Creating floor plans that accommodate multiple generations to live under the same roof is tricky, and it's in high demand.
The popularity of multigenerational households has been on the rise. Pew Research Center analyzed U.S. Census Data to show the growth from 12% of U.S. households living in multigenerational settings in 1980, to 19% in 2014, representing a record 60.6 million people.
A recent New York Times article reports that later marriages and harsh economic realities have made living with parents more common for young adults than living with romantic partners. Plus, more older adults are moving in with their children, who are now financially secure baby boomers.
This trend is captured in the BSB Design floor plan for the 2018 BUILDER Concept home, the reNEWable Living Home project. BSB Design worked with Meritage Homes on the project to create a comfortable living environment for three generations in one home that could be adapted to how they wanted and needed to live in the space.
The result is a 5,000-plus-square-foot home with seven bedrooms and five bathrooms. But those are just the numbers. How would someone live in the space and make it their own?
Dan Swift, president, CEO, and chairman at BSB Design, says knowing how consumers want to live requires the designer to become a “student of the Industry.”
Those studies include sifting through every data point available that corresponds to what consumers are looking for in their home and in their life. “Some of these data points are housing related, from the traditional sources, while many others we find don’t appear to be housing related at all but are life related, such as the propensity for pet ownership, sleeping habits, spending habits, storage needs, etc.,” Swift says. “Then we have to work to connect dots between those data points to create spaces that solve the lifestyle needs of our buyers. In these cases, there is as much art as there is science, especially when you are trying to predict and determine what the data is really saying.”
Regardless of what the data says, it’s critical to start with a firm understanding of the demographic and how they are going to use the space before locking in the design. For the reNEWable Living Home, BSB Design had the multigenerational home buyer in mind. But the multigenerational household takes so many different forms and Meritage Homes wanted to create a floor plan that could be used on a volume scale, so BSB Design had to think through a way to make the floor plan flexible to the needs of many buyers.
Making the space adaptable to a variety of needs took a strong product development strategy. Here, Steve Moore, senior partner and director of marketing at BSB Design, speaks to the importance of flexibility in the design.
“Product development is a return on investment strategy that needs to be well thought out to ensure that we cast as wide a net on the market(s) we are trying to appeal to with the fewest moving pieces,” Swift says. “In a winning product strategy, we work to cast the widest net on the market with the fewest plans types with flex spaces that can be manipulated to adapt to the individual buyers unique needs without having to create one-off custom design changes.”
And that’s just what they did. The various options for the reNEWable Living Home floor plan are numerous, but are not complex because they don’t require structural changes, a strong point for volume building. Some of the options in this house include:
- Converting the fourth garage stall to an in-law suite
- Changing the three bedrooms upstairs to a more elaborate “Fonzie flat”
- Changing the second floor bar area to a tech space/pocket office
- Eliminating the master bedroom sitting room for more outdoor living space.
- Keeping the master bedroom sitting room, but making it smaller to expand the walk in closet and bathroom.
- Depending on the market, the upstairs Fonzie flat could have a separate entry from outside the home, along with a fully functioning kitchenette.
Offering options can be endless, but in order to make it feasible from a budget and replication standpoint, Swift says they try to completely eliminate the need for a structural change, or at least minimize it to something minor. “This way the cost to produce the option in the field is minimal and in some cases could even be modified in a ‘spec lot program,’” Swift says.
The simplicity in creating the options for the space isn’t just a benefit for the builder. Home buyers need to easily look at the floor plan and understand how it is going to work for them without being overloaded with dozens of options. Plus, having multiple buyers in place may make the process more emotional.
“The easier you can explain to the potential end user how easy one plan or another can be flexed to fit their current and future needs, the better,” Swift recommends. “The options you create should feel to the consumer that they were done just for them, and that when the plan was created we had them and their family personally in mind.”
The reNEWable Living Home will be on display in Orlando in January. Stay up to date with the research on multigenerational households that went into the design and plan to see the home in person.
