Last month, the global real-estate industry converged in Riyadh for Cityscape Global 2025, and we were excited to have our team make their mark on the occasion.
Robert Herrick, Stephen Mistretta, and Mattia Lusignani attended as representatives of VISUALHOUSE and NOVAVERSE, engaging in the rich dialogue at what is now positioned as one of the world’s pre-eminent built-environment gatherings.

Setting the scene

Held at the Riyadh Exhibition & Convention Centre from November 17-20, 2025, Cityscape Global brought together more than 170,000 real-estate professionals including developers, investors, regulators, designers and tech innovators.

With over 200 leading developers presenting residential, commercial and mixed-use projects, the scale and ambition of the show mirror Saudi Arabia’s push under its Vision 2030 agenda to become a global centre of architecture, master-planning and real-estate capital flows.

The agenda featured plenary sessions, four main stages including the ‘Future of Living Summit’, a ‘Developers & Architects’ (DnA) stage, and an Innovation Arena focused on PropTech, modular construction and sustainability.

Our team’s engagement

Robert, Stephen and Mattia engaged in a full spectrum of activities — from attending high-level panels, to meeting with master-developers and tech partners, and exploring investment opportunities in the Gulf and beyond.

• On the Future of Living Summit stage content, sessions ranged from housing policy, urban-masterplanning, global partnerships for city-building, to future-proofing through AI and modular construction.
• At the DnA – Developers & Architects Stage, there was a notable focus on how design firms and developers are collaborating to reshape cities, exploring new typologies from build-to-rent to mixed-use urban life.
• The Innovation Arena stood out as a magnet for forward-thinking firms; our team engaged with start-ups and established PropTech brands working on digital twin solutions, modular systems and AI in real-estate-asset-management—topics very much aligned with our own interests in innovation and real-estate technology.

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Why it matters for us

Cityscape Global 2025 was more than an exhibition — it is a vantage point from which to survey the changing geographies of real-estate, investment and design leadership. A few reflections:

• Geographic repositioning: Saudi Arabia is clearly accelerating as a real-estate and investment hub. The size and sophistication of the event reflect that shift; for our international development and design practice, this means paying attention to the Gulf not just as a resource market but as a site of leadership.
• Cross-disciplinary convergence: Real-estate, architecture, technology and entertainment are now intersecting in new ways: from smart cities to stadia, from modular housing to lifestyle-driven masterplans. Our presence allowed us to map which directions are gaining traction.
• Brand and network-value: Meeting with global and regional players—developers, investors, tech firms—underscores our ability to position our practice regionally and internationally. Robert, Stephen and Mattia returned with new contacts, renewed visibility and insight into partner-ecosystems.
• Innovation relevance: Given our interest in digital-twin platforms, modular architecture, and high-quality design, the show’s emphasis on PropTech, modular build, AI-driven asset-management and design for tomorrow confirmed that these themes are front-and-centre in global discourse.

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Looking ahead

In the coming months we’ll be leveraging the insights from Riyadh in a number of ways:

• Identification of new partnership opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa region — particularly with developers and tech firms encountered at the show.
• Integrating key themes into our project pipeline: for example, modular construction methods, adaptive design for mixed-use, digital-twin strategy and investment-ready masterplanning.
• Content creation: Robert, Stephen and Mattia will collaborate on follow-up thought-leadership pieces (blogs/webinars) capturing trends from the event, which will amplify our brand visibility and thought-leadership credentials.
• Strategic positioning of our services to align with what is now happening in the Gulf — not just as outsourced Delivery, but as design-and-innovation partners.

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Final word

Cityscape Global 2025 offered a powerful reminder that real-estate development is evolving at speed: global capital is redistributing, technology is rewriting what’s possible in built form, and design leadership is essential to creating places that matter. For our firm, the active participation in Riyadh was both a statement of intent and a strategic stepping stone.

We look forward to sharing more detailed reflections, which will unpack specific sessions, contacts and opportunities uncovered at the event — and how those insights will flow into our practice and upcoming projects.

Stay tuned for our next update — and in the meantime, if you’d like to connect about our participation or explore how we can help you succeed in this fast-moving environment, please drop us a note.

For new project inquiries, please email [email protected] with your project details. We look forward to hearing from you.