Technology Driven Changes in Multifamily Buildings Design

Multifamily buildings have been disrupted by our times, three major factors have driven the change:  COVID-19, ecommerce, and electric vehicles. We all have been affected by COVID-19, not just in our health (either physical or mental), but also in the adoptions or consolidation of new trends like the way we shop, the way we work and interact with each other, and the way we look and use buildings. We will talk about each factor individually throughout this article.

COVID-19

Among many other affections to our daily lives, COVID-19 accelerated the adoption and growth of ecommerce. It also created new trends like the “work from home”, which looks like it here to stay in some shape or form. We will talk about ecommerce next, so I will skip that for now. We all got stuck in our homes or apartments for what felt like years, it was a type of house arrest that forced us to look at our private spaces in a different way. What was before just a place where we came to rest and relax, become our part time workplace, gathering place, bar, movie theater, among many other things. We started spending so much time in our apartments that our priorities changed, people started realizing that they needed more space, an extra room to set up an office for example, or a balcony to access fresh air and view of the outside world. Multifamily apartments were not thought with this in mind of course, they were setup to maximize renting space while trying to maintain a comfortable design. Older apartment complexes hardly even have common areas or amenity spaces for people to have a place outside of their units to relax and meet or see other people. Now that has changed, the way people see amenity spaces has changed, they have become increasingly important. If people will spend much more time or even work from their apartment, they want other places to be and things to do other than just be inside their units. It might be extra space to work from a lounge, a gym, or a place to meet new people, isolation has become a mental health concern. We have realized how much we need other people around us to feel mentally healthy, we are social creatures, we were not designed to be alone, so common spaces have become critical design feature.

Social distancing has also become an important design consideration, people don’t feel comfortable being too close to each other, even gyms have realized this change and they started spreading out equipment or it has just become a silent social norm that you don’t use the treadmill that is right next to the other person. Design of new spaces must take into consideration this reality, people want to be around other people, just not too close.

We thought that we were almost over this pandemic and that we would be able to return to our normal lives, but more and more we have come to realize that this virus will not go anywhere, and we will have to learn and adapt and live with it. So, apartment complexes, new or existing, will have to realize this change in our society and design (or redesign) accordingly, to attract and/or retain tenants.

ECOMMERCE

The adoption of ecommerce is not new, it has been a trend for years, but due to COVID it exponentially grew. When stores closed, had limited-service hours, or people just didn’t felt safe being surrounded by others, they started ordering everything online. Fast food delivery services and even online grocery shopping grew exponentially. The volume of packages that are being delivered daily to multifamily apartments has greatly exceeded their design capacity, no one was ready for it, who could have thought that this was going to happen so quickly? Older apartment complexes don’t even have storage areas for packages, they only have mailboxes, because that is the only thing that people used to received frequently. Now, the new norm is that every major delivery company shows up at apartment complexes to make deliveries daily. New and old apartment buildings need to rethink their design and reconfigure to this new reality. People won’t go back to the old way of shopping; ecommerce will only increase, and adoption will probably be faster with the rise of other interesting trends like crypto currencies. Tech companies like Amazon, have been seeing this trend form for a while and have design hubs that can be installed in new buildings. This is a solution in the right direction, but it can’t be brand specific, developers and designers need to find a sustainable solution for the handling massive amounts of daily packages coming to the buildings. The solution needs to be technology driven with the ability to be retrofitted into existing apartment complexes.

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

The final major disruptor in the design of new and existing multifamily buildings are electric vehicles (EVs). Today, every major car company is developing electric vehicles. Even technology companies like Sony have decided to get in this business. Tesla was a great disruptor for the industry and made it possible for EVs to be commercially feasible, and trendy. Thanks to the global awareness of climate change, EVs have gotten even more tractions and governments are designing legislation to promote its mass adoptions. An example is the proposed tax credit by the US government for buying electric cars, among other incentives to building infrastructure for them. What does this mean for apartment buildings? Designers and developers will need to start thinking about the additional infrastructure they must offer their tenants that currently have or are planning to buy EVs, like charging stations.

There is another great opportunity that comes hand in hand with EVs: Alternative on-site power generation (i.e. solar panels) and storage (i.e. Tesla Powerwall). With the rising demand for EV charging stations will come the opportunity for apartment buildings to generate their own power to sell their tenants. The growth potential for EVs in enormous, adoption so far has been very marginal, but with government support, and rising competition, EVs will eventually become more affordable, and the new norm.

Finally, these three change factors or disruptors, have something in common, they are here to stay, there is no going back, so designers, developers and even general contractors must keep that in mind to make sure that they are designing and building for the future, not the past. Thank you for reading, if you see any other major disruptors in the design and retrofitting of multifamily buildings, please leave your comments and let’s open the conversation.