Bundling Modular Furniture with Real Estate

CW discovers that leading property developers are opting for modular furniture to fulfill customer needs as well as their own targets.

Factory-made, standardised furniture made up of components or modules, hence modular furniture, is a growing market in India mainly because of increasing acceptability by end-users who have become aware of its advantages.

The concept of modular furniture is picking up because customers are more aware of interior concepts prevailing in the West, where modular kitchens have been around since the 1950s, says Nagesh Singh, Founder, Studio Svelte. “One of the most salient advantages of modular furniture, or flexi furniture as it is also called, is that it is amenable to changes in layout and look of interiors.”

“We’re seeing growing awareness of the concept of modular furniture among the affluent; customers want to invest in furniture they can carry with them when they move city or buy another house and this is only possible with modular wardrobes, etc,” says Gandharv Gombar, Director, Hacker Kitchens. “We offer support to customers over the lifetime of the product to ensure their products are properly disassembled and reassembled.” 

And Manoj Rathi, AVP and Head, U&US Home Design Studio, counts rapid urbanisation and growth of real estate and property buyers’ aspirations as the key factors growing demand for modular and compact furniture.

Modular furniture is in demand for different types of real estate: Premium as well as affordable housing, offices, hotels and educational buildings. This is because the concept delivers advantages to different types of projects from both the supply and demand side. 

“It is easier to transport wardrobes and cabinets in a knocked-down condition to, say, 100 apartments in a high-rise, through lifts, and assemble them on site, than it is to transport readymade pieces of furniture,” observes Singh. 

“In residential projects, modular wardrobes, beds, TV consoles and shoe racks are popular nowadays,” says Bijayini Dash, Studio Head, Designqube Bangalore.

“RERA necessitates projects to be completed in time and modular furniture, which can be factory-made and transported to the site for a fit-out, helps developers stick to tight deadlines,” says Digvijay Dhabriya, Managing Director, Dynasty Modular Furniture. That said, he believes much of the modular furniture available in India is semi-modular, in that it can only be partially (not fully) disassembled.

“From the perspective of the occupant-owner, buying property ready furnished with modular furniture is a win-win proposition for multiple reasons,” says Dhabriya. “Reputed developers bring in top-rated designers, the fit-outs happen before handover of the property, which saves a huge amount of time, and the cost saving to the owner is about 40-50 per cent of the market price of the furniture. This is because component vendors, hardware brands such as Hettich, Hafele and Blum, which are preferred brands for offering lifetime guarantee, offer bulk buyers such as modular furniture companies roughly double the discount they would offer a single buyer. Also, the owner gets to buy the furniture on a tax-deductible instalment because the cost is included in the property price, which is usually covered by a bank loan.”

“In low-rise housing projects as well as hotel construction, modular interiors have gained a firm foothold for offering faster project completion time, which means multi family units and hotel rooms will begin streaming revenue sooner, a metric of strong interest to capital investors,” says Rathi. “Additionally, modular properties are seen as having a lower barrier to entry, which means price-conscious clients and those with budgetary limitations may gain access to housing or commercial properties in attractive locations that might otherwise have been beyond their reach.”

“In offices, modular furniture is a modern-day convenience for permitting dynamic company structures,” says Sonali Rastogi, Founding Partner, Morphogenesis. “The multifunctional and highly adaptive nature of modular furniture accommodates changes in resourcing, working formats and groups, and tailors to the user’s needs. It allows for flexibility and gives immense possibilities for planning and transforming one’s space depending on the working style and requirements of storage, partitioning, etc. Hence, for companies undergoing organisational re-structuring, 

I would advise modular furniture. 

It also works well where affordability is a prime concern. 

As it is component based, one can simply start with the workstations, and later bring in partitions, etc.”

“Modular furniture is amenable to shifting office, inexpensive and lightweight compared to traditional furniture and, hence, easy to procure and transport,” adds Dash. “Workstations, storage, pedestals and tables are generally modular 

in nature.”

“Education is an important segment for Featherlite,” says Dhiren Gopal, Director, Featherlite. “More and more institutions are opting for modular furniture for their classrooms, training rooms, laboratories and the like, for offering both aesthetics and comfort.”

From the perspective of real-estate development, the residential segment is a major contributor to the growth of modular furniture. So, who are the developers that have entered the modular furniture market as bulk buyers, and what are they buying?

Studio Svelte offers Berloni modular kitchens from Italy and has designed and produced modular furniture in India since 1986. “We have worked with Emaar, World Residency, Supertech, Ajnara, and others,” says Singh.

“We cater to owner-occupants as well as developers of premium residences such as DLF, Uppal Housing and Indiabulls,” says Gombar. “Our market spans Tier-I cities as well as Tier-2 cities such as Bhopal and Indore, as high-net-worth individuals living anywhere are exposed to global trends in modular furniture and typically visit metros to source materials.”

“Our experience has been that developers offer customers the choice of buying a bare shell apartment, or one fitted with Indian modular furniture, or one fitted with imported premium modular solutions,” says Gombar. “Offering two price brackets for the modular solution helps cater to different categories of buyers. Typically, the imported option attracts only discerning affluent buyers as it attract customs and, hence, is priced roughly 30-40 per cent above the locally available solution.” He pegs the cost of fully furnishing a four-bedroom apartment of, say, 3,500-4,000 sq ft covered area at `5-6 million, excluding the cost of bathroom fittings.

“We work with Adani, DLF, Mahindra, BPTP, Vatika and others, typically for their residential projects offering apartments priced between Rs.5 milllion and Rs.30 million,” says Dhabriya. 

“It has become a trend for developers to offer modular furniture in every flat costing `20-25 million. Developers like Adani and DLF involve us for the supply and fitting of essential furniture, say three to four wardrobes, kitchen cabinets and vanity (bathroom cabinets), typically 300-400 sq ft of frontal area of cabinets per apartment.”

Rathi believes India is still some years away from complete acceptance of the concept of bundling furniture and interiors with property, the established practice in the West. However, now that some developers have recognised the need to differentiate their product and offer modular furniture as a value add, the way forward looks promising.

With modular furniture, we have a wide variety of furniture (in shape, size and colour) to choose from with pre-set standards of quality, finish and durability, explains Bijayini Dash, Studio Head, Designqube Bangalore. 

Picking the right combination is easier nowadays as most modular furniture vendors like IKEA offer experience centres where the client can see the product before buying. “In such cases, the interior design process becomes more about smart placement and coordination,” observes Dash. “The combinations thus chosen are more likely to click.”

U&Us Home Design Studio is a one-stop shop for unique interior offerings that may be customised and integrated into an overall home interiors plan by customers, assisted by a team of expert interior designers and project managers. To offer consumers the widest possible range of home security solutions, appliances and home automation, U&Us Home Design Studio has partnered with other brands. “Modelled as the ‘One Godrej’ concept, U&Us aims at allowing consumers to experience the entire gamut of home solutions from the house of Godrej & Boyce at one place,” says Manoj Rathi, AVP and Head, U&US Home Design Studio. “Our interactions with customers reveal that they are willing to spend around 10-15 per cent of their entire house budget exclusively on interiors,” he adds.

Godrej Interio provides modular kitchens to leading developers such as Godrej Properties, Lodha, Omkar etc. Key trends in this space span design, materials used and finishes, says Manoj Rathi, AVP and Head, U&US Home Design Studio. “Kitchens are opening up into living rooms, hence making the spaces more social in keeping with social trends. Materials such as glass, wood, wood substitutes, artificial stone and metal are in vogue. Back-painted glass, PU, veneer and polish are popular finishes.”

Modular cabinets for kitchens come in standard widths of 45 cm, 60 cm, 90 cm and 1.2 m, says Nagesh Singh, Founder, Studio Svelte. Cabinets of 1.2 m width aren’t popular in India because Indian wood is said to bend at that width; however, Singh attributes this to incorrect production methods such as the use of screws.

“We are seeing a growing interest in modern minimalistic and straight-line designs, and stone, ceramic, glass and concrete finishes instead of conventional classic designs and wood finishes,” says Gandharv Gombar, Director, Hacker Kitchens, which offers global brands such as Hulsta, Rolf Benz and Flou.

In the office segment, Dhiren Gopal, Director, Featherlite, says users nowadays are looking to create comfort zones for the individual, essentially private spaces as opposed to open office plans. However, modular furniture is better suited to open office plans.

On average, Gopal pegs the cost of a workstation between Rs.15,000 and Rs.25,000, albeit depending on the location and end-use of the building. “Featherlite’s expertise is mass customisation; architects select from our registered designs and request minor changes to suit their project. We take pride in working with clients to create the furniture of their choice with our designs.”