BLOK: Harnessing Urban Energy in Unique City Spaces

At the close of 2020, as South Africa finally began to settle into lockdown level 1, the property sector, and particularly the residential side, was feeling strangely buoyant. Yes, a renewed sense of optimism was beginning to pervade the air, with experts tentatively picturing a path to economic recovery; still, though, the prevailing talk was of South Africa’s worst recession in 90 years on the doorstep, with the economy anticipated to shrink by 7.2%.

Blok MD Jacques van Embden summed it up perhaps best of all, maintaining: “if there’s one thing history has taught us, is that the economy will eventually recover; and that property is one such asset class that shows stability over the long term.” Once again property, even in the most turbulent of environments, proved itself a staunchly stable investment and a safe haven in volatile climates.

“Property is extremely resilient, offering less volatility than the stock market,” van Embden furthered. “Ultimately, people will always need a place to stay, which provides buyers with a sense of security, even in times of turmoil.” With the country under massive fiscal pressure, assistance was also forthcoming to South Africans with banks much more amenable to offering 100% home loans, and with the repo rate slashed multiple times, eventually to a 50-year low of to 3.5%, the market was kept primed and ready for recovery.

LIFE-CHANGING DESIGN

Van Embden also speaks of the importance of innovation, and of agility, in continuing to entice buyers and investors, not only to overcome the recent periods of remarkable challenge but as a guiding principle for property prosperity. “We need to be able to design products that respond well to market conditions,” he assesses, “and at Blok we specialise in well-thought out, beautifully and intuitively designed urban apartments, with each one designed and curated by passionate urban dwellers themselves.

“This understanding results in a product that delivers on every aspect of city living, and these are just some of the factors that unite to make each Blok apartment truly unique. From our brand to our spaces and buildings, we strive to create design that is as beautiful as it is practical.” This innate ability to meld form and function has been the fulcrum of Blok’s ascendency from first foundations in September 2014, to embarking now on its 14th development, which van Embden tells us is well underway. “We have delivered 11 to date,” he reported, “with numbers 12 and 13 both under construction, while number 14 is currently being sold, and progressing well.

“From our first project, FOUR ON O to the latest, EIGHTY2 ON M, 14 developments later, rooted in the foundation on which our developments stand are three pillars: urban homes, urban living and design.” These have remained solid even as Blok has proved adaptable and able to respond to ever-shifting requirements. “From the outset we have focused on boutique, luxury apartments, which is one key segment of the market, but we have found that the volume in that market is somewhat limiting; once we get past a certain price point, for high-net-worth South Africans houses become the most obvious recourse and these were, uniquely to South Africa in many ways, in really close proximity.

“We found that we were competing with a different lifestyle choice whose economics we simply couldn’t beat.” Over time, therefore, and especially in the last two to three years, Blok has moved towards much more mixed-use projects. 85% of these are residential, but then ameliorated by delis, gyms, rooftop cafe spaces and pools, as well as micro-office spaces responding to the new ways of working.

Blok’s buildings have been intentionally concentrated primarily in the Atlantic Seaboard, van Embden details, all with a very definite, distinct profile. “One of our commandments is to not deviate from our DNA, and this is an area whose market and needs we know supremely well, which in turn lends us high levels of confidence in our proceedings,” he elaborates. “We are targeting 50% of off-plan sales market share this year, in an extremely competitive part of the world which for a business which is only seven and a half years old really validates our approach.

“We tend to buy one of two types of assets,” he continues, “either two residential plots next to each other, where we will then install 30-40 individual apartments, or a usually historic two or two and a half storey building where we end up demolishing, digging down for basements and end up having nine or so storeys.”

WORLD BEYOND THE FRONT DOOR

“In all that we do, we firmly believe that good design has the power to change lives, and as we are inspired by art, nature and fashion, we apply our learning to every facet of the Blok experience.” Speaking to van Embden, it becomes clear very quickly just how important applying his own learning has been to Blok’s formation and development, right back to his formative years and continuing today.

“Blok’s formulation was rooted in my passion for city spaces,” he recounts. “Although I grew up in the CBD of Cape Town it really didn’t feel like my upbringing was in a city; it was more like a small, suburban ecosystem where everything was done via car – I had no concept of what pavements were even for. Through my later experience of architecture and visiting many township communities with energetic, busy high streets and seeing the great challenges that they face, but also the overwhelming positives, was when I started to fall in love with dense urban spaces.”

These were the seeds of the Blok we know today, properly sown when van Embden and his wife took up residency in Sea Point in 2011. “The apartment that we bought and revamped would actually turn out to be the test case,” he reveals, “and on a look, feel, design and functionality level these all became the ingredients of what informed the company’s original projects when we started up.”

More than just the home itself, for Blok, at the heart of urban living is connectedness with the community in which it resides. “We want to present a perfectly framed view of the world to explore beyond the front door,” van Embden states, “one where the home extends into the neighbourhood that surrounds you, alive with energy and opportunity, and the people who exist in these urban communities that become part of the experience of connected living.”

This this responds intuitively to the needs and desire of the ‘millennial market’, so dubbed as those born between 1981 and 1996 now make up more than half of the country’s workforce and therefore represent an abundance of potential property buyers. “We recognise that most millennials prioritise living in a good neighbourhood with easy access to lifestyle centres, restaurants and shops, focusing on the idea of community and principles such as accessibility, affordability and aesthetics,” van Embden relays.

“We’re seeing a trend of ‘living outside the home’, where millennials seek the lifestyle benefits a certain area affords over a larger private space, and one of our Blokisms, as it were, is that home does not stop at the front door when you live in a really great space.

“We set out to design homes to meet people’s various growing and changing needs,” van Embden resumes. “We sell an urban lifestyle, and so much of what makes a suburb attractive is the people that live in it and their contribution to it. There is a precociousness, a positive level of exploration and excitement that only a city can deliver, and it is a big part of what we try to build into. We are not making walls, we are trying to bring people into these great spaces and make them even better.”