a new deal that the president turned down. In Istanbul, though, the Dogan family tried to terminate their agreement with Trump. In Toronto, partners reportedly tried to remove the Trump name from one of their buildings.
Most partners continue to pledge their support—in private if not publicly. “Today, the Trump brand is stronger all over the world,” Agalarov says. Any hard feelings about the cancelled tower? “As soon as he got elected, we sent congratulations letters, to which they replied, and we exchanged texts,” Agalarov adds. “He does not forget his friends.”
(This story appears in the 28 April, 2017 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
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Could Revolution Precrafted Be The Philippines’ First Unicorn?
by Dinushi Diaz, Smart Company
After securing millions of dollars in funding from global tech giant 500 Startups, prominent Philippines property developer Robbie Antonio believes his one-year-old venture could soon become the country’s first unicorn — a company worth $1 billion.
Revolution Precrafted, which launched in December 2015, ships “precrafted homes” created by renowned designers like Lenny Kravtiz’s Kravitz Design to property developers and homebuyers around the world within 90 days of ordering.
“We’re changing the landscape of home building,” Antonio told Tech in Asia.
“Now you have the world’s best architects at your fingertips for an affordable price.
“We’re applying the home as an art concept as well. They’re collectibles.”
According to Tech in Asia, Antonio’s startup wasn’t even raising capital when global tech giant 500 Startups invested $US15.4 million ($20 million) in it earlier this month.
And why would it need investors, considering the business has generated over $US110 million ($143.3 million) in sales already?
Revolution Precrafted homes cost an average of $US120,000 ($156,331) a pop, and Antonio believes the global market opportunity for this is $US100 billion ($130.3 billion).
With the company now valued at US$256 million, Antonio said venture capital investors were super keen to get involved.
“I wanted to have a cross-border transaction business,” says Antonio.
“That’s what makes it really geared towards being, I believe, the first Philippine unicorn.”
500 Startup managing partner Khailee Ng said the deal, which also involved some angel investors, saw the investors fighting for a ‘yes’ instead of the founder.
“Our seed companies rarely have US$100 million [$130 million] product bookings and enough finances,” Ng tells Tech in Asia.
“[Revolution Precrafted] didn’t need to raise. I had to convince them to take my money for value-add, not cash.”
Antonio is also the managing director of Philippines-based family real estate group Century Properties and he ranks among the world’s top 100 art collectors, next to Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio and Sheikha Al-Mayassa, a member of Qatar’s ruling family.
“I’m almost obsessed with design and architecture,” Antonio said.
“I believe in design democratisation. It should not just be the upper echelons who should be able to afford great architecture.”
DESIGNER PREFABRICATED HOUSES: THE PRÊT-À-PORTER OF GREAT ARCHITECTURE
by FILIPPO ROMEO AND LISA CORVA
A new concept of living. Light, mobile, sustainable, designer. These are micro prefabricated houses signed by stars of architecture and design. Ready for use, they can be ordered and delivered, at home, to any destination on the planet.
The idea comes from Robbie Antonio, a forty-year-old from Manila with a family fortune in the real estate world. And a dream: “accessible architecture”, and very signed, for everyone. “With my Revolution Precrafted I want to bring a Pritzker Prize into everyone’s life,” he explains. “My prefabricated houses are a small revolution: the pret-a-porter of great architecture”.
Using sophisticated technologies and optimizing production costs, Revolution Precrafted manages to make the architecture of the great masters democratic. For now, Antonio has enlisted 40 personalities, including archistars and designers. The latest project, Simple by Jean Nouvel, was presented in Paris, at the Tuileries. But the legend Zaha Hadid, Ron Arad, Jurgen H. Mayer, Daniel Libeskind, Kengo Kuma, the Campana brothers, Marcel Wanders and Tom Dixon also participated.
Among the most interesting examples is the Modular Living Unit by Paulo Mendez Da Rocha + METRO, a flexible system that can be used in a variety of contexts and environments: urban and rural, tropical and temperate. Composed of living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and verandas, it allows you to create different spatial combinations through multiple units. And it can also be extended over several floors. The structural elements that compose it are sized to allow ease of transport and to minimize the equipment during installation.
Matilda Home by Massimiliano and Doriana Fuksas is a mobile prefabricated housedesigned for any location in the world. The unit’s design allows multiple modules to form a large cloud, with no size limitations: it can be a city, a landscape or simply a house.
Philip Johnson/Alan Ritchie Architects’ Modular Glass House, inspired by the American architect’s masterpiece, has been redesigned as a series of modular components that can be pre-manufactured and shipped. The design follows the principles of the original architecture with greater lightness and flexibility.
Perfect for glamping Wooden tents like Ohm from “Nausicaa” are stylish
In 2016, glamping , where you can spend an elegant time in nature , was a big hit. The momentum is likely to continue in 2017, but maybe you can enjoy gorgeous camping in a tent like this? ・The “Ohm” type wooden tent “Armadillo Tea Canopy” is an armadillo type tent designed by industrial designer Ron Arad . For Japanese people, the shape is more reminiscent of Om from “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” rather than Armadillo. It looks great in nature ♡ – Not only can it be used outdoors like a single roof, but it can also be used by dividing it into parts. It looks comfortable when used for afternoon tea or outdoors! “Armadillo Tea Canopy” is a concept design exhibited at “Revolution Precrafted Properties” , which collects excellently designed houses and tents, but it seems that fun will spread if it is sold to the general public. Revolution Precrafted Properties (Armadillo Tea Canopy)
http://revolutionprecrafted.com/project/the-armadillo-tea-pavilion-by-ron-arad/ Outdoor (Summary)
Design Miami/Basel
Jean Prouvé, Kengo Kuma, Ron Arad, Kiki van Eijk, Hiroshi Sugimoto are just some of the names at the 11th Design Miami/Basel, that opens with a rich programming – Robbie Antonio
46 leading galleries from around the world are gathered in Basel to show exceptional modern and contemporary furniture and objets d’art. Throughout the fair, Design Miami/Basel presents a packed program of talks, events and special exhibitions that celebrate design in all its diverse applications, including booths showcasing Swarovski’s Designers of the Future, and the celebrated Design at Large display.
Berlin-based architecture practice Kuehn Malvezzi has teamed up with the Finnish design company Artek and Danish textile manufacturer Kvadrat to produce a formally distinctive Collector’s Lounge, while works by Zaha Hadid – that have been a strong presence at the fair over the past decade – will be presented in a special presentation by Zaha Hadid Architects, showcasing her innovative work in the field.
For the first time, Design Miami will play host to a specialist in prestige vintage car design and it will also see the return of the Design Curio program, showcasing forgotten curiosities, groundbreaking ideas and new areas of investigation at design’s cutting edge. Moreover, this year’s Swarovski Designers of the Future Award is presented to a group of emerging new talents who were tasked with the challenge of designing for the future in a holistic, adaptable and personal way.
Highlights of the 2016 Design Talks program include Andreas Ruby discussing breaking the boundaries of how architecture is viewed and experienced beyond the walls of a traditional museum and the Talks program will be ‘silent’, conveyed through wireless headphones to immerse audiences fully in the conversation.
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Prefabulous: How to set up home in the most remote places on Earth
by Katy Scott, CNN
If you’re looking to hole up in the middle of nowhere, there’s a hut in a box for that.
Back in the days of gloom post World War Two, prefab homes — structures prefabricated in sections in a factory and then assembled on site — were built en masse as temporary solutions for those who had been “bombed out”.
Just over 70 years later, prefab houses are still considered affordable alternatives to building homes from scratch.
Prefab pioneer Jean Prouvé designed his “demountable house” in the 1940s as a potential solution for the housing crisis in France. These inexpensive homes were rapidly built from steel and wood, assembled by hand, and supported by a two-legged load-bearing structure.
Today prefabricated buildings are used as temporary relief for those who have lost their homes to natural disasters, refugees, as well as a quick fix for housing crises.
But prefab is increasingly becoming an attractive option for constructing everything from cabins in the wilderness to high-end designer homes for city slickers.
One Canadian company has even gone as far as creating DIY cabins which come straight out of the box, complete with step-by-step instructions on how to assemble them.
Hut-in-a-box
Credit: Courtesy Ossip van Duivenbode/DUS Architects
Backcountry Hut Company grew from a need for recreational refuge points for outdoorsy folk in remote locations.
Avid backcountry adventurer, Wilson Edgar, dreamt up the idea of customizable huts that could be easily pieced together on-site by a group of people.
“When someone takes a house project today they basically give up control as soon as they start the project,” Edgar tells CNN. “This is putting that control back in their hands.”
Edgar teamed up with Principal Architect of Leckie Studio Architecture + Design, Michael Leckie, to tackle the design.
The huts come in two distinct styles — backcountry and frontcountry — each with multiple configurations.
The base model is a studio loft measuring 191 square feet, with a kitchen and living area on the ground level and sleeping quarters for two to four people on the top floor.
However, modules can be combined and the hut can be extended to fit up to 30 people.
Courtesy: Leckie Studio Architecture + Design
“One of the values in the system is that it is scalable and mass customizable,” explains Leckie, referring to various interior fitout options and exterior finishes.
This, according to Leckie, is one of the key differences between their huts and other “more rigid” cabins. Another is the ease with which it can be assembled.
“The building components are designed to such a size that they can be lifted by two people and put into place similar to almost like lego blocks,” says Leckie.
This is not to say the “kit of parts” can be slung over your shoulder like a sack of tent poles. In fact, the pre-module shell, timber frame skeleton, window system, doors, cladding, and interior fitouts arrive in a 40-foot shipping container and need to be lifted by helicopter to locations inaccessible by roads.
While the hut’s structural components cost $150 dollars a square foot, the interior fitouts can add a significant amount, depending on the client’s taste.
Courtesy: Leckie Studio Architecture + Design
Is prefab the answer?
Prefab homes are often considered to cut the spiralling costs of building a home, as well as the time it takes to build.
“For the average person building a custom home there are so many unknowns, and I think that a lot of people really struggle with the perceived lack of control through the process,” says Leckie.
“What we have here is a product that comes ultimately delivered, it’s a fixed-price solution.”
However, architect Charlie Lazor of Lazor Office — a design firm that specializes in the design and prefabrication of dwellings — is of the opinion that prefab isn’t always the answer.
“There is a perception that prefab will solve the problem of the cost of a home,” Lazor tells CNN.
“There are benefits to be had, and more benefits if the stars align, but it’s not a silver bullet, and it’s not going to solve a budget deficit.”
In 2005 the Minneapolis-based architect first introduced his panelized FlatPak house — a pre-fabricated, configurable house system.
Having designed and built many modular, FlatPak and stick built homes over the years, Lazor explains that there are multiple ways to do prefabrication. It all depends on the circumstances.
“For very remote work, the modular method is better as labour doesn’t exist, or has to come from very far away. So you have to get as much as you possibly can get done off site, and send it as complete as possible.”
One of the biggest challenges Lazor faces, however, is misconceived ideas about the benefits of prefabrication.
“The time advantage can be there but I wouldn’t say it’s a significant enough reason why someone should do a prefabricated house,” he says.
A prefab-ulous future
“As the market for prefabricated structures grow, so does the market for high-end precrafted work,” Robbie Antonio, CEO of Revolution Precrafted, tells CNN.
Revolution Precrafted commissions “starchitects” such as Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel, Philip Johnson, Ron Arad, Marcel Wanders, and Christian de Portzamparc, to design luxury prefab homes, pavilions, and even furniture.
“Prefabrication no longer means cookie-cutter construction, or one-size fits all design,” says Antonio. “It is moving towards a space where traditional construction methods give way to high-precision, and high-quality architecture.”
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Top Collector Robbie Antonio’s Family Has Substantial Business Ties to Donald Trump
by Eileen Kinsella, artnet News
Top Collector Robbie Antonio Family Has Substantial Business Ties to Donald Trump. As the businessman prepares to step into the role of president, a lengthy New York Times story on November 26 takes aim at US president-elect Donald Trump’s financial ties and potential conflicts worldwide.
The story opens with a discussion of Jose E.B. Antonio, a Philippine developer who is the father of Robbie Antonio, one of artnet New’s top collectors to watch and a fixture on the art circuit; Robbie is seen frequently at high-profile events including art fairs and major auctions, including Sotheby’s recent Impressionist and modern art evening sale earlier this month.
According to the Times report, E.B. Antonio, who was “quietly named a special envoy to the United States by the Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte,” is building a $150 million tower in Manila’s financial district. His business partner is none other than Trump.
Following the election, E.B. Antonio flew to New York for a private meeting at Trump Tower with the Trump children, who have been involved with the Manila project from the beginning, along with Antonio’s children. Robbie confirmed to the Times that the Trumps and Antonios have other projects in the works, including Trump-branded resorts in the Philippines.
Robbie gave an interview to the Times in which he assured that there was no reason to doubt his father’s priorities. “It is for the good of the country now,” he said.
Beyond real estate, the 39-year-old entrepreneur has also developed a taste for expensive art. According to a page on Century Properties, he displays a number of blue-chip artworks in his $15 million Manila house that was designed by Rem Koolhaas’ firm OMA. In a 2013 profile in Vanity Fair, he commissioned “a series of portraits of himself by some of the world’s top contemporary artists,” such as “Julian Schnabel, Marilyn Minter, David Salle, Zhang Huan, members of the Bruce High Quality Foundation, and Takashi Murakami.”
Now, Robbie is developing designer-driven luxury homes for international clients. “I want the homes to be perceived as art pieces,” he told Forbes at Frieze Art Fair earlier this year. His first big sale was in March, via a Zaha Hadid-designed dining pavilion that sold for €1.3 million ($1.37 million).
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Robbie Antonio: The man of substance
by Robbie Antonio Philippine Daily Inquirer
I have been referred to as “Asia’s youngest real estate tycoon” and by Forbes Asia as the “liaison to the stars” as we, at Century Properties, have brought global fashion houses, Hollywood A-listers, prominent architects, and the most iconic real estate brands to the Philippines for exclusive luxury projects that are now changing Manila’s skyline.
It was in 2011 when I headed Century Properties’ International Brand Collaborations, and started to conceptualize, negotiate, source, and launch projects in Manila with lifestyle game-changers. These included the Trump Organization for Trump Tower at Century City; Paris Hilton for the Paris Beach Club at Azure Urban Resort Residences; and The Milano Residences in partnership with Versace and in collaboration with MissoniHome. We’ve also had collaborations with Yoo, the interior design company founded by John Hitchcox; and Philippe Starck, one of the most celebrated and revered living designers today. Our latest project is Century Spire, a residential office tower whose architecture is by Daniel Libeskind, with amenity interiors designed by Armani/Casa.
Over the years, I have learned that passion for innovation and excellence should always go hand in hand with market understanding and experience. We have to learn from the lessons of history, and innovate towards the aspirations of our target market. We may have come up with products that one would normally consider tough to sell but we’ve also successfully tapped into the aspiration of many Filipinos—which is to have a higher quality of life.
Apart from catering to the needs of the market, it would also be crucial to offer the best value among the products in your own category. Adding value to a real estate property will attract the very discerning property market. The market will always respond positively to lifestyle innovations that make sense. For a few more dollars, one can own property that is above par not only in terms of money value but also quality of life.
I have also learned that timing is everything. You have to know when to introduce specific products to specific markets. Developers who have experienced more than four economic cycles like ours will develop the sense of launching the right product to the right market at the right time.
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