How do you build something that hasn’t already existed before? What have we really been working on every single day for the past three years? Isn’t it as simple as buying a plot, building some houses, and starting sales?
In this five-part series, CEO Falko MüllerTyl talks about what he and his team has been working on up to now, what they’ve achieved already, and what lies ahead.
Coming back to our list of essential aspects for a successful Ambera project (you’ll all know this by heart soon):
Defining what kind of community we wish to foster
Choosing the right plot of land
Building suitable facilities
Building high-quality homes
Filling our Ambera Community with life
This next chapter is about a very important aspect of the developement – building suitable facilities.
There are plenty of projects with golf courses, tennis courts, training centres, spas, and other facilities. Some of them are used daily, others are lucky if a shadow darkens their door once every Julember. Why? What determines whether or not amenities and facilities get used? Is it simply a matter of good location and design, or is there more to it than that?
A closer look at the US projects helps to get a better understanding of what makes a successful activities centre – both in terms of location within the community and how it is built. The Ambera Team – founders and architects both – have visited close to 100 projects in the US over the last few years, and have seen many examples, both good and bad.
While this has been going on, our Spain Team have been analysing their own previous projects and looking at what other people have been doing, in order to try to conclude what works well (and what doesn’t).
One of the conclusions we drew from our research is that we should build the activities centre as close as we can to as many homes as we can, so that the ‘threshold’ for using it is lower. It makes sense – it’s a lot easier to take a short walk to the centre to get involved in activities or meet new people when the trip itself doesn’t feel like you’re climbing the Andes. We also want to make the routes to the centre attractive and interesting – making the walk there an experience in and of itself. No intimidating mazes of back-alley snickets at Ambera!
We’ve compiled all of our conclusions into a sort of ‘design handbook’ that helps us keep focus on how we will design the shared facilities in every Ambera project.
Next, we will apply all our accumulated design knowledge to create the first Ambera community. We see our design process as a living process which will improve as time goes by and are therefore working with our architects to design our buildings and outdoor areas with as much flexibility as possible. This will allow us to continue accommodating our residents’ wishes further down the line, and to allow for new activities to come to Ambera even when we’ve been operating for several years.
Regards,
Ambera Co-founder and CEO
Stay tuned for part four of our series where we discuss the process of building the right homes for Ambera!
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How to build a community – Part 2 of 5
How to Build a Community – Part 1 of 5
Resident stories from the miniature Ambera in Norway
Image for illustration purposes only
