Development Planning
Designing a city from nothing. Here you can feel it in your hands.
Saori Kimura
Joined from a sales role at a major general contractor. Now works on the planning of large mixed-use developments.
My Work
I work on the planning of large mixed-use developments. From reading the demand of a neighbourhood and drawing the outline of a project, through to coordinating with local authorities, architects and tenant companies. I am involved from the very top of the process.
Why I Like This Work
There is never one right answer. Give the same site to two people and the pictures they draw are entirely different. Watching my own judgement turn into the shape of a neighbourhood is hard to find elsewhere.
How I’ve Changed
I have learned to see the whole. I used to look only at my own part. Now I can take in a project from above, see where the risks are, and work out in advance who needs to be told what.
What’s Next
I want to take on a development at the scale of a neighbourhood, where housing and retail are genuinely mixed. I would also like to reach into uses I have not worked on before.
A Day in the Life
9:00
Into the office. I check yesterday's progress and the papers for today's meetings.
10:00
Regular meeting with the architects, working through revisions to the drawings.
13:00
Site visit, looking at footfall in the area and at competing developments.
16:00
Updating the financial model for the business plan.
18:30
I get tomorrow ready and head home.
