Vastu demand rising for ₹10 crore luxury homes: Godrej's Rohit Mohan

I am a designer, so I may not have very granular consumer data, but what we clearly see is that Gen Z is currently the largest cohort renting homes. Their expectations, preferences and lifestyle needs are influencing how homes are designed. While these may not always be direct demands, they become indirect requirements that eventually spill over into owned housing as well.

As a result, even homes meant for long-term end users are shaped by changing rental behaviour, flexibility needs and evolving lifestyle patterns. Design today is far more consumer-driven than it was earlier.

Generally, we design homes primarily for end users. We have a strong product team that conducts extensive market analysis and shares detailed feedback with us. This includes studying historical sales data of a particular micro-market, understanding what has worked there earlier, identifying gaps and figuring out what kind of product is missing.

Sometimes, for instance, you may find a micro-market dominated by three-bedroom homes. But research might reveal a latent demand for four-bedroom homes simply because no one has offered them yet. We look at all these factors before planning a project. So the design is not driven by whether a home will be rented or owned, but by a deep understanding of demand in that specific location.

Quiet luxury is essentially about liveability. It is about how comfortably you can live in that house over a long period of time. It starts with how well your storage is planned, how functional your kitchen is, the quality of your kitchen counters, and whether all your appliances and gadgets can fit comfortably. Homes are long-term assets. You may live in them for 15–20 years, until your family grows or changes. So, luxury is having enough storage for seasonal clothes, blankets and everyday needs, especially in regions like NCR where weather changes significantly. Luxury is also about having enough space for family additions, children, or parents visiting and staying over.

Luxury is also about comfort and peace of mind. For example, acoustics inside the home matter a lot. Are your windows designed to block outside noise? Can you achieve a comfortable noise level of around 50 decibels inside the house? Maintenance is another big factor. A truly luxurious home is leak-proof, seepage-proof and low-maintenance. What all this ultimately gives you is time. And time itself is a luxury.

You are not constantly fixing things or worrying about repairs. Even the experience of entering the property matters. The sense of pride you feel when guests visit your lobby, clubhouse or common areas is also luxury. That emotional satisfaction cannot really be quantified.

Common areas play a very important role. Imagine residents hosting a party and showing guests the clubhouse or shared amenities. That sense of pride is part of luxury. Adequate parking, EV charging points, well-designed lobbies, and high-quality finishes all add to this experience. Luxury also means that whatever the developer promises is delivered properly. Quality of execution is as important as design intent. When all these elements come together, they create a complete luxury experience.

One of the biggest challenges is balancing consumer expectations with efficiency and cost. We constantly interact with customers, learn from their experiences, and track evolving technology trends. A major focus area for us is detailing. Small details make a big difference. For instance, providing niches in bathrooms so residents don’t need to install shelves later. These are things you don’t notice on day one, but over time, residents discover them and feel a sense of pride. As as a designer, you are constantly thinking about usability, accessibility and everyday comfort, even in your personal life.

The differences are not just about size. In luxury housing, you get higher floor-to-floor heights, larger windows, bigger lobbies, more car parks, better appliances, premium flooring and larger clubhouses. In mid-segment housing, these elements are optimised rather than eliminated. Every project is designed keeping the target group and price point in mind. You cannot design a high-end luxury project in a location where there is no demand for it. So micro-market understanding is critical.

We are seeing clear preferences emerge. Grey-and-white combinations are very popular among younger buyers, especially millennials. Beige tones are still preferred by slightly older buyers and are often associated with a more traditional sense of luxury. As developers, we need to design homes that appeal to 80–90% of buyers. That is why neutral colour palettes dominate mass and luxury housing alike. They offer flexibility for buyers who may later customise interiors.

Minimalism is here to stay, but regional preferences matter a lot. For example, Hyderabad buyers tend to prefer richer, more traditional aesthetics, while cities like Bengaluru lean towards minimalist designs due to the influence of the IT workforce. Cultural context plays a significant role in design choices.

Vastu has become increasingly important, especially in the luxury segment. Buyers often look at aspects such as entrance direction, kitchen placement and toilet locations. Incorporating full Vastu compliance is not difficult from a design perspective, but it impacts efficiency. Fully Vastu-compliant layouts often require more circulation space, increasing built-up area and construction costs.

While buyers want Vastu, they are often unwilling to pay the full premium for it. Identifying where Vastu is non-negotiable and where it is optional is one of the biggest challenges. Especially, in North India, the importance of Vastu has clearly increased in the luxury segment homes priced at ₹10 crore and above. Buyers at this level want everything aligned, and when they are spending that kind of money, they see no reason to compromise on Vastu.

We study sun paths, building orientation and wind flow to reduce heat gain. Balconies are designed to shade windows, greenery is used to reduce the heat island effect, and hardscapes are minimised. Material choices have also evolved. We have moved...to ease of construction and durability. Green materials like low-carbon concrete and green steel are increasingly being used.

Right now, AI is more of an enabler than a decision-maker in residential design. We are actively working with what is called generative design, where certain parameters like bylaws, efficiencies, unit mix, sunlight, ventilation and circulation are fed into a system. Based on these inputs, the system can generate multiple design options very quickly. We have already been able to apply this successfully in plotted developments, where layouts can be optimised faster and more efficiently.

At this stage, AI is also being used extensively for visualisation and briefing. For example, if we input specific keywords related to look, feel or experience, AI can generate visual references that help us communicate a clearer design intent to architects and consultants. However, AI has not yet reached a stage where it can fully design apartments independently. That said, over the next five years, AI will significantly change the design process, especially in the mid-segment housing space, where repetition and scale matter. Human intervention will remain critical, particularly in luxury housing, where homes need to be bespoke and personalised. AI will assist, but it won’t replace human judgement.

What we are seeing now is a shift from standalone air purifiers to embedded systems within the building’s air-conditioning infrastructure. In some of our projects, we use CTFA (Centrally Treated Fresh Air) technology, which is an inbuilt air purification system integrated into the home ventilated systems. This means residents don’t need separate air purifiers in each room, which saves space and provides more uniform air quality across the home.

These systems are offered project-wide where they are committed as part of the original offering, not selectively for individual apartments. In some projects, we are also extending purification solutions to common areas and exteriors. While this started as a differentiator when these projects were launched four to five years ago, it is now moving towards becoming a hygiene factor, especially in North India and cities with worsening air quality. The cost impact at a project level is not very significant, though there is some maintenance involved due to filters. From a consumer perspective, embedded systems are often more practical and efficient than managing multiple standalone devices, and this is a trend that is likely to grow as air quality concerns intensify.