Ensure you have a smart, eco-friendly home

If you are planning to renovate your haven or getting a new house built, consider going green with eco-friendly material and interiors made with natural materials.

Here are latest trends in home architecture as shared by Dikshu C Kukreja, Managing Director and Principal Architect, CP Kukreja Architects:

* Healthy homes: Architects are increasingly focusing on designing homes that promote a sense of well-being and keep stress and anxieties of daily life away. Environment-friendly building materials are being used to make healthier residences, with lush green landscaped terraces or shaded balconies for climate control.

Many of these materials play an active role in lighting, ventilation, air-quality and can even check diseases like asthma, cough and cold and eye irritation.

* Green interiors: Interior design for homes has finally moved beyond industry-manufactured building materials with a growing adoption of all-natural materials. Plants are now considered as living building material that can improve indoor oxygen levels and clean the air naturally, preventing many diseases.

Flowering plants are used to add to the shades and hues thereby alleviating the quality of interior design. Plants can also be used as natural bio-climatic controls as they help in shading thereby checking excess glare and heat in summer, as well as intelligently controlling the humidity of interior environment in dry regions.

* Modular and smart interiors: The modern architecture focuses on space economy in interior design through various tools. Sofa-cum-beds, vanity units that dissolve into walls facilitate maximum use of space. Walls that dissolve to make rooms larger is another thing that people can opt for, considering the constraint of home sizes.

It is better to use ready-made furniture as opposed to getting it made. You can see the end product and immediately get what you see. Modular kitchens, cabinets and wardrobes are in trend for they make it easier to organise things.

* Smart intelligent homes: The newest trend is automated homes that seamlessly integrate security systems, electrical appliances, refrigerators, air conditioners and televisions, centrally or remotely controlled from multiple devices -- either fixed or mobiles.

With technology being an indispensable part of people's lives, smart homes also help you save on electricity bills.

--IANS

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