‘Sky Heights was designed as an aspirational project in the low cost sector to service the needs of today’s India’

Speaking with Realty Plus, Rohan Malani Managing Director, Lush life speaks about the importance of affordable housing in India, his winning project and what makes ‘Sky Heights’ different from other project in the city Please express your views on winning the award by Realty Plus? The entire Lushlife team is greatly honored for receiving this prestigious business award. I would like to thank the entire Realty Plus team and the honorable jury for providing this platform for our industry. It was indeed a big celebratory moment for the Lushlife team when our project – SKY HEIGHTS was proclaimed as the “Low Cost Housing Project of the Year” at the Realty Plus Excellence Award, 2016, Pune”. The Realty Plus Excellence award is known to be one of the most awaited and the most top rated awards in the real estate world and it was a humbling experience to win this award for a project that has set new benchmarks in the low cost housing segment. Do you think the jury process was transparent? The jury comprised of industry stalwarts that have created the modern face of the real estate industry in India. The honorable members of the jury are blessed with global experience and there is no doubt that people of such knowledge and repute have employed the most fair and transparent methods to decide the winners. What is the USP of the winning project? Sky Heights was designed as an aspirational project in the low cost sector to service the needs of today’s India. The buyers today are far more aware of the specifications, amenities and quality of construction than they have ever been in the past. With a clear focus to address these needs, we designed a product with excellent light and ventilation which created a positive energy in the house; higher ceilings that increased the volume of space in every apartment, and provided every amenity that you are accustomed to see in luxury projects across the city. Mindful of the fact that price remains the driving force in any purchasing decision, we employed the best available techniques and materials from across the globe to achieve a cost effective product and passed it on to our customers. What is your message to home buyers across Pune? The city is continuing to growing rapidly with expansion in the Manufacturing and IT/ITeS sectors causing huge generation of employment; the need for housing in Pune has never been greater than it is today. Pune is a pure end user driven market and is still amongst the most affordable cities in the country. This has created a unique market that remains relatively stable and it is extremely rare to see major price corrections or price increases in this city. This has shone through, and the demand for low cost and affordable housing in Pune continues to be resilient as developers of excellent caliber have entered this segment. The most important thing for any customer is to select a project of repute that suits their need for amenities, specification and lifestyle at a price that they can afford. Not all projects are the same and often what you pay for is what you get, but we at Lushlife believe that our customers should always get more than they pay for, not the other way around. Can you name one thing that makes your project unique as compared to other similar projects in your city? Our main focus was on space and ventilation with the excellent amenities in the project as a given. The biggest challenge while designing compact apartments is that they shouldn’t look compact. We overcame this by designing our buildings in such a way that all the apartments were open to three sides providing excellent cross ventilation and light and ensured that there was no wastage of space in the apartment with unnecessary passages. To capitalize on this design, we provided large windows to let the sun in and increased the floor to ceiling height in every apartment thus increasing the volume of space in it. Our goal was to create small apartments which didn’t look or feel small and that exactly what we did.