Homeowners in 2025 wanted more from their homes, including space for income generation, gig work, and room to comfortably accommodate multiple generations or blended families, all within a smaller, more affordable footprint.
The key to increasing functionality without increasing square footage was versatility, a principle that drove the design behind the 2025 Virtual Concept Home created by BUILDER magazine’s 2023 Builder of the Year, Ashton Woods, and powered by Zonda Virtual.
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The 2025 Virtual Concept Home’s tags “one home, full flex” and “all yours, or yours to share” hinted at the potential within the flexible footprint. “It is essentially three homes in one,” said Jay Kallos, senior vice president of architecture at Ashton Woods, noting that design options included an accessory dwelling unit over the garage, main house living space, and attached, rentable space integrated within the main house.
The concept home offered homeowners the option to occupy the entire home, dedicate a portion to gig work and/or income generation, or rent out everything from living space to parking spots and swimming pool access. The design was futureproofed, as homeowners could repurpose space easily, eliminating the need to move or renovate, further adding to affordability and convenience.
Zonda Virtual
Proprietary technology from Zonda Virtual made it easy to visualize possibilities through immersive, interactive virtual tours. House hunters had the power to modify what they saw on the fly. Multiple layouts were available room-by-room, as were lifestyle-supported spaces, including flex space for bedrooms, a mudroom, a coffee bar, a dedicated pet area, and a dirty kitchen. House hunters could mix and match furnishings, fixtures, and try aesthetics with different mood palettes. Various products from sponsors were placed throughout for inspiration, with four façades to choose from.
This virtual home presented its features in an organized way to help homeowners understand spatial relationships and addressed the nuance in design that sometimes gets lost when you move into a virtual environment: interplay of light, shadows, and color acuity. In the 2025 Virtual Concept Home, these small but significant details guided more accurate decisions and supported choices aligned with what homeowners needed at the time, while considering what they would need in the future.
