Youthful property and business owners leaning towards a homely ambience for the office, and also choosing to combine a home with an office.
As a new generation emerges and an old one fizzles out, so does lifestyle, even though new generations tend to pick up age-old styles forgotten between generations, which they tweak to suit their taste.
This is frequently seen through evolving fashion and dressing, even though it is not confined to the two. In the property space, there is a growing trend that is seeing youthful property and business owners leaning towards a homely ambience for the office, and also choosing to combine a home with an office. This is a deviation from the older generation of office executives who would stick to the rules of the two places, never mixing the two.
To find out what is influencing this shift, DN2 Property interviewed specialists of home and office setups – furniture makers, interior and architectural designers, space renovators, and furniture sellers and marketers – on just what is inspiring this drift, and how it is shaping the older and new generation of property investors.
Wamuyu Ndegwa is the founder of Tira Studio, an enterprise dealing in furniture and décor for offices and homes since 2017. Having been at the helm of the company for six years now, she has observed “distinct taste” variation between those born in the 50s, 60s and early 70s, and the tech-savvy generation born in the 90s during the proliferation of the internet and other technological advancements.
She says the older generation still prefers “heavy” designs with minimal adaptability, and go for “large” and “significant” single-purpose home furniture that occupies a large space. It is different with the younger generation though, who want “multi-purpose” furniture which can serve various uses, occupy a smaller space, and is easier to move. They seek novelty; an innovation tempered with uniqueness and newness, sometimes even involving peers during shopping decisions.
Bring home to the office…
While the older generation is strict in distinction and purpose of home and office, the younger generation seeks to bridge the two and bring home to the office, where an office atmosphere is becoming increasingly less formal.
With the current generation, however, home is a place to relax, and to also work
“With advanced technology, one can reach the business world in minutes, so to them productivity and one’s output are not determined by commuting to an office,” says Daniel Kimingi, an interior designer and design director, of Move and Renovate Company.
Benson Macharia, 28, a graphic designer with Victoria Courts, a business that deals with home and office furniture, says he is comfortable working from home. “Being able to work from home offers me flexibility, yet I am able to meet the same purpose as being in an office. However, it needs a good home set up,” he says, even though he believes that interacting with his colleagues is “healthy for the mind”.
Stephen Nzioki, assistant branch supervisor at Victoria Courts, Nairobi, explains that demand for furniture combining home and office started picking up during the Covid-19 lockdown.
“Customers came looking for furniture that would offer ambience for both. Since then, recliner sofas have become more marketable, and the drift towards hybrid furniture has become unstoppable, propelled by those in their 30s and 40s. Dynamic, they have IT skills and can work from anywhere,” he says.
Nairobi-based architect Isaac Kibaara attributes the variation in taste between the two generations to the period they grew up in.
“We grew up in an era that revered home as a place of family repose, where parents and children returned to after a day’s work to rest and discuss family issues. To them, the office was exclusively a working space, quiet and formal,” says Mr Kibaara, adding that at the time, it was hard to imagine that you could turn your home into a place of work.
Western exposure
With the current generation, however, home is a place to relax, and to also work. Thanks to the internet, which has transformed the world into a village, a tech space where there are countless tutorials on how to convert a corner of your home into a playful office, there is little distinction between home and office.
“That’s where we are today…a generation that believes what matters is that work is delivered, not where they are working from,” says Daniel Kimingi, of Move and Renovate Company, pointing out that the cost of living is partly a factor influencing the youth to consider combining the two..
Being in the renovation business, Kimingi says parents of a working-class younger generation with a preference for flexible designs and simplicity, are influencing their parents to change the concept of home as they knew it. Corporate behaviour is also changing to accommodate the newly emerging generational trends.
Youthful property and business owners leaning towards a homely ambience for the office, and also choosing to combine a home with an office.
“As more and more people advocate for work-life balance, more companies are creating rest areas where staff can take breaks. Others provide recreational areas, for instance, break-out zones with games and other recreational activities for staff. All this is being designed to accommodate the ‘take-it-easy’ generation,” Wamuyu, whose company deals with furniture, explains.
Discerning companies are also embracing a culture where modern office furniture is designed to deliver functionality in smaller spaces, one where the title of “boss executive” is being replaced by “team leader” in departments. The new office designs make for better use of space under one-spirit-one-goal. This is to accommodate and lure the new generation of employees who care little about paying homage to office hierarchy.
Also, Wamuyu says that companies are now inclined towards eco-friendly furniture, in what she describes as a desire to bring nature close to décor. Increasing demand for customised quality furniture products has prompted furniture makers and home designers to embrace technology-aided simulations, translating customers’ ideas into technical drawings and allowing them to view prototypes before manufacturing.
Wamuyu says tackling the high cost of local manufacturing is important, a factor that can be resolved by enabling competitive carpentry skills as well as partnerships with Technical and Vocational Education and Training institutions, government, and private sector.
Back to the older generation and what influenced their taste in décor, Kibaara explains that this generation viewed the home from the perspective of an imposing structure within a big compound.
“They grew up when land was in plenty, so they believed in big structures, a large house with enough bedrooms to accommodate every child. To them, a dining room which could not accommodate ‘a battalion’ of in-laws when they came visiting their daughter, was not worth talking about,” he adds.
But this perspective has been thrown out the window by the younger generation that knows too well that land is getting scarcer by the day and is highly-priced, hence the idea of compact multipurpose home-living. They have also realised that they can save costs by working from home, that all they need is a laptop, smartphone and internet, gadgets that connect them to the world at the touch of a button.
But just as there are merits to running a business from your living room, there are demerits too, Kibaara points out. One advantage is that you save on time and money which you spend commuting to work and paying for office space. Another is that it is safer when you work from home as chances of contracting communicable diseases such as TB and the common cold are minimised. Disadvantages include the risk of developing conditions triggered by a sedentary lifestyle, as well as diminished socialisation. So, home or office? Or both?
