Tell me how you live and I shall tell you, who you are. Is it a trend nowadays, that we are not buying a home without a whole lifestyle? In the big cities, there are a lot that point to this. So-called concept housing that has this has increases additional.

-Well, that’s enough, says Erik Karlin, CEO of real estate development company Tobin Properties. We notice that customers’ expectations are gradually increasing.
-The home has become a way of expressing who you are. The accommodation is also a great hobby for many. The car has passed as the status symbol long time ago – the place has been taken over by the accommodation.

Requirements for housing are increasing

Tobin Properties does a proper investigation of every designproject to adapt to the location and not less to the customers’ expectations. One project is Etaget on West Kungsholmen in Stockhom. It seems as a bit New York-style, with brick facades and bronze and gold-coloured sheet metal, restaurant and florist on street level and green communal roof terrace. According to Erik Karlin, the housing outside conditions, the location, the design is more important, than, what was developed as the actual planning of the accommodations – how will my life be, if I shall live here. Here, you have to meet the requirements of what an accommodation should contain with smart planning, clever integrate laundry rooms, walk in closet – and balcony.
– We decorate according to people’s preferences; balcony is basically a prerequisite for all our accommodation.

A clear eco-profile attracts

Sandra Frank, marketing manager at Folkhem, whose business concept is to build high wooden houses. Therefore, they have a clear ecological profile for their projects, but also work closely with renowned architects. Two eight-storey houses (the highest wood ones in the world!) are finished in Sundbyberg beach park.
– When we started to show the houses, it was first and foremost the architectural style, that attracted people. The first house was, probably, sold mostly on these criteria. But when the second house was ready, our ecological thinking had gained more space in people’s consciousness and here there was mostly customers, who made an active choice that they wanted to live in a climate neutral house.
Wooden high-rise buildings are built according to modern wooden building technology with cross-glued solid wooden carcases, based on the old building method. Buildings such as Stockholm Castle and large parts of the Old Town are the wooden carcase houses. In 2014, Folkhem won the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce’s Urban Environment Award.
-Our buyers are interested in making some sort of statement, here there is no obvious luxury like lounges and restaurants, but the houses have very solid and organic materials. A kind of low-key luxury that dwells in the feeling of walking on a solid wooden floor, for example. And in the end, it is a great benefit to be able to contribute to a better and more environmentally friendly society.

Spacy efficient accommodations require new solutions

The need to show, who is the person via the accommodation, can also have different meanings. Another Tobin Properties’ project is the Arcade in Sundbyberg. Here you can meet the target group’s request, who was born of a outside-efficient accommodation, with several common areas, such as a party room, where you can organize children’s parties, bicycle storage and many shared roof terraces. In many ways, it is about adapting the accommodation to the new conditions as the life in the city entails.
-And because people drive less cars, for example, we have to pair with many bicycles’ racks, says Erik Karlin.
Folkhem plans to build 6000 new homes in the City of Stockholm. And all of them should be built of wood, of course.
-We see that there is a big interest of how the houses are built and what materials are used, said Frank. It has become important to make the active choices.