(LONDON) - The Urban Land Institute (ULI) and Hines, the international real estate firm, are pleased to announce the winners for its second ULI Hines Student Competition – Europe.
Four students from The London Business School have emerged victorious in the final of the pan-European virtual real estate competition, which challenged teams to present their vision of a future workplace, based on the redevelopment of an office site in Amsterdam. The winning students will each receive a one-year ULI membership, a fast-track to Hines’ internship program, a guided tour of a live Hines project and participation in project meetings in Hines’ European offices.
Emanuel Dos Santos Rebelo, Dermot Mahony, Beatriz Vala and Yoko Yamada from The London Business School beat seven other teams from a diverse array of academic institutions including Copenhagen Business School, Denmark; EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht, Germany; IESE Business School, Spain; INSEAD, France; Politecnico di Milano, Italy; Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain; and University of Cambridge, United Kingdom to win the coveted prize.
Team captain, Yoko Yamada, from The London Business School, commented: “I’m over the moon but the whole team is key to this win. It’s an absolute honor to come out on top of the competition. We have been working towards this behind the scenes for the last month in terms of preparation with group study sessions, so we’re all equally very pleased that our efforts have paid off."
The final consisted of a whole day of virtual sessions, where the finalist teams were tasked with the topical challenge of the future of the workplace assessing their understanding of how offices will evolve and remain connected to the communities in which they operate well into the future. The teams were challenged to develop their vision for the office site, setting out the mix of uses they felt most appropriate, along with an ESG strategy and their proposed financials for the scheme. They worked in multidisciplinary teams, with the support of Hines mentors.
Innovative ideas for the future of the office during the final, included: organic indoor and outdoor gardens, canopies with vegetation and wildlife, outdoor office pods embedded in nature, serviced lofts in the upper echelons of the office space, solar chimneys, a rooftop lighthouse and an amphitheatre to connect with the local community.
The finalists were asked to present their plans to an esteemed jury consisting of senior real estate industry professionals, including: Mary Louise Gray, Regional Director EMEA, Microsoft; Karim Habra, Executive Vice President - Head of Europe and Asia-Pacific, Ivanhoe Cambridge; Lars Huber, CEO – Europe, Hines; Sir Stuart Lipton, Partner, Lipton Rogers Developments; Brian Moran, Head of Ireland, Hines; Ellen Nieuweboer, Project Director, City of Amsterdam; Audun Opdal, Senior Partner, Head of Design, 3xn and Lisette van Doorn, CEO – Europe, ULI.
Lars Huber, CEO of Hines Europe, said: “We are very proud to partner with the ULI to offer this incredible competition for the second year running. It has again showcased some remarkable emerging talent across Europe. The winning team deserve the plaudits as the competition was exceptionally tough but all the finalists should be incredibly proud of their performance and efforts. We saw some novel ideas, fantastic concepts, and innovative thought processes about how the future of work will look and how the real estate sector will need to adapt to multi-generational needs. We remain committed to this competition for the long term as we look to continue to support young professionals break into our fantastic industry while broadening out the talent pool to attract creative and diverse talent."
Lisette van Doorn, CEO of ULI Europe, added: “ULI’s mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide, and with our global, multidisciplinary and multigenerational focus, this competition is a perfect example of what ULI stands for. Seeing the enthusiasm and motivation from the competing students has been fantastic and, thanks to the generous support of Hines, we are thrilled to be able to provide them with a springboard to start their career in the industry. We’ve been very impressed with the creativity and solutions provided, that we urgently need to adapt to in the post Covid-19 reality, trying to tackle some of the major challenges that were accelerated by the pandemic, such as decarbonisation, social inequality and advanced innovation. We hope everyone involved today will join the industry and continue their journey with ULI when developing their careers, by leveraging our content and our global network.”
For more information about the competition, please visit europe.uli.org/ulihinesstudentcompetition.
Background to original ULI Hines Student Competition
The ULI Hines Student Competition – Europe is based on a U.S. version, which was established in 2002. Longtime ULI leader Gerald D. Hines, founder of the Hines real estate organisation, created the competition with a generous endowment after he received the ULI Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development in 2002. For further information about the original competition, visit: https://uli.org/hines.
About the Urban Land Institute
The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to provide leadership in the responsible use of land in creating and sustaining thriving communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has over 45,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land us and development disciplines. ULI has over 4,000 members in Europe across 15 National Council country networks. For more information, please visit europe.uli.org, follow us on Twitter or follow our LinkedIn page.
About Hines
Hines is a privately owned global real estate investment firm founded in 1957 with a presence in 240 cities in 27 countries. Hines oversees a portfolio of assets under management valued at approximately $160.9 billion¹, including $81.7 billion in assets under management for which Hines serves as investment manager, and $79.2 billion representing more than 172.9 million square feet of assets for which Hines provides third-party property-level services. Historically, Hines has developed, redeveloped or acquired approximately 1,450 properties, totalling over 485 million square feet. The firm has more than 180 developments currently underway around the world. With extensive experience in investments across the risk spectrum and all property types, and a pioneering commitment to ESG, Hines is one of the largest and most-respected real estate organisations in the world.
Since entering Europe in 1991, Hines has grown its European platform to include offices in 16 cities as well as a presence in 63 cities in 14 countries, with €26.3 billion of assets under management, including €21.9 billion for which Hines serves as an investment manager and €4.4 billion for which Hines provides third-party property-level services, in Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Visit www.hines.com for more information.
¹AUM includes both the global Hines organisation as well as RIA AUM as of December 31, 2020.
