Investment banker, Asim Zaveri and his wife, Anju picked a plush apartment in a sprawling gated community set on Banjara Hills, when they moved to Hyderabad from Mumbai.
The Zaveris were won over by the vast stretches of planned lawns, impeccably landscaped avenues, and rows of gorgeous flowering trees — an abundance of lush greenery would welcome them whenever they looked out of their window, no matter the season!
“We have always lived close to greenery, and given the demanding nature of both our jobs, we wanted to stay in a place where we can cherish the few hours that we get to see each other,” says Anju, the owner of an organic clothing label.
Bonding over their cups of fragrant Darjeeling tea while enjoying the community’s landscaped vistas is a morning ritual for the couple.
Truly, the fine balance between what nature gives us and what man develops it into is the essence of landscape architecture, which is an integral part of housing complexes these days.
One of the reasons for this is the growing affinity among urban homebuyers to live in spaces surrounded by greenery. Thanks to this, most top residential complexes in the country are being built with a focus on creating an oasis amidst the urbanscape.
Besides bringing in greenery and serenity into the hectic city life, the landscape architecture has a positive impact on a property’s curb appeal and overall value.
Effective Use of Landscapes Improves the Home’s Value
Spaces and areas in and around housing complexes become more aesthetically pleasing when they undergo landscaping, which can include, green lawns, intelligently designed children’s park, trees for shade, sitting areas, water features and other such spatial configuration.
However, including beautiful, well-maintained trees and landscapes in housing complexes add substantial benefits, not just in terms of aesthetics but also property value. People prefer buildings that have ample open spaces and gardens, rather than confined spaces where buildings are crammed together.
But that’s not all, the advantages of landscaping for an apartment complex are wide-ranging.
Landscape Architecture in Modern Housing Complexes
Contemporary, landscaped housing projects are becoming increasingly common nowadays.
The elements incorporated and utilised in landscape architecture depend a lot on demographic factors, hence efficient designing is very necessary. Landscape architecture involves the evaluation of the site’s characteristics. It’s a complex process which includes inputs from professionals like engineers, ecologists, and landscape architects. Besides, the landscape must be inclusive in its focus and facilities for all age-groups.
A successful landscape architecture transforms a housing complex entirely affecting its demand and appeal. Let us see how.
The Ecological Balance
Plants play an important role and most homebuyers and house hunters along with landscapers agree on this point. The use of plants and greenery generates a feeling of vigour, at the same time it also beautifies and enhances the outdoors.
In a housing complex landscape design process, the aim is to balance the healthy environment with human needs. The selection of plants is defined by the needs and goals of the residential population, as well as the conditions in the surrounding area. Besides, the green cover also helps to moderate the environment allowing the residents of a community to live amidst nature.
Sustainability
The awareness towards the environment is a serious and most basic part of development today. Many housing complexes take the sustainability initiative very seriously and the landscape architecture helps in this stead by designing around this value. Thus, ample natural light processing, extensive shading, energy saving avenues, rainwater harvesting, compost reserves, etc. can be aesthetically added.
Innovation
Cities are getting bigger and the population rising dramatically. Often housing complexes are faced with a shortage of areas to introduce landscaping space on the surface. With the aid of technology, landscape architecture has introduced roof gardens. It’s a beautiful concept when transplanted on the drab roof of a building and has amazing sustainable benefits, such as, cleaning the city air, retaining rainwater, and increasing biodiversity.
Besides, there is also the advent of green walls and facades. They hide unattractive wall surfaces and improve the quality of our lives by lowering the temperature of the air during summer, lower the energy loss of buildings, and act as air purifiers.
Highlighting the Best View
It is a fact that we tend to prefer housing complexes that look good visually. And landscape architecture plays a major role in bringing out the view as well as in hiding the unattractive elements, such as old walls, sewer pipelines and open drains.
Through landscaping, there is an organised use of space related to right plantings, appropriate planning of paths and shortcuts, implementation of all necessary residential formats like seating, parking for bikes, etc.
Functionality
Landscape architecture is reshaping housing complexes by providing an outdoor environment that is creative as well as functional in many ways. It is simply not just about beautiful views but also about benefits and common sense additions.
Parks can be elevated so that an ordinary children’s play area also has the added advantage of being easy to keep watch at children. The surrounding areas can be equipped with open-air gyms for the senior residents to have a place for healthy recreation and socialisation. Lighting is another tool for creating beautiful landscapes and also aids in increasing safety.
The Path Ahead
Technology is increasingly helping to bring about an exciting phase for the landscaping industry, which is trying to create new experiences using innovative ways. Although the goals of landscaping may differ for different groups of people and pockets of residences, humans and human emotions are closely associated with nature. If we neglect this important feature, we will be left with endless concrete jungles. Landscape architecture is actually not just an expense in the housing complex development sheet but rather an investment, to create beautiful sustainable residences.
Respect towards nature is an important aspect that guides landscape architects to overcome all the challenges that modern life creates. Besides, beautiful vistas around a housing complex, landscape architecture strives to ensure a better and healthier life for all residents.
