Cape Town 15-minute city? Is becoming the

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#HelloLifestyle

by Renate Engelbrecht

Images: Tegan Smith Photography

Blok’s Jacques van Embden sheds light on developing the ideal urban home

After battling it out with technology (we currently have a love-hate relationship with tech) and finally getting Zoom to open the meeting screen, there he was: Jacques van Embden, looking casual-chic sitting at Cape Town International Airport, waiting to board his plane. “I am getting ready to go help Rassie and Siya, because apparently they need some more manpower” he joked, clearly excited about going to watch two Rugby World Cup matches. But first, business. While rugby might be one of his passions, he is just as passionate about property development and architecture. It’s clear by the way his face lit up on the laptop screen every time we mentioned Blok.

While many might recognise the name as an Afrikaans word for block, Jacques’ company, Blok epitomises so much more. It speaks true to the Afrikaans word, but it’s also a play on the English word, block, paying homage to city blocks and building blocks. Naturally, it also fits in well with a company that makes apartment blocks. We dare say that Blok might also just be one of the initial building blocks when it comes to incorporating the latest urban living trends.

Jacques is the CEO of Blok and graduated in architecture at UCT. He says he’s always been very interested in the impact buildings have on its environment and its users. He always knew that he wanted to become an architect. “Well before I knew what it was, what it meant or how many hours it took,” he laughs. “I was always into model building, Lego building… I always enjoyed constructing things.” He graduated amidst the 2008 global financial crisis which nudged him into the property management sphere, working with a company that was acquiring and refurbing assets. “What I do now is a mixture of both,” Jacques says, with Blok blending his passion for architecture and property development exceptionally well.

Advocating City Living

Jacques is an advocate for urban living and has lived in Cape Town his whole life. While he says he is lucky to have travelled quite a bit over the years, he is a “very proud Capetonian and a very proud South African.” When it comes to the various Blok properties around the Atlantic Seaboard and the City Bowl, Blok is very involved in the design process, even though they appoint different architects for the different properties. “I like the fact that each property has its own look and language and you need individual architects for that.” Blok currently has four projects under construction and just recently launched their 17th development, ONE46ONM. “We are reasonably confident on the lessons that we’ve learned. We’re very involved in the projects, carrying lessons learnt from project to project and including new trends and innovations along the way. We also talk to the clients after the buildings have been completed, because that gives us a healthy understanding of the client’s experience of the buildings that we make. We like to know how successful the buildings are a few years after completion and what impact they had on improving an area.”

Blok Means Business

As a property development brand, Blok is business to customer orientated. “With all the environmental and town planning constraints and the industry volatility from a materials and labour perspective, it’s become a very technical industry. With that, it needed to professionalise, which made it become more competitive. There are also more opportunities, as there are more people living in cities and that created the space of branded real estate developments,” says Jacques. According to him, part of branded real estate developments is to do a lot of insourcing, as your customer has expectations from the brand. This helps the Blok team to understand what their customers want, as they are consistently connected to the customer and seeing where trends are headed. “That contact with the marketplace is vital, because it feeds straight back to the product,” he adds.

Apart from in-house sales, marketing, development management, finance and acquisition, Blok also offers the option of interior design should clients require it. “The architects do part of the interior work, and we normally also partner with an interior firm on each project, which gives you the option to buy the furnished apartment.” Interestingly, Capetonians tend to enjoy decorating their spaces to their own liking, which results in around 50% of property buyers opting for the unfurnished option. Jacques says this is very different to many parts of the London market. “The London market wants to buy it furnished, because it’s quick, it’s easy, it’s beautiful and it’s done.” While Jacques likes the fact that Blok offers the furnished option to clients, it also inspires him to see how other people interpret their spaces.

Construction costs are on the rise globally, with things like environmental requirements that buildings need to meet, challenges in getting raw materials, as well as diminishing resources to blame. Blok responded to these rising costs and the fact that people can’t afford to purchase all the bells and whistles anymore by offering Blok Raw. In essence, they take out the finishes they think customers can put in later or don’t need, making the urban apartments more affordable. “For example, we would only put ceilings in certain areas to hide all the services, but in other parts you have quite an industrial look and a concrete ceiling. The savings then get transferred onto the customer with a lower purchase price. The big concept about Blok Raw was to selectively dress down the finishes in a thoughtful attempt to reduce the price.”

Building A Fifteenminute City

While the most prevalent development market in South Africa is horizontal development like with secure estates on the outskirts of our cities, Blok’s passion lies elsewhere. Their specialisation and love affair are with vertical developments.

“There has been a big buzz word over the past decade – the fifteen-minute city – where everything is a fifteen-minute walk or a fifteen-minute public transport away from your front door,” says Jacques. “For those types of spaces, you do need excellent natural assets and public spaces,” he continues, “which we are extremely lucky with in Cape Town. We’ve got wonderful coastlines all over the city; in the middle of our city we have a mountain and a nature reserve; and in the Atlantic Seaboard and the City Bowl we have the V&A Waterfront - an excellent urban park - and the promenade, which are excellent assets.” He says Blok’s expertise lies in selling assets where many of their owners are interested in multi-modal transport options. It’s for people who want to enjoy a European-type city and a cosmopolitan life. “They want to be able to cycle on the promenade, hit the gym, go to work, go to a bar, go to a restaurant and meet people from all over the show.”

For more information on ONE46ONM, enquire today at blok.co.za.

City Living Is About Connectedness And Cultural Development

According to Jacques there is a very limited amount of great urban spaces in South Africa. He highlights areas like the Atlantic Seaboard, the City Bowl and the CBD of Cape Town, as well as Milnerton along the promenade and Stellenbosch’s city centre. Beyond the Cape, he says uMhlanga boasts some worthwhile urban spaces, as do some small areas in Joburg around Rosebank and Melrose Arch. Tshwane also came up, with some urban development in the Hatfield area.

Jacques refers to the urban living spaces Blok creates as youthful areas. “It’s not young, it’s youthful,” he says, explaining that it is a result of things constantly changing. “You have to have a youthful response to change. Restaurants change, bars change, cafés change, buildings change, communities change. There’s a dynamism to those spaces that’s quite robust.”

Cities provide services not based on wealth, but on population density. This global mechanism ensures that the denser a city, the closer you are to a nurse, a firefighter, a policeman, a doctor, whatever it might be. “By having more people closer together, it’s actually really great for the city,” says Jacques. People living in a seven-storey building in the city can also get lots of services off the same municipal supply, which helps them gain so much more revenue than with a lateral development. “I am a big advocate – even in the horizontal developments – for going three or four storeys, even five. It doesn’t have to be a high-rise city. I am a huge fan of five to ten storey suburbs, because they let light into streets. I find once you get above ten storey buildings, big shadows are cast and there is lots of wind that comes around buildings.” He refers to cities like those in Spain, Portugal, France, a lot of the Mediterranean and the whole of South America, saying they all get great light into their streets. Hong Kong, Shanghai and New York are all modern cities where the high-rise spaces create huge shadows and whipping winds. “New York has always been associated with a trench coat,” Jacques adds. “It’s because there, wind whips around all the buildings which makes the experience very cold when you’re outside.” While these cities are beautiful and impressive, Jacques says he prefers cities on an intermediate scale, which makes Cape Town the perfect place for an urban home.

For him, urban living is where a lot of your life is lived where you can do most of your activities – shopping, exercising, leisure, connecting with others – in public spaces. “I think there is a great cultural development opportunity in those. I live across the way from the pools in Sea Point and I think they must be one of the strongest assets for cultural development and cohesion you could find in a city. The cultural diversity is totally wild, it’s safe and people are spending healthy, quality time in nature, while living in the city and taking advantage of its assets.”

Urban Living In Cape Town

Cape Town’s diversity – especially over the December holidays – is what Jacques loves most about the Mother City. “Over the past decade, Cape Town has become so diverse and attractive that if you want winelands, if you want bistro, if you want beach, if you want mountain, it’s all there. I think that is why Cape Town is so popular. It’s such a compelling lifestyle. You can wake up and within forty minutes – which is not long – we’ve got this abundance of things to experience.” He touches on the fancy social beaches of Clifton and Camps Bay, as well as the tiny, hidden beaches in Cape Point. Furthermore, the tidal pools offer a whole different ocean experience in addition to many other ways to explore the ocean around the Cape. “I like that choice,” Jacques says, “because it makes it interesting. You’re always experiencing or learning something new.” quickly become a favourite among locals in the area.

For the home itself, Jacques says design is incredibly important. “Look at the attention to detail that’s gone into the design,” he suggests.

Ultimately, the secret lies in creating buildings that aesthetically fit into the environment they are based in, while still standing out for people to remember them for years to come. With the names of each of the properties celebrating its location, Blok is creating a collection of properties not only to be proud of, but also to remind you of where you’re at: One of the most beautiful cities in the world. Jacques van Embden’s passion for South Africa (and its rugby), Cape Town (and its natural assets), architecture, the art of creating a well-designed urban home and investing not only in property development, but also cultural development, is testament to why Blok will soon be celebrating a decade in the industry. He understands change and while his company’s name might be Blok, he certainly has a knack for thinking beyond the limitations of a block-shaped box. H

Q @blokliving

Creating An Urban Home You Want To Come Back To

“What we work really hard on, is that the building is a big part of what you buy into,” says Jacques. “Home doesn’t stop at the front door. The whole building and the whole suburb must feel like home.” He explains that you need to understand what is in the rest of your building. Is there a great space to read a book, to have a dip in the pool, to watch a sunset? Is there a laundry; a gym? Perhaps even a deli on the ground floor like with Blok’s SIXONN development – a building with ground floor commercial space that has