28 years. 35+ buildings. One extraordinary city.I've just published the third instalment of my "Around the World in Projects" series, and this one is deeply personal: it's about LONDON —the city that made me, and the city that courses through my blood.From arriving back in 1999 during the Y2K chaos, through working with visionaries like Irvine Sellar on The Shard, to collaborating with architects like RPBW Renzo Piano Building Workshop and Rafael Viñoly Architects, to shaping London's skyline with Landsec, working alongside mavericks like Harry Handelsman Manhattan Loft Corporation, and navigating the complexities of international development with partners like Dalian Wanda and KPF Architects—this is the unvarnished story of what it actually takes to build in one of the world's most challenging, rewarding, and resilient cities.I write about the 2008 recession and how the State of Qatar saved not just The Shard, but hundreds of jobs and ultimately helped deliver the 2012 Olympic Stadium. I share the absurdity of trying to explain to Beijing why we couldn't add a neon Mandarin sign to a 67-storey tower on the Thames. I remember standing in a synagogue as a Muslim Sheikh wept for his lost friend, Irvine Sellar, and understanding what real estate can do when it transcends borders and beliefs.This isn't a love letter to nostalgia. It's a testament to resilience—mine, and London's.This city has endured fires, famine, disease, economic collapses, wars, and countless predictions of its demise. And yet it keeps building. It keeps evolving. It keeps becoming.If you want to understand what it actually takes to build in London—the poetry and the pragmatism, the global capital and the local expertise, the audacity required and the humility demanded—read this.And if you've ever doubted London's future, remember this: never write off London. And never, ever write off Londoners.You. can read this and 200 other articles on the MD Coach PlayBook (www.MDCoach.co.uk/PlayBook)