Who We Are
Pocket Projects is a creative development consultancy and management company. We conceptualise, consult on and manage niche urban development projects both on our own, and on behalf of our investor and landowner clients.
Our key areas of expertise involve conceptualising unique solutions for the regeneration and adaptive reuse of distressed urban areas and heritage buildings. Our strong focus is on design and content, and our ability to combine sensitivity to architectural heritage and local context with a modern design aesthetic, informed by evolving consumer trends and new uses of space.
Our multidisciplinary background in real estate finance, design and urban planning enables us to achieve both creative solutions and commercial viability in our projects.
Pocket Projects Philosophy
Architecture:
We believe in the value of good design. And it doesn’t have to be expensive. We believe in the potential of adaptive reuse, in the potential of old buildings to bring renewed value to their owners and the public.
Urban Regeneration:
We believe that successful regeneration depends as much on the right use and content as on good design. We believe no project is too small to influence and refresh the way we think about, experience and live in our cities.
Development:
There are numerous opportunities to reuse and regenerate. Creative solutions are crucial, and the numbers have to work. Creative and financial goals can be and are often very compatible. .
What We Do
We work with landowners and investors to approach their development and asset management goals from a creative, yet financially driven perspective.
Our creative solutions often involve alternative redevelopment strategies that seek to marry the successful revitalisation of place as well as financial capital gain and yield improvement.
Our approach to regeneration of underused or undervalued assets is multidisciplinary, integrating design, marketing, content programming and typical investment considerations.
To date we have a strong track record in adaptive reuse, successfully working with the old buildings while restoring, refurbishing, redeveloping and also building anew, as fits each site.
In some of our projects, we also act as sponsor and operator, and as such have unique insight into the ongoing operating and management considerations required for sustainable urban regeneration.
We undertake the following roles (together or individually) for our owner-investor partners:
Concept Proposal and Development
Feasibility & Investment Analysis
Introductions to Funding Partners and Consultations on Appropriate Funding Sources
Design & Development Management
Project Execution
Tenancy Curation
Events Programming
Founders
Karen Tan, Founder
is grateful that she was given the chance to create the award-winning Lorong 24A Shophouse Series, Singapore. This first Pocket Project involved a successful regeneration and repositioning of a “run-down” but charming street in Geylang, resulting in rental uplift of 4-5x and capital value increase. Her involvement from start to finish includes delivery of conceptualisation/design, to development management, through to initial lease-up and content programming. In her past life, she worked in an urban regeneration developer in London, and has extensive experience in real estate investment banking at Citigroup, London. In her days of youth, she started off studying Architecture at the University of Melbourne, but ended up getting a BSc in Economics and a Masters in Real Estate Economics and Finance from the London School of Economics. She likes architecture, art and nice people.
Blaise Trigg-Smith, Co-founder
is excited to have found a way to combine her skills (investment & finance), degrees (urban design & economics) and passions (design & regeneration). She has broad experience masterplanning, structuring, funding & design-developing urban regeneration projects from the London 2012 Olympic Athletes Village to various East and South London regeneration partnerships and large scale mixed use projects in Jakarta. She, too, in her past life worked in the same said developer in London, and has extensive experience in real estate investment banking at Citigroup in London and New York. She completed her first degree in Mathematics at Dartmouth, and began her development career following a MSc in Urban Design & Economics from the London School of Economics. She likes beautiful things and interesting places and people.
Sharon Tan, Urban Planner
Before co-founding and managing Singapore’s only independent cinema, Sharon previously practiced as an urban planner at the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the land use planning and conservation authority of Singapore. She completed her BSc in Urban Planning and MSc in Urban Regeneration at the Bartlett School of Planning in London. Her current dual role as urban planner in Pocket Projects and General Manager of The Projector marries two of her greatest loves – cities and films.
Sharon Tan, Karen Tan, Blaise Trigg-Smith at The Projector in 2017.