While the overarching theme this year gone by was Covid-19… the pandemic was just a temporary pause! It is however the behavioural changes and the time for contemplation that it provided to one and all, is what is at the helm of this paradigm shift.
For far too long, urban built environment has been over simplified and siloed into commercial, residential, retail and what have you! and while the law of natural evolution so far did not provide much incentive to pause and take a hard look at the urban mess we mindlessly kept creating, the year 2020 in many ways will be that defining year when the old paradigm will give way to a new one. While the overarching theme this year gone by was Covid-19… the pandemic was just a temporary pause! It is however the behavioural changes and the time for contemplation that it provided to one and all, is what is at the helm of this paradigm shift.
“Work from home extending to work from hometown”, “from home is the place I need to go and crash to my home is my world”, “from I cannot stand the commotion at work to when will I get to see my colleagues again”, from I need work life balance and time away from office to I need work life balance, I need time away from home”… these are just a few inverted paradigms that we would have witnessed in our heads and now they will manifest in more ways then one in how we all will perceive not only life, work and work-life but also our essential trait as a social animal and this will have a profound impact on how we see the urban built environment in the decades to come.
Some clear trend defining changes that we will be forcing and therefore will have to be ready to brace! It would start with having to relook at the siloed approach to real estate and instead seek a sense of unity, a sense of completeness in choosing our built environment. The collective conscious will demand social undertone that would include residences, offices, social infrastructure, entertainment avenues and most importantly large open spaces all within reach and as part of the community that one would seek. Disjointed city development with 20-year plans will have to give way to multiple islands of excellence in terms of integrated industrial and residential townships that provide a slice of life experience converging work, entertainment, privacy and commune all at the same time.
An office complex as we see it today as multiplicity of glass facades, lifeless outside will have to be outward-inward looking with more space per person within the building but even more space outside to provide for social distancing on a micro level and social merging at a macro scale. It would pose challenges to per square feet rates as we like to value real estate and will need to evolve into a per person satiation index as the basis of pricing.
Urbanization has been lopsided in India and most emerging world with a focus on metropolis and related conurbations. Work from hometown with commensurate infrastructure development is about to change that paradigm drastically. It will lead to some losers in the large concentration areas which have over time outpriced themselves and we will see demand shift to distant shores. As demand for office shifts to tier 2/3 locations so will the overall real estate needs. While the overall industry would see a resurgence, the so far secured islands of excellence, the so-called defensive cities or tier- 1 cities will see a catharsis like none before. The double whammy of price rationalization and demand optimization will see flight outside these traditional strongholds.
Open spaces on one hand and carpet area or usable area within the four walls have been the biggest causalities of rising real estate prices in dense urban centres. High streets have given way to enclosed malls. Hotel lobbies have become larger and rooms tinier. Homes became houses as just a place to park a bed and offices became a little more then factories with shopfloor placement of people instead of machines. The need for that walking space within the house, that extra room for the teams call, the six feet distancing forcing elbow touching office spaces to remodel, the want of fresh air making malls claustrophobic, those classrooms in schools being too small to house the free spirited children looking out at the larger gardens all of it is pointing to a new reality. An outward driven reality where urban built environment will have to look at people as users and by extension as function and adjust their form accordingly…
The new age of real estate will be less about what we build and more about how we want to live!
https://realty.economictimes.indiatimes.com/realty-check/author/309/jasmeet-chhabra
