Real Estate gets a ‘Wellness Makeover’
By Ms. Hiral Sheth Gandhi, Director – Marketing, Sheth Creators
Wellness has penetrated all areas of our lives and is impacting the way we live and work. Already an upward trend, wellness-focused multifamily communities have been gaining a whole new purpose owing to COVID-19. In the backdrop of the pandemic, this awareness has only been amplified, as we have been spending more time indoors. Consumers today are comprehending a connection between health and home in a way that they didn’t prior to the crisis. With structures being designed and constructed with the occupant’s health in mind, it won’t be wrong to state that the real estate market is getting a wellness makeover. While aspects like biophilic designs and pollutant-free home environments do improve our quality of life, wellness residences with holistically designed aesthetics have been credited to increase the inhabitant’s longevity.
Wellness living space optimizing physical and emotional wellness:
Real estate is being fundamentally transformed by the wellness movement. A growing trend, health, and wellness in real estate have been shifting from being elective to essential. Taking into consideration our homes, the aesthetics of projects like the colour palette, textures, and design styles tend to influence almost every aspect of our lives. Going beyond individual homes or buildings, wellness communities that put human comfort at the centre stage of neighbourhood design are growing in acceptance. A long list of upgraded amenities that go into making a space ‘Well’ include, posture-supportive flooring and surfaces that destroy bacteria, meditation rooms and infrared saunas, vitamin C-infused showers, electromagnetic shields, yoga studios, outdoor meditation areas and biophilic elements like vertical or living walls. For a design to be ‘well’, each of these elements should communicate to each other in an interconnectedness.
The wellness real estate audience:
A recent survey indicates towards a strong interest among younger demographics with about 40% of millennials and 35% of Gen X being keen about in-home health or personal spaces with wellness features. This rising demand has led to steady growth in the wellness real estate market, which has been developing at more than 9% on a yearly basis. Alongside the demand is also coming from luxury, middle and upper-middle-class consumers, who are looking for homes that brace a healthy and balanced lifestyle.
Reaching a tipping point in the demand for and supply of healthy homes, this segment requires the below-mentioned aspects to be considered:
Vertical Gardens: Known to enhance the building’s aesthetics, these living walls are restorative tools in the wellness real estate segment. Having these artificial green walls accentuating the facades of the structures can enliven a project’s common area while facilitating occupants with a soothing mind. This green foliage’s can considerably reduce mental fatigue, increase one’s ability to re-focus, offer mental restoration, and improved cognitive performance.
Water bodies: Since times immemorial, water has been known for its healing properties. Having water bodies around the living space is considered vital for synchronizing the body and restoring physical harmony. Setting up a water body in the project’s vicinity can calm the mind and body thus reducing stress. Elements like cascading fountain waterfalls, lakes, or artificial ponds placed at the entrance, patio, or courtyards can benefit in making inhabitants physically and emotionally healthy.
Eco-friendly Landscapes: Making use of sustainable materials like tyres, straws, baskets, and composts for landscapes like healing gardens and flower beds, both indoors and outdoors can improve resident’s moods and lessen stress. Flowers and ornamental plants lend a positive aura of well-being facilitating residents to take charge of their health.
Organic Farming: Further highlighting on its potential to transform public health, wellness real estate has been offering projects with facilities like organic farming helping buyers with their dietary requirements. Having such self-sustaining islands within the projects can act as a resort to provide buyers with a restored living experience.
The pandemic has fast-tracked the growth of real estate wellness which was already underway as an evolution of green buildings. The primary focus is to ensure that science and technology can be made to best use, enabling end-users to revel in the overall project aesthetics that lend them a holistic mental and physical well-being. It can rightly be stated that integrating wellness and real estate is all set to foreshadow what’s ahead for this burgeoning industry.