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Calendar of occasions 2023
The chief sports and entertainment architect explains to Dave Rogers why business has never been this big and what makes a stadium.
Chris Lee’s idea for a moment and then said, “Look at the weather apps. The other day I had one that said it was going to rain, but I looked at it and it said “sunny, sunny, sunny, an hour of rain. “, sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny. ” In the English app, it’s rain. Australians have a different attitude towards life.
Born in Brisbane, Populous’ managing director of the Europe and Middle East (EMEA) business has spent most of this millennium in the UK. His wife is English, lives in London, supports Arsenal and even mocks Australia’s recent good fortune in Ashes.
But he misses the weather there and finds that winters here, and its short, gray days, are difficult. “All my siblings are in Sydney and my parents are still in Brisbane, so I’m recovering a lot, which is good. “
He first came to the UK when he arrived in London to do his part at Powell, Moya and Partners, an experience he was only intended to last a year. “I love London, I fell in love with it when I turned 20. I worked hard for two years before my father told me to come home.
He wanted to return to London as soon as he could, but was still persuaded to re-specialise in Australia through Rod Sheard, who then designed the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield, before the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Wembley Stadium, painted the main stadium. of the Sydney Olympics in 2000.
So it’s no surprise that Lee, now 51, who also sits on Populous’ global board, is at the helm of a company that, for many, is the go-to architect for a slew of new stadiums and entertainment venues that have sprung up. and are emerging in the UK and beyond.
Lee says the company has been flat this year and, since January, his department has hired a hundred more employees. This brings the number to around 290, and the company hopes to fill another 40 or 50 positions by the end of 2023. Most of its EMEA is based in the UK, with other offices such as Paris and Milan.
EMEA profits are expected to be around £40 million (last year it rose 30% to £30 million), however, Lee admits that attracting the right people has been a challenge for a number of years.
“It’s harder to have staff who aren’t part of Europe,” he says. “Brexit has had a massive impact on many parts of our business, from the need to set up separate companies to operate in various jurisdictions, where it didn’t have to before, to access staff.
“Brexit has cost us money, no doubt. He is an identifiable character. This has taken a step forward in the last 18 months, but we do not have access to quality Spanish, French and Greek staff. There are so many, so hiring is a big factor for us.
Lee says 80% of his paint load, which is around £100 million, is in the sports and entertainment sectors. For example, the company’s paintings in the UK include a new stand at Fulham’s Craven Cottage Ground, the Co-op Live Arena in Manchester. — a 23,500-seat venue being built through Bam that will open next spring — and paintings to expand the home of recent Champions League winners. City of Manchester.
Overseas, it is also designing a new stadium for AS Roma and running at several conference centers in the United States, adding Boston and Los Angeles, as well as modernizing old stadiums in the Middle East, adding Saudi Arabia, which has introduced a foray into several well-known names in soccer for its fledgling Saudi Pro League.
The main signing was Cristiano Ronaldo and Lee said: “They are determined to make it the Middle Eastern Premier League. “
However, it was in the Premier League that Lee cut his teeth and Populous cemented his reputation and the key Emirates Stadium paintings for Arsenal.
But before that, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, indeed for the construction industry, one of its most infamous jobs due to losses helped send its builder, Laing Construction, into O’Rourke’s arms for £1.
Lee has an engaging vision of how things went so wrong and why he’s a benchmark for the stadiums of the future.
Completed in 1999, just in time for the start of that year’s Rugby World Cup, he says: “It marked the end of the point where other people saw stadiums as civilian projects.
“They [Laing] were given the equipment outside Severn Bridge [the time the crossing ended through Laing in 1996 before paintings began at the Millennium Stadium the following year] and they had civilian QS that had no idea. They had the equipment in it, they saw it as a civilian project.
Lee enjoyed his time in the Emirates. ” The visitor is so nice, it’s a wonderful team. This is one of the groups that has just solidified. [The former general manager] Ken Friar and [former Arsenal manager] Danny Fiszman were gentlemen, incredibly adorable men.
He says the team is in contact with each other and singles out the main contractor’s structure manager Sir Robert McAlpine, Rolv Kristiansen, as a special compliment.
“Now there are guys who manage sites and have never set foot on a site”
“He’s a giant, he’s brilliant: the last of the genuine structural managers. I used to walk to the site twice a day, at nine a. m. m. y at 3 p. m. I intuitively knew if there were enough blocks on the site.
“He didn’t have a spreadsheet. Now you have guys who handle structure sites and have never set foot on a structure site.
The Emirates ended in 2006 and Lee recalls: “We had other people saying at the time: ‘£220 million?You’re going to sink the club. Imagine spending a quarter of a billion on a stadium. “
He left the UK to establish Populous’ American workplace in New York before returning to painting at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium.
This project, he says, has a calling card for Populous. “He has made wonderful proposals, not only in the UK but also in the world. that unites them.
He attributes much of this to club president Daniel Levy. “Daniel is incredibly motivated, I have never met such a motivated user. He sought to create a big party for the fans.
“For a long time, football enthusiasts have been treated like a captive audience and you have a horrible experience. At Tottenham, his idea was for everyone to have an amazing experience. He was obsessed with the American sports experience. “
“It’s a group, I have to say, as an Arsenal fan,” he grimaced. “It’s been non-stop for a long time. “
Lee still hears from Levy and says the club remains his stadium, which opened four years ago. It opened late and for a time threatened to become a saga to rival Wembley a decade earlier.
It had a total value of around £1 billion, and structure prices gobbled up around £700 million of that figure.
Mace built the task under a structure control contract and Lee says, “CM was smart in having compatibility with Daniel, he would have hated a design and a constant value structure where he can’t replace anything because in everything, even now, he needs to improve it. .
“People say there was a massive cost overrun. Everything was planned, Daniel knew what he was doing, he knew exactly what he spent. It’s not out of control. “
>>Read also: Populous launches audiovisual and acoustic design agency
He says the Emirates are a bit old-fashioned. ” We may see it again,” he adds. The general entrance is a bit cramped. The turnstiles are outdated. Some club titles have been changed, but very few in general admission.
The company has just opened one in Madrid and plans to release more frames in Spain and Italy. Spain plans to host the soccer World Cup in 2030, having last hosted it in 1982.
Italy is also on their radar. There are the paintings of AS Roma and he is executing a plan to update the San Siro in Milan. Local politics is delaying this, Lee says diplomatically, but adds: “Italy has clubs with large fan bases, betting on infrastructure built for Italia 90 that hasn’t been touched since. “
Given its notoriety in sports and entertainment, doesn’t Populous need to invest money and target other sectors?Not really, replies Lee. ” We need to keep our spread tight. “
Where it has diversified is in aviation and transportation and the company works from Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan. “Many consumers have been interested in how we take stadiums and reinvent them.
“With aviation, it’s about processes rather than the visitor experience. Our view was, ‘Why can’t we think of this differently?’
This year will be the busiest for the company and Lee says he hasn’t really felt the impact of inflation on the viability of his jobs. “The biggest challenge is the design of those schemes.
“If you have a program two years ago with another number, either you go back to price engineering, or the client’s budget increases, or the works are staggered. “
Customers, he adds, are willing to settle for what’s going on. “They understand. Many of our clients are punctual but practical and well advised.
“No one is surprised. We didn’t have a covid work stoppage, which is incredible.
One question: which do you prefer, the Emirates or the Tottenham stadium?Think a little.
“As an architect, Tottenham is a wonderful building. “1-0 in Tottenham, then.
Populous has 26 international offices and 3 regional companies: Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific. Its primary base is in Kansas City and the company employs approximately 965 other people worldwide. About 450 people are hired in the United States, adding 290 in the United States. United and 230 in Asia Pacific.
The company achieved a global turnover of £100 million last year and is expected to grow further in 2023, with UK turnover expected to rise by around a third to £40 million.
Populous emerged from a controlling buyout in early 2009, after emerging from HOK Sport and Australian firm LOBB, created by Brisbane-born architect Rod Sheard. These two merged in 1998 before winning the Wembley redesign job, with its signature arch designed through Foster Partners, a year later.
Sheard, Populous’ founding spouse, retired as president.
Raised in Brisbane, Chris Lee is professional enough at swimming to deserve a possible chance to win passing medals in competition.
He is now a fan of open water swimming and travels to Shepperton in Surrey to swim and compete in the annual Dart 10k, which starts in Totnes, South Devon. “It’s a great swim,” he says.
He grew up watching rugby league, played most commonly in union, but more commonly watched state rugby league matches between Queensland and New South Wales in the 1980s. “It was a spectacle, there would be fights on the edge of the field. “
He missed the transformation of Australian sports icon Shane Warne from Larrikin into Liz Hurley because he spent 8 years in the United States. I came back here. “
Warne was from Melbourne and those in the south refer to Brisbane quite arrogantly as Brisvegas. “They’re snobs there,” he laughs.
“When I grew up, it was a rural town, but it’s a place. They have invested a lot in it. If I had to go back, it would be in Brisbane.
The Premier League-linked club is expected to submit proposals for a 23,500-seat stadium by August.
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