Yuliy Borisov: “The next generation will swap apartments like gadgets”

09.06.2017

At the round-table discussion “For whom and how to build housing” under the urban forum “Environment for Life”, the head of UNK project spoke about what the housing for the “Generation Z” will be like. Archi.ru asked Yuly Borisov to tell more about how, in his opinion, the criteria for assessing housing and the architect services will change.
Yuly Borisov: “The physical life of buildings is long enough, so the housing that people buy today will be used the next generation tomorrow. Therefore, it is important that the building should not become obsolete, not only physically, but also morally, that is, it should be convenient for our children and grandchildren to live there. I attempted to understand what they would need.

The changes will relate to increased mobility. People will want not just an apartment or a house with basic repairs, but the one that has everything, including cups, spoons and forks, where you can move in, like in a hotel, and start your everyday life.

The second change is the possibility to easily customize your housing with the help of modern technologies. For example, you press the button and the wall ornament changes. The building will turn into a mixture of “smart house” software and the “hardware” of the building itself. It does not matter where you currently live, in Moscow or, say, Astana, when you can just copy the settings of one apartment and transfer them to another to make it suitable to your taste.

Thirdly, the housing will be very flexible, similar to office spaces. The main advantage is not the building itself or “the shell”, but the environment with its location and social connections”.