A Villa Community in the North, Where Water Becomes the Neighbourhood Street

The Evening Spent on the Bridge

We drew the first sketch of Veniza at the office table, next to an old photograph of the canals of Venice. The question was simple: if the main street of a villa community were water, how would people behave differently? On an asphalt street, everyone passes one another by. On a small bridge, they stop.

That pause became the starting point of the design. We placed the bridges where the route from home to café crosses the water, so that neighbours see one another without having arranged to meet.

Sense of place: why some villa communities stay empty

In environmental psychology, "sense of place" means a person's attachment to the place where they are. Seeing and hearing water is generally associated with more pausing and calm. A community that offers only walls, gates and parking does not build that attachment, which is one reason many villa communities in the north stay quiet for a considerable part of the year.

In Veniza we put water at the centre: a lake with a small beach, and a canal that runs between the villas. In the design, cafés and restaurants, wooden jetties, an infinity pool and an open-air cinema are arranged around the water.

A villa designed for living, not only for photographs

The design includes two-storey villas. The roofs are green so that the humid summer reaches the interior less; the terraces face the garden, not the street; and wooden canopies separate the parking from the façade. In the plan, streets are paved with brick and the pedestrian and bicycle path is kept apart from cars, so children can walk to the small beach without crossing a street used by vehicles.

These are details you will not see in a listing, but ten years on they make the difference between a living villa community and a row of empty villas.

Judge a villa community with these five questions

First, title and land use: does the community have subdivision and construction permits? Second, management after sale: who is responsible for security, upkeep of the green space and the water, and the service charges? Third, infrastructure: are water, electricity, gas and sewage actually built for every plot, or only drawn on the map?

Fourth, shared space: is there somewhere to meet a neighbour, or only walls? Fifth, the builder: does the builder have a completed building you can visit? Ask these questions of every villa community, including ours.

How to compare villa communities in the north

Someone looking to buy a villa in the north usually searches for the region's well-known villa communities. Each has its own history and qualities, and we do not pass judgment on them; our suggestion is to measure all of them, Azhianeh's projects included, by the same yardstick.

Title and permits, built infrastructure, management after sale, shared space and the builder's track record: note these five criteria for every villa community you visit and set them side by side. A community that gives clear, written answers to these questions is worth a second visit.

A design for living, not only a villa design

At Azhianeh we have not locked "a design for living" into a single definition. For us, a villa community is a chance to design a way of life rather than a single house: a place where water, trees and neighbours take the place of fences and streets.

For investment in or purchase within a villa community, contact the sales office of the Azhianeh development and construction group.

See also

• Veniza: a waterside villa community
• Azhianeh villa communities and villages
• Building a villa from land purchase to key handover
• Contact the sales office

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