KONE Elevator India hosts one-of-its-kind webinar for Architects

~ Dr Niranjan Hiranandani and Amit Gossain discussed the Future of Real Estate Industry and Vertical Transportation in the New Normal

KONE Elevator India, a wholly owned subsidiary of KONE Corporation, organised a one-of-its-kind, all-exclusive webinar for Architects on the Future of Real Estate Industry and Vertical Transportation in the New Normal on July 21, 2020.  Over 600 Architects from India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Srilanka attended this knowledge sharing session.

The highlight of the webinar was the conversation between Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani, Co-founder and Managing Director, Hiranandani Group and Amit Gossain, Managing Director, KONE Elevator India and South Asia. During the interaction, Dr. Hiranandani shared his views on the current state of the Indian economy and the challenges before the real estate industry in the new normal.

Amit stated that smart living, the new normal, is being defined by flexibility and convenience. Architects are a key stakeholder in ensuring efficient people flow for urban dwellings and KONE closely collaborates with them around the world to make cities greener and smarter, especially now when the whole landscape of real estate is changing in the new normal.

“KONE has been studying everyday challenges in urban residential environments and is addressing them with new solutions that are functional, efficient, and adaptive. From elevator call using WhatsApp to elevator air purifiers and escalator handrail sanitizers, there is a suite of solutions that support people transition into a new normal,” he added.

While responding to a question on buyer sentiments, Dr. Niranjan Hiranandani said that “The demand for residential housing has gone up tremendously with the idea of Work from Home. Today I think the home has become very important and technologies like artificial intelligence, connectivity, digital, and using space in a very optimal manner will be important. The demand for sizes of the house will also increase. And a home that has always been a very large social security factor for Indians has become much more important today.”

“Ideas and changes are taking place in the COVID times and I am pretty excited to see how the post-COVID world will actually cope up with the new situation. But it’s exciting, it’s new and there is a lot of prospect of creating new ideas, new dimensions in architecture and good facilities like KONE does”.

Talking on when he thinks the economy will spring back to normal, he said, “My gut feel is that by Christmas most parts of the economy will get back to normal. In the short term, there is definitely a contraction in demand for commercial space but in the long run, if the economy is managed well and the GDP of India picks up again, the demand for commercial real estate will pick up again,” he added

He further remarked that he is bullish about the growth of the GDP in India over a period of time, but we will have to wait and watch the effectiveness of the policies of the government and how the Make in India and Atmanirbhar pan out.

As part of the webinar, Heikki Rintala, People Flow Intelligence Expert, KONE Asia Pacific, shared his valuable insights on how smart solutions in the vertical transportation industry are going to shape the future of people flow in buildings and how Artificial Intelligence and digitalization are going to play a key role in this transformation.