Premium Commodities

Imagine if Hermès designed the iconic Birkin bag to be simultaneously a bag, a suitcase, a hat and a flannel. Imagine further if Hermès kept throwing scarves and perfumes as freebies to entice consumers to buy the Birkin.

Would the Birkin still command such an iconic status as the ultimate consumer commodity?

Quite the contrary, this would signal an inferior product.

So why is property designed, branded and marketed this way? Looking at commercial workplace for example, The office is now a hotel, a teenager’s bedroom, a conservatory, a yoga studio - besides being a workplace.

And if this were not enough, the kitchen sink is thrown in with amenities. This is at best confused messaging and at worst a sign of desperation.

The Birkin is a very well designed item, conceived to address a need: the lack stylish bags that catered to mothers, but what elevates the Birkin to an icon is the consumer desire it commands, thanks to the combination of:

1️⃣ the beauty of its design

2️⃣ the world building its brand engages in

3️⃣ the rituals associated with it (with the designed scarcity and the waiting lists)

4️⃣ and the status it ultimately signals

Of course, the Birkin is an extreme case in point, but it does epitomise the tenets of consumer logic.

Property is a consumer commodity, and whilst developers are conscious of its transactional nature, property is still seen as a building trade and building utility - at least its architectural design model still is.

What if we thought of property development as a consumer brand that is vying for a share of the consumer market, rather than an asset that needs to be occupied? What if property were designed with the consumer in mind - not to give the consumer what they already wanted but to create a commodity that the consumer would desire? What if developers emulated the world building that other consumer brands do so successfully?

This would require for the current architectural design model to radically change. Enter Manufacturing Taste.

We are Manufacturing Taste. We work with developers and agents, not to follow the market, but to define it.