Homes for senior citizens

NDTV reports that senior citizens are emerging as a new customer segment for property developers as well as other allied services providers for creating a proper assisted living environment for them, say realty experts.

As the number of the elderly population is expected to grow to 173 million by 2025, senior citizens are now being looked at as a potential real estate market, according to a report by property consultant Jones Lang LaSalle.

At Samskruti our communities are designed to allow personal spaces with privacy as well as community spaces which encourage community interaction, sharing, caring and conversation among the members of the community. Several facilities like community kitchen, street designs, placement of parks, amenities like swimming pools with hot water, jacuzzis, walking tracks, play areas, movie theaters and many more. Accessibility to faster medical care while encouraging an indulgent, inclusive and active lifestyle is the secret to build a wonderful community. 

How to reduce dust and noise in your apartments

I agree that mopping, cleaning regularly is a solution, but what else can you do to control noise and dust?

Dust, especially fine dust, causes allergies, breathing problems and other skin related discomforts. It is important to have systems to clean up the dust and prevent it from entering to your homes. The best way is to provide a plant cover and reduce the allergens in the air due to fine dust.

Green enveloping the building also would ensure noise mitigation, protection against the wind. Another great advantage is to control the radiation(either increase or decrease by choice and design).

Moreover it is common knowledge that most of the plants/trees take in Carbondioxide and release Oxygen. 

Write to us to share your views and ideas or to know more.

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Love your family

The most important contribution you can do to your family is being there. Find a home closer to your workplace/school and skip time wasted in travelling. Found this wonderful image from Alison Astair.

At Samskruti Builders, we make sure our locations have good access to transport, schools, hospitals and places of work.

Smart solutions: Power strip

Ever wished you could avoid the tedious task of pulling out the plug and putting in the new one when changing devices in the kitchen?

At Samskruti Builders you can now use multiple appliances at the same time thanks to the smart power strip. The power strip not just provides an easy way to plug and unplug but also allows you to cut off power easily. How about having one for your living room too?

#samskrutihoysala
#buildingsmartcommunities
#samskrutibuilders

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info@samskruti.in
+91 99162 17777

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Let the light in

Do you have enough sunlight coming in to your home? Without proper sunlight, you could end up unhealthy and depending on artificial power.

At Samskruti, we plan, design and build homes that let natural light and air in while avoiding dust and noise.

Write to us to learn more.
info@samskruti.in
+91 99162 17777

Gerrit Botha's 15 ways to reduce food costs

Found this beautiful article to reduce food costs. A must read.

How’s your monthly food bill? Is it sustainable? We’re a family of five on a limited budget from a single income, so we are hawks on food costs. And we’re living in a world of increasing food insecurity, so that it becomes more and more important to consider how we obtain our food and at what price.

1. We keep a whiteboard on the fridge and as we run out of things, we put it on the board. This is the basis of that weeks grocery list and we don't buy things that are not on the list
2. We look at the sale flyers from the newspaper for the items we use and are out of to make up the grocery list and we clip coupons
3. We make up the grocery list by aisle
4. We try to stay to the exterior of the grocery store, where we buy diary, fresh fruit and veggies, frozen vegetables in bulk. Instead of bread we buy the flour, and now the wheat to mill, and make our own bread
5. And we stay away from the processed food and the junk food aisles
6. We don’t buy anything with pretty labels, we buy the no name brands in large quantities
7. We make stuff: we make our own pasta for example
8. We eat vegetarian: it's amazing to bypass an entire aisle
9. We buy strawberries and other fruits pears, blueberry, currants in season and make jam
10. When tomatoes are in season we buy bucketfuls of plum tomatoes and can them. We make salsa, spaghetti sauce, and tomato chili
11. We use a big chest freezer to store food
12. We grow anything we can, even in containers. This past summer we accidentally grew a squash in a container full of marigolds
13. We pickle cucumbers, beets, carrots and beans
14. We make cucumber and other relishes
15. Oh, and we eat out very rarely

Food security is such a big topic and we'll come back to it regularly. But it is important to start somewhere and this is our start. We have a long way to go and much more to do. I'd be very interested in what others are doing to keep food costs under control.

Indoor Air Quality

In Indian conditions, at our homes, primary source of pollutants that cause IAQ problem -

• Smoking
• VOCs from paints
• Vehicular pollution that gets trapped in our house
• Hair from pets
• Dust accumulated on the curtains, furniture, bed
• Fungus formation/growth in utility room and bathrooms
• Pesticides used for mosquitos, cockroaches
• CO from cooking is also a bit of concern
• VOCs from aerosols such as air-fresheners and body deodorants
• VOCs from household cleaners

What we can do to address this -

• Clean, clean, clean (we often ignore the drapery and curtains)
• Get fresh air (but unfortunately, fresh air contains lot of pollutants from vehicles etc...)
• Add plants/trees around the house (these will also filter the aerosol pollutants)
• Add as much indoor plants (such as money plant) as possible
• Use low/no VoC paints, cleaners, fresheners, deodorants
• Use mosquito nets and take proper care during evenings so that you don't have to use pesticides

While constructing your home -

• design for passive air-circulation --- very important
• proper design to take care of mosquitos, insects from entering your house
• proper construct property so that radon won't enter through flooring/walls
• avoid carpet
• Use cleanable drapery
• Add internal courtyard
• Add plants, plants, and plants...

The best dish in the world

Is it really the ingredients which matter most?

Article by our intern Michael Duspiwa from Austria.

If you ask a person, what is the best food in the world, what answers do you get? This is of course not predictable as the individual preferences largely vary. In the United States some people may say “burger”, in Italy the majority might tell you “pasta” or “pizza”, and on the other hand in India some people may say “dosa” is the best food in the world. But what do all this dishes of the individual persons all over the globe have in common? 

From the outside it looks like those dishes have nothing in common, one is with meat and grilled the other is made in an oven and the third one has a similar shape to pizza, but is something completely different. Thus without further examination those have nothing in common, and a comparison among them might not lead to proper results. 

But what the majority of the people asked, will tell you is that it is the pasta cooked by their mum, the burger grilled by their father or the dosa prepared by their grandmother which is the most delicious food on the globe. Thus we associate food with much more than just eating and the taste, it is the person who prepares it and the environment of the meal which contributes its essential part to the perfect enjoyment. It is much more important with whom you eat the meal and who prepares it than the actual meal. 

Where does your family have lunch or dinner, always together or in front of the TV? Especially for kids it is an important part in their education and essential in their way to become a grown up. Thus this has to be preserved as it sticks with every person for the whole life. The dinner together is an important place to talk about school, work, problems, feelings and all other issues. Now imagine how much information among the family members will be exchanged, while eating in front of the television. Nearly nothing, right?

As on the whole world things are getting faster and faster, also the time available which is required preparing a full course meal decreases. Who is usually cooking for the whole family? Yes, most of the time the women in the house. Now the question comes up why they do not like to spend so much time anymore on cooking. The answer is rather simple: Because the father is at work and the kids sit in front of the TV, and the only person in the kitchen is the mother. 

 

By simply not making the kitchen a closed room and by removing all the walls, people are going to enjoy cooking much more as it was in former times. The meals get better, the time is used more efficiently and the community feeling is fostered. Summarizing, by removing your walls and by making one huge room out of living, dining, sleeping room and the kitchen, the best dish of the future generations is assured. 

Remove your walls, it does make a difference, just one single person has to start doing so!

Teach every child about food

 

It is important to teach your kids where food comes from. At Samskruti, we facilitate this by ensuring accessibility to a garden where you can grow and show your children about the food they eat. This teaches, respect, knowledge and help children eat more vegetables and is therapeutic too.

Ask our team for more details on the terrace gardens, roof top gardens and living spaces that are designed to bring ancient customs, traditions and values back to our concrete jailed lives.

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Outdoor games are best for your kids

If you are a parent who is terrified of letting her child crawl on the floor out of the fear that he will eat dirt, then you may be doing him a disservice after all. Many doctors are of the opinion that exposing kids to dirt may have health benefits.

Outdoor games are best for your kids.

Find a neighborhood which is safe, clean and has lots of space for your kids to play.

At Samskruti Builders, we design communities your kids would love to be a part of. Huge spaces with open lawns, gardens, natural habitat which invites birds.

 Read more here:  http://bit.ly/KfLEEv

Green is our lifeline!

Green is our lifeline!

Say no to the plastic spoon!

Lot of effort goes in to the making of a plastic spoon(which is very inefficient and clumsy) that you hardly use for 15 mts. It is not biodegradable easily and ends up polluting.

Refuse | Reuse | Reduce | Recycle  # Samskruti Builders


Image by maxistentialism.com

Dream neighbourhood

Just a dream home isn't the goal now. A dream neighbourhood where you know people around you and share the values and beliefs you share, think on similar lines and grow together.

At Samskruti, we strongly believe likeminded people will make the community vibrant. In all our properties we ensure that most of the points discussed in the video above are taken care of in order to ensure a healthy and smart way of living.

How to grow tomatoes in your garden!

Home grown!

My grandfather was a freedom fighter and lived most of his life in a village barring few trips to a nearby town for an occasional movie. Yes, the good old black and white movies where the script and lyrics were more important than actors and music.After settling all his children he still stays in his village despite all of us inviting him to our homes. Every morning he wakes up early, takes a walk, collects milk from his cattle yard and then is fresh and ready by the time we usually wake up. He has a small piece of land where he grows paddy and toiled on his own. You might not believe it but he is more fitter than I am now!

Change of scene when he visits his daughter, my mother and it is fun to watch him fuss around the house with our comfort, if we are misguided to think it is, and keeps telling us what to do and what not. A part of him still looks at us as grand children who grew up on his shoulders in summers and accompanied to the fields for trips constantly asking him lots of questions to which he patiently answered. I love spending time with him as he is better than wikipedia!

When he saw our small home garden my mom tends to, he gets going. He cleans it, touches the plants, rips off leaves, adjusts the angles, provides support and weeds it while continuously telling us which plants to keep and why we should have tulsi leaves with tea, keep digging the soil and what natural manure we should use and so on. He doesn't mind eating brinjals every day of the week if it is from our garden. Every time he has the first morsel, we know what happens. If it is from our garden for him it tastes better and if it is from the supermarket, it doesn't. He can even taste plastic in which it is packed and pesticides and overall unhealthy feeling.

Over the years after I moved out of home for studies and years of living in hostels, I yearn for my mom's food. Don't know how many times, I had posted about my mom's food on facebook and orkut and how many likes I got :)

Every once in a while when someone is coming from home, I get a dabba. Home cooked food from mom and trust me there is nothing better. May be I have grown to appreciate it more now but it tastes 100 times better than the food I have had in the best of hotels. I don't have the measure but it tastes much better when the vegetables are from my home garden. I know it is healthy, tastes better, is cooked with love and affection. I also know it is smarter and more eco-friendly than what I buy from the supermarket.

At Samskruti, we want you to get an opportunity to have small happy moments that you miss or have no time for. Every home @Samskruti, either in Maurya or Hoysala or Indus Valley, have an option to have a terrace garden or a roof-top garden where you can grow vegetables, flowering plants and even fruits. This is not just for decorative purposes but for more aesthetic purposes than one.

You can teach your children, like we learnt and appreciate now more than ever, where their food comes from and how much effort goes into that. Research suggests that gardening is an excellent therapeutic tool and if it comes with several advantages, then why not! Skip the supermarket option and see if you can grow something in your backyard. More than the money you save, the joy you would get out of this would be priceless.

Minus one project

I saw this video sometime back and makes sense. Just by reducing a font size, if you can reduce paper consumption, then why not? It is easy to carry, exchange and simple.

Eat Smart. Your Food Choices Affect the Climate

(Click on the image to see full size)

GHG data based on lifecycle assessment by www.CleanMetrics.com.

Take shorter showers

Spending only 5 minutes in the shower saves up to 30 litres water each time!

Go out and play!

If you think your children are glued more to the computer or tablet then it is time to worry. Encouraging more physical activity can help in reducing risks like obesity and improve better health. Playing outside the house also encourages social interaction, improves problem solving ability and confidence as they learn to negotiate, cooperate, and share.

So outdoor play area has always been an important component in all our designs. At Samskruti Indus Valley, we have a spacious play area coming up with all the modern amenities. At Samskruti Maurya, we have a 4.75 acre playgound which would cater to the 525 villas in the property. 

Samskruti Hoysala Concept

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