Working from home and hosting at The Gardens

The weekly rhythm of The Gardens (supermarket in the building, pool in the morning, marina outside) has been described before. This piece covers two other parts of life there: the working day spent at home, and the evening when people come round.

The working day

Many tenants in Hulhumalé now spend part of the week working from the flat, and the question is where. In most apartments the answer is the dining table. In the seventh-floor three-bedroom Binga let at The Gardens, every one of the three en-suite bedrooms had a built-in desk nook and a fitted wardrobe. A household of two working adults and a student can each have a desk, a door and a bathroom without turning the living room into an office.

Each of those bedrooms also opened onto its own private balcony. Between calls, you step out for air without crossing the flat.

When the flat gets too quiet, the building has a change of scene. The café is in the building, so a mid-morning coffee or a meeting is a lift ride away rather than a trip across the island. The gym is there for the hour after the last call. The supermarket means the question of what to cook tonight is settled on the way back up.

The evening you host

The Gardens is a good building for guests, and the reasons are practical.

Visitor parking is on the catalogue's list, separate from residents' parking, so a friend driving over has somewhere to leave the car. The building has 24/7 security, and guests arrive through the lobby.

Then there is the space. The seventh-floor three-bedroom was described as having a massive private terrace with marina views, and the first-floor three-bedroom as having expansive balconies. A terrace like that seats a dinner party outdoors, with the marina as the backdrop. Inside, open-plan living around an island kitchen means whoever is cooking stays part of the conversation.

At the top of the building, the 3+1 suite on the tenth floor takes hosting a step further: its own private pool, four bathrooms for a full house of guests, fully furnished.

Children in the picture

For a family, the working day and the hosted evening have children at the edges. The play area and the garden are where they go when the adults are busy. The pool is the afternoon. And the garbage chute means the day's rubbish is dealt with in the building, not carried downstairs with a toddler on one arm.

Who this suits

Couples and families where at least one adult works from home. Executives who entertain and want a terrace rather than a restaurant booking. Households who want their everyday needs, from coffee to groceries to exercise, inside the building. It suits less anyone who needs a large dedicated workspace or a business centre, which the catalogue does not list.