Perspectives is evolving – what’s new, and what we’ve learnt
The Perspectives series is evolving. Very soon we’ll be bringing you two new formats to better serve you, our readers. How we’re going to do this is explained at the end of this blog.
So we thought this was the perfect time to take a bit of a look back, at the whole series, to see how the world has changed in six years, and how our property experts took it all in, to review the predictions we made; the trends we called, and the ones which took us by surprise and the many lessons we’ve learned along the way.
The Perspectives series has witnessed those patterns and paradigms. It has been our voice, our take, on it all.
What began six years ago with predictions and projections for the post-Covid world has become a record of the many waves of change, both subtle and dramatic, in places and property, and the big cultural and economic tides that move them.
And finally… after six years the successful Perspectives blog series is evolving.
What's happened since isn't just recovery. It's a reset.
The Perspectives series was born into a world recovering, reemerging, nervously trying to understand a new normal - a new reality.
We have all been on quite a journey since then. The world has changed. Business has changed.
Consumer, lifestyle, social and technological trends that were developing before the pandemic of 2020 were accentuated dramatically by it. If our collective consciousness of wellness and fitness, for example, was growing before, Covid sure brought it all into razor-sharp focus.
The same applies to so many more big shifts in the past six years alone: the persuasive power of social influencers over the way we shop, and the way shops are designed; the emphasis on the ethics of retailing; the surge in Chinese and Korean brands headed for Europe.
Some of these we called. Others we might have missed, or underestimated.
We were acutely aware of the potential an increasing awareness of wellness could have on the way spaces and places are thought out.
Back in 2021, Hannah McNamara wrote that wellness operators “will be central to any kind of urban redevelopment or regeneration proposed from now on”. Skip forward to the Perspectives blog of November 2025, London has seen anexplosion of wellness, fitness, and longevity brands, and medical facilities are now considered in all new community-centric mixed-use plans.
Indeed, a little later Thomas Rose wrote that by “focusing on the communities at the heart of any project”, the greater “positive community feedback and environmental gains” that are now embedded in all placemaking designs. Now no project can be conceived without consideration for its community and green impact – and long may that last.
We went into more depth with this concept, with the pressing consciousness that retail spaces that had failed to adapt were (and are) still struggling to attract people back in the way they did before the pandemic.
It was a question, we identified, of making “happy places”, planning a space with “well thought-out design, nature and connection points, together with a well curated tenant mix that serves the needs of the individual communities it serves”.
To see what this means in practice, there are no better examples than the evolution of The City, or the great transformative strides that have been made at Elephant and Castle. In short, prime places and spaces that have adapted are thriving.
Similarly, the powerful magnetic draws that culture, enlightenment and education can have, and their revitalising effects on a space, have given us big ideas over the years.
As Thomas and Kate Sadler wrote back in ’21, “The renaissance of urban areas, including High Streets, goes hand in hand with the development of culture space, and will, I’m convinced, bring with it a plethora of opportunities”.
Today, occupiers within the broad category of culture – but think museums, art galleries, live theatres and performance venues – are increasingly sought after, increasingly important elements of a broader space.
The evolution of key squares on the London board - Oxford Street and The City – have been an ongoing interest for us.
Since 2021 we’ve been pacing the pavements of Oxford Street, carrying out our research and analysis into the health and wealth of the famous street. Our finding: the pandemic had taken its toll on Oxford Street. Five years on, a reborn, reimagined Oxford Street, is very much delivering a wave of big new things.
Much of the Perspectives series has focused on the waves of retail and food brands that have reached our shores over the past six years. These continue. And now they are coming from the farthest parts of Asia – Korea, China – in abundance.
The vast, largely unfulfilled potential from Chinese retail is something we’ve been acutely aware of for a long time. But we’ll admit that the sheer scale of the wave of Korean retail, leisure and food brands – the ‘K-Beauty’ and clean beauty sensations we discussed last year – took us by surprise.
Driven by a rich and active social media culture, and by the global K-Pop and K-Drama trends, Korea is now proving to be a phenomenal source of high quality brands eager for space in Europe – a fact confirmed at MAPIC 2025.
From the big “once in a lifetime” reset of 2021, and subsequent reimagining of retail, through new uses for old department stores, the revolution in office culture, and the present and future of the ‘nation’s high street’, Perspectives has charted the recent past, and looked ahead, and seen a new world emerge.
Clean beauty, clean living, wellness and culture. A new generation has risen, and is shopping, living, eating, hanging out and playing on its own terms.
And with its emergence the wider world has changed. We are all more conscious of health and wellbeing, we have all changed our shopping and working habits, for good, and we all want our public places to be more rich, diverse and imaginative than in the past.
The Perspectives series has witnessed those patterns and paradigms. It has been our voice, our take, on it all.
What began six years ago with predictions and projections for the post-Covid world has become a record of the many waves of change, both subtle and dramatic, in places and property, and the big cultural and economic tides that move them.
And finally… after six years the successful Perspectives blog series is evolving.
From next month P-Three will begin publishing posts under two new formats: trends briefings, and executive profiles.
Perspectives briefings will provide regular insights summarising the key industry trends of the day in a simple, clear and incisive format that puts you in the picture, in minutes.
And a new series of profiles of c-suite executives - the big leaders, thinkers and influencers in property - will present a compelling account of the way the industry is changing, as told by the people at the centre of it all.
That’s the new Perspectives series, coming soon.
Article by P-Three
