Future Cities Forum 2: hotels, retail and museums in city regeneration

Architects, developers and councils have been meeting at citizenM, Tower of London in our second Future Cities Forum to discuss regeneration around the UK and in China.

Dan Burr, Partner at Sheppard Robson, talked about the location and modular construction of the citizenM hotel and how important it was to create this building at a strategic point linking the City of London to the tourist area of Tower Hill.

Mixed use regeneration was also a core topic during the discussion and this was taken up by Martyn Chase of Stanhope PLC who described the redevelopment of White City in London and also the project to regenerate Tottenham town centre.

The lure of culture to business investment was highlighted by Bill Seaman, Director of Colchester and Ispwich Museums and Victoria Pomery, Director of Turner Contemporary, who described how the Margates's new art gallery has attracted two million visitors in five years since opening.

In China, the architectural firm, Make, have designed a hotel for the Swire Group in Chengdu, that anchors retail experience near the traditional Chinese market.