Home>Portrait of Guillaume Saraf, alumnus

10.02.2022

Portrait of Guillaume Saraf, alumnus

A conversation with Guillaume Saraf, who graduated from the Urban Planning Programme in 2000 and is now Head of Real Estate and Logistics at the University of Lille.

An interview by Amélie Calafat and Tanya Sam Ming from the association Sciences Po Urba.

Can you tell us about your background? How did you choose the Urban Planning Programme?

I graduated from HEC Paris business school in 1999 without fully knowing what I wanted to do with my life. However, I did want to orient myself towards subjects related to public life and the environment and I had been interested in urban planning issues for a long time. As part of my studies at HEC, I spent a year abroad in Laos, during which I contributed to the safeguarding and development programme of Luang Prabang, Laos’ former royal capital, which had just been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was the first time I encountered the idea of urban planning, architectural heritage and landscaping. When I graduated from HEC, I wanted to get some training in this field to round off my academic career before entering professional life.

What was the Urban Planning Programme like in the early 2000s? Does anything memorable come to mind?

We were about 30 students in multidisciplinary groups. I liked it because of the opportunity to work in a group, to discuss, and compare points of view. It was a locus of ideological contention, and this was a good preparation for the professional world, which is a huge melting-pot of people with different visions. Participating in careers workshops, with case studies and real professionals, also allowed us to see the "big picture". The full-time nature of the course was a constraint for some, but it enhanced the quality of the learning, which was intense, dense and efficient. I also recall the diversity of the course – students included architects, engineers, surveyors, lawyers, and graduates of Sciences Po and its regional campuses.

What did you do when you graduated from the Urban Planning Programme?

I wanted to work in operational urbanism – I was impatient to participate in city development. I went into the most "efficient" profession in terms of timescale – real estate development – where I worked with Bernard Roth, who also taught on the Master's programme, in the development subsidiary of the real estate company Affine. It was very instructive: I approached real estate development through investment issues, which are essential to understand when dealing with urban planning. Indeed, all non-public decisions are made strategically, financially, with ROI (return on investment) in mind. Understanding the world of real estate investment, and in particular the structuring of real estate companies, is essential.

I am also now aware that the real estate development business is globally driven by economic efficiency, and is incentivised to reproduce revenues and products. This relates to the desire to avoid too much commercial risk. Risk aversion makes developers very conservative in terms of architectural production. This is true both in housing and the service sector due to real estate finance structures. To limit risk and increase liquidity (avoiding vacancy, which is the main risk for real estate companies), it is necessary to build modular, flexible and therefore standardised buildings. All this contributes to relatively banal architecture (we see it with the gridded facades of office buildings), even when people claim to be constructing extraordinary buildings. Looking back on the real estate industry over the last 20 years, it seems to me that the fundamental characteristics driving real estate production have remained the same: investment and ROI.

Can you tell us about your job as Head of Real Estate at the University of Lille?

The University of Lille’s real estate is 700,000 m² of built area spread over a dozen sites to accommodate 80,000 students (it is the largest in France). The real estate department employs 300 people dedicated to maintaining and developing the University's facilities to accommodate University activities in the best possible conditions. These activities are more diversified than the general public might think: teaching occupies 40% of the space, research 25%, administration 10%, and the remainder is divided between the University libraries, student life and sports facilities that together meet the needs of the University, and also those of local authorities, sports associations, and others. From this standpoint, the University is a complex ecosystem, integrating a wide variety of activities. The universities also have a close link with Lille University Hospital, and host the research activities of other public institutions: The National Scientific Research Council (CNRS); INSERM (the French Institute of Medical Research); and The National Institute for Research in Computer Science and Control (INRIA).

Moreover, we are reaching the end of the 1960s infrastructure life cycle, which is also an issue at the national level (university property represents 20% of the State's real estate!) Our concern is therefore to keep an obsolete infrastructure afloat – this is the public university’s unfortunate reality – while reconfiguring the spaces. In short, we are constantly renewing our real estate to meet the developing needs of all these activities, with the added consideration of climate change and the constraints it presents.

It should also be noted that we are at the intersection of the real estate and urban scales (our largest campus covers 110 ha) with challenges around mobility, networks, housing, etc. The University has long existed as an autonomous public institution with its own administration, and the campuses of the 1960s and 1970s were often located far from urban centres. Gradually, urbanisation has caught up with them and it is no longer possible to ignore the surrounding environment, especially as universities are the source of daily commutes. We need to address the issues of flows, student housing, cultural supply and service offerings. These challenges have been extended to major cities, which are taking an interest in this subject because they are realising the impact that universities have on their territory.

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