Over the last few years home buyers’ aspirations, lifestyles, and expectations have undergone a sea change. Particularly after the Corona pandemic, home buyers, especially millennials are looking for design-savvy smart, spacious, and sustainable homes with health-safety features that spell a classy lifestyle. Rezwan Razack, Joint Managing Director, Prestige Group talks about how changing lifestyles will be fuelling the demand for smartly designed tech-enabled high-lifestyle homes.
On Transformative Lifestyle Home Designs
For us at Prestige, the consumer’s changing expectations and lifestyles is the only key barometer for designing homes. Twenty-five years ago, it was a big deal to just provide telephone and TV points in every room. Today, everyone has a smart home and wants pervasive internet access. TV is all about OTT platforms. Work from home is the new paradigm. So, we have adapted accordingly.
On Post- Covid Design Changes
Our floor plans now include additional space that can be used as a work area. The rooms are designed to provide plug and play access to the internet. We are also looking at ways to make our common areas, especially the landscaped gardens, wi-fi zones. Today, people want to literally work and entertain themselves from anywhere and our job is to design and construct homes to enable that kind of lifestyle.
On Sustainable Design Concepts
Climate change is fast acquiring salience among customers and Prestige is once again at the forefront, spearheading sustainable design concepts and practices. Rainwater and sewage treatment have been standard practices at all Prestige developments for several years. Our internal roads are structured to facilitate the flow of rainwater to recharge pits and collection tanks. Sewage water is treated and reused for gardens and toilets. This requires double piping to separate the grey and black water and we provide it because water is a precious natural resource and we can not afford to waste it. Our large projects also have organic waste converters that turn biowaste into nutritious manure that is used in our gardens.
On Tech- Friendly Homes
Going forward, technology will be playing an important role . The big trend will be the increasing use of prefabricated structures. We have used aluminum formwork as a standard practice for the last few years now. It is flexible and modular and its big advantage is that it accelerates the construction process tremendously. Earlier, it used to take two months to cast a slab, but now it takes just eight days.
Prestige brought this technology from Malaysia around 15 years back. Prefab technologies require intensive planning but their benefits are manifold. You get high consistent quality as the products are factory finished. Moreover, raw material inventory comes down drastically, creating huge savings on storage space and transportation. Their modular nature also offers design flexibility and easier scale up.
On Home Automation
Automation is the new buzzword. And it has to happen. We have already automated the plastering process and will continue to bring in newer and better technologies and methodologies. Automation is inevitable and an imperative because the industry needs to become less dependent on labour. Especially as we saw how the labour problem was exacerbated by the pandemic. So, the industry , as a whole, has realised the need to invest in labour saving and process accelerating technologies. Going forward, Prestige will continue to take the lead in introducing newer, faster and more efficient technologies and processes.
On The Next Big Thing in Home Design
The next big thing in home design will be smart homes. Fully automated homes are already a reality. We are building homes where you can switch on your geyser and air-conditioning before you reach home and control lights and appliances anywhere. Basically, homes that are fully ready for the ’Internet of Things (IoT). These are currently at the upper luxury end of the market. But it is only a matter of time before the technology expands down the line. The future home will thus be one that is smartly designed and built, smart to live in, and sustainability-friendly. And as always, Prestige will play a pivotal role in defining it.
Blurb Today, people want to literally work and entertain themselves from anywhere and our job is to design and construct homes to enable that kind of lifestyle…
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