In commercial real estate, few words are used as broadly—or as vaguely—as culture. It shows up in pitch decks, branding exercises, and tenant strategies, often treated as a selling point without a clear definition. For Nick Millican, CEO of Greycoat Real Estate, this ambiguity is more than a semantic issue. It reflects a deeper misunderstanding that continues to shape how developers plan, position, and deliver space. In his view, culture isn’t something you install. It’s something you earn—and too many projects fail because they get that equation backwards.

Nick Millican’s background in strategic asset management gives him a close-up view of how cultural narratives are used to justify design decisions. Open-plan offices are framed as collaborative. Retail tenants are curated for “lifestyle alignment.” Amenities are rolled out under the banner of wellness or community. But in many cases, the cultural assumptions behind these choices are superficial, drawn from trends rather than genuine understanding. Developers, he believes, often treat culture as a kind of aesthetic overlay—something to be applied once the hard decisions have already been made.

At Greycoat, culture is approached less as a label and more as a living process. Millican encourages his teams to start by asking harder questions: Who are the actual users of this space? What do they value? How do they want to spend their time? These aren’t soft questions. They’re operational ones. A space that gets culture right is one that fits into people’s rhythms—supporting the way they work, interact, and experience the city around them.

This orientation often leads to a different design logic. Rather than default to buzzword-driven programming, Millican’s team starts with context. In central London, for example, cultural signals vary block by block. A building that fronts a historic market has different energy than one in a financial district or near a university. Rather than import a generic cultural narrative, the aim is to amplify what’s already latent in the area—to work with the grain, not against it.

That sensitivity to place isn’t just about style. It’s about alignment. When a development tries to impose a cultural identity that doesn’t resonate with its surroundings, users sense the mismatch. Spaces feel curated rather than lived in. In contrast, when developers take the time to understand what already makes a neighborhood work—its cadences, its informal rituals, its networks of use—they can design buildings that feel native rather than aspirational.

Millican also critiques the assumption that culture can be engineered solely through amenities. Gyms, cafes, and event spaces have their place, but without behavioral insight, they risk becoming underused features. Culture doesn’t arise from what a building offers. It emerges from how it responds. A well-designed lobby isn’t just visually impressive. It supports the kinds of encounters—planned and spontaneous—that make people want to stay. An adaptable floorplate isn’t just flexible. It allows teams to imprint their own identity on the space.

This responsiveness extends to tenant engagement. Millican said in this piece on BBN Times that developers should think more like hosts than gatekeepers. Buildings should evolve in collaboration with those who occupy them. That means staying involved after the lease is signed—gathering feedback, adjusting operations, and allowing for cultural expression to emerge over time rather than be pre-programmed.

The financial logic behind this is clear. Spaces that people care about perform better. Tenants renew more often. Word-of-mouth spreads. But the path to that performance requires humility. Developers need to admit that they don’t create culture. They create the conditions for it. And those conditions depend less on branding than on deep listening and thoughtful execution.

Nick Millican’s view also challenges the pace of many development cycles. True cultural understanding takes time. It can’t be captured in a two-week study or reduced to demographic averages. It requires immersion—walking the area, talking to stakeholders, noticing what isn’t immediately visible. This kind of research doesn’t slow projects down. It de-risks them. By building in alignment with how people already use space, developers reduce friction and increase uptake.

There’s also a leadership lesson embedded in his approach. Culture, whether in an office building or a company, is shaped most by what people experience consistently. Policies matter. Design matters. But ultimately, what endures is how a place makes people feel. Developers who get this right understand that buildings are not just containers. They’re environments that cue behavior, foster connection, and express values.

Nick Millican doesn’t reject culture as a concept. He rejects the way it’s often co-opted. For him, culture isn’t a veneer to be applied once the scaffolding comes down. It’s a strategic asset, rooted in how well a building understands—and serves—the people who move through it. When developers get that part wrong, they don’t just miss an opportunity. They misunderstand the future of real estate itself.

Learn about his work in sustainable development in this piece on londonlovesbusiness.com.