Over his 40-year career, SJB founding director Michael Bialek has continued to design for place, crafting design responses that are unique to their location. His outstanding portfolio of acclaimed and award-winning projects include apartment buildings, private homes, commercial, hospitality and cultural venues.

SJB’s Melbourne studio in Oliver Lane has been closed to the public since early April when the Victorian Government set in place restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our IT team acted promptly to arrange for networking from home for most of our team members. A core group of senior managers and technical staff have continued to operate in the studio to maintain essential organisational and technical services to the business. Meetings and client presentations have been conducted successfully on Zoom and Teams platforms with relative ease and success. However from a personal viewpoint, there is no doubt in my mind that real ‘face to face’ contact still is, and will be, an important feature of successful collaboration in the design profession.

Team members have responded well to the technical challenges and features of remote connections. However, the number of people indicating that they are missing the studio ‘atmosphere’ and physical connection with their work colleagues is growing week by week. So although in the short term there may be a question about whether businesses will require the same amount of office space post COVID-19, I see the need  for the workplace to still be the location where a business would generate a feeling of togetherness for its employees. We will however see a reduction in business travel, locally and internationally for some time to come and we will definitely see a transition to a more flexible workplace, allowing those arrangements for ‘work at home’ to suit the individual business and their employee preferences.

The design of offices and dwellings, whether single house or apartments, will need to respond to this alternative ‘working arrangement’, particularly in respect of smaller dwellings and the need to locate a separate, quiet location for work activities. The upgrading of telecommunication connections and capacity will also be in demand in the home.

There is also no doubt that the younger generation, having grown up and being so adept with social media, have found the transition to working at home easier than us ‘baby-boomers’. But we have also learnt from this difficult period that change in work habits can be affected without reducing the effectiveness of our efforts - it’s ‘never too late to teach an old dog new tricks’.

We have also witnessed the varying attitudes of our clients during the past few months in response to the worsening economic conditions. Some are displaying serious concerns, some caution and others are looking for new opportunities in time for the recovery, which I believe will come sooner than expected. Yes our growth will slow down, we will have less foreign tourists and students but we will also have more interstate tourists and maybe students from different countries. We will see many Australian citizens currently working overseas return to their homes – seeking a more safe and active lifestyle than they may find in London or New York. A stable, political scene and an accessible world class health system (proven during the pandemic) are also now high on the list of desirable attributes in considering where to live in the coming years.

So how will the property industry be affected by the COVID-19 era? The main affect that we have noticed to date has been the requirement for new buildings to accommodate mixed uses and to incorporate flexibility in their design to allow a change of in the future. Office buildings which could be transformed into residential apartments and/or vice versa? The uncertainty about the depth of demand for either sector is the driving issue for our clients in considering their development profile over the next few years. We see an ongoing demand for boutique office accommodation in the inner suburbs, particularly around transport/retail nodes. Buildings with an aspirational agenda for a flexible workplace, wellbeing, high environmentally sustainable credentials, quality end-of-trip facilities and overall design excellence. And in locations which can provide a balance between our social life, our leisure pursuits and our work commitments. So the need for office accommodation will slow with the current economic conditions affecting many businesses, but this need will return and those thinking ahead of the rest will be rewarded as usual! The housing market will also need to respond to both private and government initiatives being implemented to assist the economic recovery in the post COVID-19 era. We are involved in a number of social housing projects which have been in the making for many years – the time is now upon us, both private sector and Government, to deliver these much need community assets.

The Build to Rent (BTR) model is also now being delivered into the local scene, by both international and local developers. SJB is involved in an inner suburban regeneration project involving in excess of 350 apartments over a retail and hospitality precinct. Industry leaders, developers and city officials have recently discussed the opportunities and challenges in this most recent initiative of BTR, however there is no doubt that this new asset class will provide housing for a more diverse population at different price points.

The retail sector also faces a number of challenges moving forward. The strength of the major shopping centres is the subject of an ongoing debate and obviously affected by the individual offering in each location. The social interaction and entertainment opportunities offered by these centres is becoming important as ‘on-line’ shopping increases incrementally over time. Specific retailers such as Harvey Norman, JB Hi-fi, Officeworks, Coles and Woolworths have however, recorded large increases in sales volumes during the COVID-19 period. The ‘distinctive’ shopping experience is still proving to be resilient – visits to the Prahran and South Melbourne markets over the last few months prove to me that the popularity of bustling hospitality/retail venues is a feature of Melbourne’s unique cultural offerings. The activities in the laneways and the queues outside the  bakeries in both Melbourne and Sydney over recent weeks provides me with enough evidence of resurgence in the retail sector as the public seeks to reacquaint itself with the city’s offerings.

Being an optimist at heart and with faith in the intelligence and skill that supports the property industry, I look forward to SJB responding to the challenges ahead and the projects that will lead our cities back to a solid recovery.