The landscape of Chennai has changed a lot over the last two decades. The once traditionally-rooted and conservative city has now evolved into a melting pot of various cultures and has adapted various practices and concepts from all over the world to suit its developmental needs. Among the array of changes, the housing scenarios is a sphere that as evolved a lot. Housing practices have developed to suit the practical demands of people. In simple terms, the typical independent house is replaced by apartments for practical reasons.
Though the concept of apartments is borrowed from the West for convenience, some people are also holding on to traditional belief-systems such as Vastu in houses. Vastu is an ancient Indian science of architecture and construction. This consists of certain rules and principles regarding the direction of the house and the energy field in the house. The implementation of such concepts in apartments poses a problem to builders sometimes. For example, Vastu experts say that the main entrance should preferably face East or North-East direction. It is practically difficulty to construct all houses in compliance to this but many builders are keeping the requirement of the considerable number of people who are specific about buying Vastu complaint houses during construction. For a section of people, this has become one of the criteria while choosing a home. There are also some people who are finding it more convenient to buy houses and remodel it according to their requirements too.
Apart from Vaastu, there are also several other oriental concepts making the way into people’s belief systems such as Feng Shui. Thus, the real estate scene in Chennai is evolving in different dimensions and builders in Chennai seem to be keeping pace with the demands of people with a wide range of expectations.
