When we think smart home technology, many times we think buttons, apps, gadgets, voice command. But homes of tomorrow are incorporating technology in entirely new ways that offer improved flexibility and functionality, traits that tech expert Jennifer Jolly was particularly impressed by when she toured “Where Tomorrow Lives,” the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt concept home.
Flexibility starts from the onset of the project, thinking creatively about land acquisition, floor plan, amenities, community development, and even the details like finishes and bringing it all together in a seamless experience for the user.
What Jolly found evident in her tour of the home was the collaboration of all the parties involved to integrate their products in a way that was easy for the home buyer to understand and use.
KB Home created an experience that also provides a great example of how that experience needs to be flexible for the buyer today and tomorrow. That built-in flexibility is demanded by buyers and evident from a survey conducted by the Citizens Housing & Planning Council at the National Building Museum. More than 2,300 respondents to survey said that the design of their home meets their needs, yet, 81% said that they anticipate that that same home will one day no longer meet the needs of their household.
This flexibility may be hard for a home buyer to envision and to understand how it can be incorporated into their day to day living, however, the KB Home ProjeKt’s strategic design captures it in a number of ways. On the first floor, there is a moving wall that can expand living space when needed, or move to create another bedroom, with a bed from Resource Furniture that folds down from the wall and doors that slide out to close off the space. When the bed isn’t in use, the room can function as an office space. Another functional feature of the moving wall? An entertainment bar, with cabinetry, a wine cooler and –exactly what you need when the space expands for entertaining.
The second floor of the home in itself is a flexible design feature. It can be closed off entirely from the first floor and has a kitchenette and laundry, allowing it to be one of many things: a suite for a caregiver, a rental space for additional income, or a place for an older living-at-home child and their family. Not only that, but one of the rooms upstairs has similar flexibility with furniture that can transform for evolving needs of the space.
In this short video, Jolly shares her experience of the BUILDER KB Home ProjeKt.
As Jolly pointed out, the critical aspect of flexibility is a key part of delivering a more affordable home, something that KB Home wants to achieve. This home focused on design solutions that could not only cut costs through process innovation, but on an ongoing basis with better performance.
KB Home worked with suppliers in all stages of the process to deliver the solutions that would cut costs, ultimately making it a better process for the buyer, but also a more affordable solution today and in the future.
Register now to see the home in Las Vegas, www.builderonline.com/kbhomeprojekt.
