In an era in which consumers choose how and when they want to enjoy contents, travel and even the purchase of cars, personalization has also reached the real estate sector.

The customization of housing is a worldwide tendency which became consolidated with the pandemic, a time when people spent a long time indoors and discovered how they would like to live in their homes and which rooms they would modify. In this context, architects and developers receive more and more clients who are very much aware of what they do and do not like and so they adapt to these new market conditions.

To provide a name for this way of living a place, Abigail Szwarcberg, founder of Macom Developments, created the concept of “Linking Architecture” which analyses how building structures are conjugated with the rhythm of life of their inhabitants.

“Research is necessary in order to identify these tendencies to live in a personalized space”, explains the developer. She recognizes that there are new user stereotypes: “A typical family is not the only user, there is a new one which knows more about construction, how they want to live and that is not conditioned by copied, repetitive stories. A person who, until some time ago, lived on their own, was used to adapting to the apartment they had chosen to live in but today the user prioritizes their way of life and based on that, adapts and redesign the space”.

The architect is aware that today people are linked differently from the past: “Family life through new links needs new architecture, less rigid, proposing more versatility”, she understands. She recognizes that in the course of her research she came across couples who sleep separately, each one with their own bathroom and dressing room, blended families where the new couple chooses to sleep separately, nearer their respective children. There is also the daughter who invites her boyfriend to sleep over in the week and the parents want him to be on the other side of the residence.

In Europe the same symptom is present: an older couple who live with the parents of one of them who are in the other sector of the property which is why they need double circulation in order to have an independent link with the kitchen; or couples with teenage children whose schedules are inverted so the home needs to withstand this coexistence so that times and noises are not a nuisance.

Starting from the identification of the new dynamics it was also discovered that “users got used to being demolishers because they buy knowing that they have to demolish even from a buying-off plan which is an enormous contradiction”, she says. Based on these tendencies she assures us that in this new model flexibility is key in construction systems. “It is a mix of the traditional system (brick) and the dry one (sheets) which allow versatility in the distribution of the rooms. Not only is it easier to move it but the idea is that you can take it out and put it somewhere else. Therefore, the circulation and connection are generated according to the needs of that room which have already been contemplated and designed”, she goes on.

In her vision there are several aspects real estate developers must reconsider. For example, she considers that closed kitchens lack facilities in today’s way of living. There are resources such as panels which allow integration or not, enabling the opening and closing according to the circumstance.

Playrooms are also undergoing metamorphosis: no parent wants their children to play closed in but integrated into the family dynamics.

Another example is the balcony, one of the most valued spaces these days: before it was for plants. Today, if the property does not have one, it can end up out of the market.
On the other hand, “the reception restroom is fundamental as the pandemic reinforced the fact that the visitor’s hygiene and one’s own should be individual”, states Scwarcberg

The local market, ongoing adaptation

In spite of buyers’ requests it not easy to adapt to these new parameters. In the neighborhood of Villa Devoto there is a project which allows buyers to decide about a large part of the design of the apartment. Clients can set up the distribution of the room as they wish except for some fixed limitations such as following the toilet or stairway structures. “One can choose to have two or three bedrooms on the same floor or even only one”, illustrates Alejandro Reyser, a partner in Real Estate Developers.  

Faced with these new demands, Reyser identifies the following as the most required: 

• Work spaces. For example, a functional office with comfort and privacy. For its incorporation, Reyser says that the connectivity and circulation inside the house comes into play. 
• Spaces for working out. “More and more people work out at home watching YouTube and need the right airy place with insulation so that their companion is not disturbed by the noise”, he points out.  
• Integration with the exterior. Since the pandemic there has been a tendency “to incorporate greenery and therefore the balcony becomes an extension of the home. People even request details in the carpentry to be able to go from the living room to the balcony without going over the track, that is, the rail of the sliding door should be built into the floor so you feel the continuity”, he adds.  

In line with the profiles highlighted by Szwarcberg, Reyser also takes into account the construction of an independent room within the residence with a separate entrance as if it were “an apartment within the house, generally for the adolescent who wants to live in their own but in fact keeps living with their parents or the son who has a girlfriend, they sleep together some days and want to be separate from the rest”. 

Apart from the distribution of rooms, Reyser’s projects of the brand i-Respira which is funded by an entry of investments from U$S20,000, proposes made-to-measure technological and domotic design for the residence. Curtains and blinds which roll up and down by pressing a button, walls that become movie screens, adjusting lights in each room, voice control and more. Lastly, material aspects such as the apartment coverings and floorings can be customized.

The developer explains that partly this level of personalization is possible thanks to the small scale of these buildings, between seven and ten “high rise residences”. His first model on these lines has units of between 120 and 300m2. The average price of a square meter is U$S1850 and the smallest units start at U$S 224,000.    

Custom-made aesthetics 

For consumers who look to fully personalize their residence, another developer who has already completed 10 buildings in the province of Buenos Aires using this modality allows customizing the coverings and materials used in the apartment. Basic structural areas can be defined such as wanting gas heating or double-glaze windows. Moreover the main changes that the buyer can decide are the materials. For example, among the options – the floor material, the walls, the kitchen worktops, the faucets and the kitchen furniture can be designed and personalized. 

Naturally, if the redesign of a residence implies the purchase and application of materials different from the planned ones, this therefore represents additional expenses for the buyer and the seller. In spite of this, architect Szwarcberg emphasizes that “the user is willing to pay more and wait longer for the property to be ready”. 

In the Spazios developer project, if a client intends to buy a 34m2 two roomed apartment valued at U$S64,000 (paid in 360 installments in pesos and updated by the Argentine Chamber of Commerce (CAC)) they can decide to make some changes. They could choose to replace the standard marble in the kitchen for a Brasil black granite one which would add $77,400 ARS, changing the kitchen floor for one of imitation black elm one would cost $18,500 ARS and so the differences would be added between the personalized and the predetermined one which would be adapted to the agreed plan of installments. 

Faced with these options, Tapiola confirms that “what is requested most is that which is hard to change”. He illustrates that in the regular purchase of a residence if the furniture is not what one would have chosen it can be removed and sold or thrown away in the worst scenario. On the contrary, to replace something more important such as the floor for one that the client likes more implies taking it up and begin building work which is why that option is usually ruled out. This is why the proposal of “dressing it up” before building is tempting and one buyers take: “100% customize but not all personalize everything. The floor, for example, is massive”, he analyses. 

Although in this case the personalization is not centered on the rooms it is possible to opt for making some modifications. For example, opting not to build the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room to attain a more relaxed and more spacious room and on the other hand, joining two bedrooms making one big one or a den / family room. 

In spite of dealing with a large scale of approximately 100 units per building, the strategy used by Juan Manuel Tapiola, director of Spazios, does not interfere with the terms of completion. In these one to three bedrooms units buyers pay for their apartment through a buying-off plan, enabling each unit to be designed before its construction. Therefore, the construction of the building starts with the finished project and the personalization does not cause delays.

In an era in which consumers choose how and when they want to enjoy contents, travel and even the purchase of cars, personalization has also reached the real estate sector.

The customization of housing is a worldwide tendency which became consolidated with the pandemic, a time when people spent a long time indoors and discovered how they would like to live in their homes and which rooms they would modify. In this context, architects and developers receive more and more clients who are very much aware of what they do and do not like and so they adapt to these new market conditions.

To provide a name for this way of living a place, Abigail Szwarcberg, founder of Macom Developments, created the concept of “Linking Architecture” which analyses how building structures are conjugated with the rhythm of life of their inhabitants.

“Research is necessary in order to identify these tendencies to live in a personalized space”, explains the developer. She recognizes that there are new user stereotypes: “A typical family is not the only user, there is a new one which knows more about construction, how they want to live and that is not conditioned by copied, repetitive stories. A person who, until some time ago, lived on their own, was used to adapting to the apartment they had chosen to live in but today the user prioritizes their way of life and based on that, adapts and redesign the space” 

The architect is aware that today people are linked differently from the past: “Family life through new links needs new architecture, less rigid, proposing more versatility”, she understands. She recognizes that in the course of her research she came across couples who sleep separately, each one with their own bathroom and dressing room, blended families where the new couple chooses to sleep separately, nearer their respective children. There is also the daughter who invites her boyfriend to sleep over in the week and the parents want him to be on the other side of the residence.

In Europe the same symptom is present: an older couple who live with the parents of one of them who are in the other sector of the property which is why they need double circulation in order to have an independent link with the kitchen; or couples with teenage children whose schedules are inverted so the home needs to withstand this coexistence so that times and noises are not a nuisance.

Starting from the identification of the new dynamics it was also discovered that “users got used to being demolishers because they buy knowing that they have to demolish even from a buying-off plan which is an enormous contradiction”, she says. Based on these tendencies she assures us that in this new model flexibility is key in construction systems. “It is a mix of the traditional system (brick) and the dry one (sheets) which allow versatility in the distribution of the rooms. Not only is it easier to move it but the idea is that you can take it out and put it somewhere else. Therefore, the circulation and connection are generated according to the needs of that room which have already been contemplated and designed”, she goes on.

In her vision there are several aspects real estate developers must reconsider. For example, she considers that closed kitchens lack facilities in today’s way of living. There are resources such as panels which allow integration or not, enabling the opening and closing according to the circumstance.

Playrooms are also undergoing metamorphosis: no parent wants their children to play closed in but integrated into the family dynamics.

Another example is the balcony, one of the most valued spaces these days: before it was for plants. Today, if the property does not have one, it can end up out of the market.
On the other hand, “the reception restroom is fundamental as the pandemic reinforced the fact that the visitor’s hygiene and one’s own should be individual”, states Scwarcberg

The local market, ongoing adaptation

In spite of buyers’ requests it not easy to adapt to these new parameters. In the neighborhood of Villa Devoto there is a project which allows buyers to decide about a large part of the design of the apartment. Clients can set up the distribution of the room as they wish except for some fixed limitations such as following the toilet or stairway structures. “One can choose to have two or three bedrooms on the same floor or even only one”, illustrates Alejandro Reyser, a partner in Real Estate Developers.  

Faced with these new demands, Reyser identifies the following as the most required: 

• Work spaces. For example, a functional office with comfort and privacy. For its incorporation, Reyser says that the connectivity and circulation inside the house comes into play. 
• Spaces for working out. “More and more people work out at home watching YouTube and need the right airy place with insulation so that their companion is not disturbed by the noise”, he points out.  
• Integration with the exterior. Since the pandemic there has been a tendency “to incorporate greenery and therefore the balcony becomes an extension of the home. People even request details in the carpentry to be able to go from the living room to the balcony without going over the track, that is, the rail of the sliding door should be built into the floor so you feel the continuity”, he adds.  

In line with the profiles highlighted by Szwarcberg, Reyser also takes into account the construction of an independent room within the residence with a separate entrance as if it were “an apartment within the house, generally for the adolescent who wants to live in their own but in fact keeps living with their parents or the son who has a girlfriend, they sleep together some days and want to be separate from the rest”. 

Apart from the distribution of rooms, Reyser’s projects of the brand i-Respira which is funded by an entry of investments from U$S20,000, proposes made-to-measure technological and domotic design for the residence. Curtains and blinds which roll up and down by pressing a button, walls that become movie screens, adjusting lights in each room, voice control and more. Lastly, material aspects such as the apartment coverings and floorings can be customized.

The developer explains that partly this level of personalization is possible thanks to the small scale of these buildings, between seven and ten “high rise residences”. His first model on these lines has units of between 120 and 300m2. The average price of a square meter is U$S1850 and the smallest units start at U$S 224,000.    

Custom-made aesthetics 

For consumers who look to fully personalize their residence, another developer who has already completed 10 buildings in the province of Buenos Aires using this modality allows customizing the coverings and materials used in the apartment. Basic structural areas can be defined such as wanting gas heating or double-glaze windows. Moreover the main changes that the buyer can decide are the materials. For example, among the options – the floor material, the walls, the kitchen worktops, the faucets and the kitchen furniture can be designed and personalized. 

Naturally, if the redesign of a residence implies the purchase and application of materials different from the planned ones, this therefore represents additional expenses for the buyer and the seller. In spite of this, architect Szwarcberg emphasizes that “the user is willing to pay more and wait longer for the property to be ready”. 

In the Spazios developer project, if a client intends to buy a 34m2 two roomed apartment valued at U$S64,000 (paid in 360 installments in pesos and updated by the Argentine Chamber of Commerce (CAC)) they can decide to make some changes. They could choose to replace the standard marble in the kitchen for a Brasil black granite one which would add $77,400 ARS, changing the kitchen floor for one of imitation black elm one would cost $18,500 ARS and so the differences would be added between the personalized and the predetermined one which would be adapted to the agreed plan of installments. 

Faced with these options, Tapiola confirms that “what is requested most is that which is hard to change”. He illustrates that in the regular purchase of a residence if the furniture is not what one would have chosen it can be removed and sold or thrown away in the worst scenario. On the contrary, to replace something more important such as the floor for one that the client likes more implies taking it up and begin building work which is why that option is usually ruled out. This is why the proposal of “dressing it up” before building is tempting and one buyers take: “100% customize but not all personalize everything. The floor, for example, is massive”, he analyses. 

Although in this case the personalization is not centered on the rooms it is possible to opt for making some modifications. For example, opting not to build the wall that separates the kitchen from the living room to attain a more relaxed and more spacious room and on the other hand, joining two bedrooms making one big one or a den / family room. 

In spite of dealing with a large scale of approximately 100 units per building, the strategy used by Juan Manuel Tapiola, director of Spazios, does not interfere with the terms of completion. In these one to three bedrooms units buyers pay for their apartment through a buying-off plan, enabling each unit to be designed before its construction. Therefore, the construction of the building starts with the finished project and the personalization does not cause delays.