Sustainable designs add a breath of fresh air to luxury apartments

The builders of a residential development in Playa Vista, just outside Los Angeles, wanted to make sure that residents would not have to walk more than two to five minutes to get to a shop or restaurant. In New York, the toilets in a new building on the Hudson River will use recycled water from a neighbouring block of flats. In Singapore, an eco-chic building recently installed a wind turbine to generate power to residents. AIRE, in Santa Monica, California, is even throwing in a pair of bicycles with the purchase of every unit.

Those developments are all part of what developers are calling the new “eco-literacy” in property development, with apartment-dwellers and homeowners attaching a premium to being able to hang their hat in a “green” space; real estate insiders say that it’s becoming almost as important as having the trendiest amenities in a building.

“To build conventionally is just not relevant anymore,” said Alison Girard, director of marketing of Brookfield Residential, one of the largest home builders in North America, and the developer behind Playa Vista. “The market is saying ‘you need to build better.’ Developers don’t have a choice anymore. They have to build for the modern environment in which we live.”

That is showing up in numerous ways across the world – non-toxic paints, recycled building materials, solar panels, tree-filled spaces within properties, landscaping that needs little watering – and the more unusual the approach, the better. And while developers continue to strive for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, others are rethinking what it means to be truly green, instead of simply adhering to standard rules.