Have you ever seen an apartment complex with a book café where you can read beside a beautiful view, a swimming pool, golf driving range, and even an art gallery? These days apartment buildings have transcended the provision of housing and now offer learning facilities, shared rest areas and places to enjoy recreation. These are community spaces. What kind of community spaces do modern apartment complexes have, and what do they mean to our lives?
Let’s learn about the community facilities that Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction Group include when building new apartment complexes.
Understanding community spaces
A community space is an environment that encourages interaction and collaboration between members of a local community. Community spaces are where people come together, building resilience and creating an active sense of community by engaging with each other and sharing experiences.
While public spaces are public spaces are areas in the public realm that provide a public use or recreation function, and are open to anybody and everybody, for example, marketplaces and streets, community spaces are bound together by shared features such as belonging to the same workplace or being members of the same club, school, or religion. Community spaces can take various forms, for example a neighborhood communal garden, a workplace breakout area, a school library, or a recreation center.
The importance of community spaces is well recognized. Firstly, they promote communication and social engagement by creating venues for communication and interaction among individuals. Secondly, they they enhance our wellbeing, health and quality of life. And thirdly, through the building of social networks, community spaces can contribute to community development and growth, enabling participation by even more members.
Making community spaces in apartment buildings
In dense urban environments where people live close together, community spaces can make the contrast clearer between merely residing and truly living. For example, some high-end apartment buildings in London are equipped with a gym with pool, sauna and steam room, yoga room and fitness studio, residents’ lounge, courtyard, rooftop terrace, and private cinema.
Not to be outdone, some counterparts in Washington D.C. feature an art gallery, rooftop garden greenhouse, music practice room, private museum, and so on.
There are also community spaces to be found in apartments constructed by Samsung C&T E&C Group. First and foremost come facilities that increase the health and fitness of residents such as gyms, golf driving ranges, swimming pools, indoor and outdoor exercise spaces, badminton courts, and table tennis rooms.
People of all ages can find a community space in a Samsung C&T apartment complex that fits their needs. For the youngsters there are kids’ cafés, daycare centers, and kindergartens, while for retirees there are seniors’ clubs.
To enrich the lives of residents culturally, there are spaces like libraries, music practice rooms, banquet halls, and cafés. And some apartments constructed by Samsung C&T even have facilities that are hard to find elsewhere, like a rock-climbing wall, campsite, pet garden, and personal office space. For those who need it, there are even services that provide meals, offering breakfast and lunch.
Community spaces at Raemian One Bailey
The recently completed Raemian One Bailey apartment complex, in the Banpo neighborhood south of the Han River, contains many community spaces. We have already written about the Nature Gallery landscaping introduced at One Bailey to create a natural, green space for residents to engage in small group activities.
Together, the facilities at Raemian One Bailey have been named “The Grand Tour.” This name calls to mind the journeys of adventure and growth that young people once made through europe. Samsung C&T hopes that residents of Raemian One Bailey will also experience adventure and growth through a grand tour of the community spaces and facilities available to them.
Each section has a different theme taken from somewhere around the world. The lobby is inspired by New York, hub of culture and finance. Meanwhile, the dining facilities are modeled after Paris, city of gourmands. The swimming pool area borrows its aesthetics from Antalya, the beautiful Turkish resort.
Importantly, the design of Raemian One Bailey has not just focused on aesthetics, but also practicality. The layout and connectivity are designed so that people of all ages and those with movement disabilities can safely and conveniently get around.
The sky bridge connecting the Raemian One Bailey towers provides a breathtaking panoramic view of the Han River and the northern part of Seoul. It is here that many residents will want to sit and admire the city sights, or just relax with a loved one or a book.
Other facilities at Raemian One Bailey include a guesthouse, book café, smart office space, rock climbing wall, fitness and sports center, sauna, screen golf, and more. It is expected that residents will make use of these facilities while building and strengthening a sense of community with each other, improving their quality of life and wellbeing.
