AUGUST 2010 |www.opp.org.uk


Yannis Kavounis Director of Insight & Innovation


Yannis is Director of Insight & Innovation at The Futures Company, leading the work on Millennials and their impact on future consumer culture.


Mark Jeff ery Commercial Director, Flamingo Lakes Resort - Co-chair, IEP


A former director of a sports and marketing company, Mark is a founding shareholder in resort developments in Crete, Cyprus, and Mexico.


Charles Weston Baker Director of the International Residential and Resorts Department of Savills Plc


Managing a research team of 40, Charles has extensive experience in selling upmarket property in the European Sun- belt, the Middle East and the Caribbean.


Charlie Acworth Chief Operating Offi cer at Al Wa’ab City, Doha, Qatar


Charlie off ers insights on projects and sales activity from the vantage point of 10 years’ experience in the Middle East and East Africa.


Claude Attala Managing Director, NorthCourse Advi- sory Services, Group RCI


Prior to joining real estate leisure sector consultants Northcourse, Claude was Head of Plan- ning and Operations for the Qatar Tourism Authority.


Bill Clover President and Chairman, Panorama International, Inc.


Bill is a widely experienced board member of US companies involved in global real estate development, marketing, fi nance and consulting.


OPP EXECUTIVE PANEL COMMENT Eric Kuhne | 7


The Panel T


oday we are the most enlightened, diverse and wealthy citizenry


in the history of the world. Our expectations are outstripping opportunity. Leisure, as we know it, is


undergoing monumental changes. It’s about time. Long the pastime of escape and play, leisure today requires a far broader defi nition. Leisure should excite our brain’s


imagination rather than cheat our senses with prurient, sensory temptations and addictions. 2500 years ago the Greeks coined a word: ‘eudaimonia’. It comes from two root words: “eu” meaning ‘happiness’ ... which we experience in euphoria, eulogy and euphemism; and “daimon” meaning daemon, fortune or, more salubriously: spirit. Eudaimonia is the spirit of happiness. As we dive deeper into this etymological pool, we discover there are two distinct meanings given for eudaimonia. The fi rst is “pleasure and joy” derived from the senses. And the second is (and I might add that it is astonishing that they were putting words together like this over two millennia ago) “the fl ourishing of the human spirit.” These two meanings appropriately


describe the legacy and prophesy of how we define leisure for our time. While the past may serve up leisure as prurient pastimes of pleasure and play, today we need a more embracing definition.


Leisure, as the spirit of happiness, can either be driven by stimulation of the senses ... a sensory experience that fades with the short-lived stimulus. Or, leisure can be triggered by the


Leadership and vision: Architect Eric Kuhne on the leisure sector What will leisure really mean in the future?


imagination ... which endures far beyond its inception.


The leisure industry must rise to meet this new challenge. It must fi nd a way to do so much more than host playfulness. It must help in fl ourishing the human spirit. And while the endless contagion of spas has become a predictable reproduction of bliss and peacefulness, there must be another exploration underway. Sensory stimulation lasts as long as the stimulus is there … but stimulating the imagination with ideas can last a lifetime. This is ‘relaxation’ as a synonym for leisure augmented with a new, enlightened philosophy of ‘stimulation.’ We need to take our imagination well beyond the senses. We here at Civic Arts divide the


“The leisure industry must fi nd a way to do more than host playfulness ... it must help in fl ourishing the human spirit.”


leisure industry into two polarities: nomads versus pilgrims on one axis and connoisseurs versus rebels on the other. The clarity of the defi nitions is evident:


1. Nomads / pilgrims: These are people with direction (pilgrims) or without (nomads). They are content to wander carelessly, or they prefer to be focused on a primary mission or purpose. 2. Connoisseurs / rebels: Those who seek to understand the diversity, eloquence and immensity of life versus those who reject it (or at least want to get away from or deny it). As a result of all this, we get four types of leisure experience: a. Play (which has been the traditional


defi nition of a leisure activity.) b. Escape (a suitable alternative … offering a palliative to the routine of one’s life.) c. Crusade (the mission of pursuing a singular pleasure, be it sport, food, faith, art, history, eccentricity, etc.) d. Grand Tour (the embracing of an enlightened engagement in all aspects of life and civilization.) To succeed properly, the concept of leisure has got to move away from simply catering to the dilettantes and the exhausted. It has to expand its offering and host ‘enlightenment’. If we redefi ne leisure as


enlightenment, our banal lives become grand and ennobled. The heroic routine of everyday life changes the other 50 weeks a year into an inspiring experience instead of a drudgery to be left behind when on our holiday. The consequences for the leisure industry are profound. Instead of cannibalizing a declining market left to the exigencies of corrupted economies and the weather … leisure can expand its embrace to include the spirit of our entire lives.


Market reach, duration of experience, frequency of encounter, diversity of engagement … all of these completely explode the parsimonious limits of leisure as an escape industry. Shaw (I believe) said it best: “… the brain should excite the senses to appreciation rather than allow the senses and their attendant phrases to placate the mind…” It’s the best we can do.


Eric Kuhne will be speaking at the OPPLive conference, October 14 to 16 2010. Go to www.propertyinvestor. co.uk/london/ for more details.


Architect Eric Kuhne is the owner and founder of Civic Arts: an award-winning international research and design practice. Having studied art & architecture at Rice University, Houston, Eric went on to complete his Masters of Architecture degree at Princeton University, being awarded the AIA’s Henry Adams Medal as the top graduate of 1983. Passionate about urban form, Eric believes in the vitality of civic life and that the city has been, and always will be, the ultimate “marketplace of ideas.” With the help of more than thirty colleagues his work spans four continents, creating landmark projects including the hugely successful Bluewater shopping centre near London, one of the top fi ve retail sites in the world.


Eric Kuhne Civic Arts


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