What makes The Gardens beautiful to come home to

The Gardens is not a tower. It is a ten-storey condominium of 83 homes in Hulhumalé, built by JAAH Investments Pvt. Ltd. and facing the marina, and its beauty is that of a building sized for people rather than for a skyline. The garden, the terraces and the interiors carry most of it.

A building you can know

Ten floors and 83 homes is a scale most people can hold in their heads. The lift ride is short. The lobby sees the same faces. The shared spaces are few enough that each one is in use: the catalogue lists a swimming pool, a gym, a café, a supermarket, a play area, a lobby and, the one that gives the building its name, a garden.

The developer describes The Gardens as aiming to "redefine luxury living in the region". That is a claim for the reader to test at viewing. What the building plainly offers is proportion. Nothing is oversized, and nothing feels like it was added for the brochure and then locked.

The water in the window

The Gardens looks out on the marina. One listing describes a "front-row seat" to the Hulhumalé Marina View building and the shimmering waterfront. Binga has let homes on both the first and the seventh floor with that view.

The low floors and the high floors see it differently. From the first floor, the marina is close, a scene with boats and people at eye level, and the expansive balconies of the three-bedroom let there make the most of it. From the seventh, the same water becomes a panorama. The three-bedroom let on that floor was described as having a massive private terrace with marina views. A terrace of that size is an outdoor room for dining in the evening.

Not every home faces the water. The building also has a villa side, where Binga let a furnished two-bedroom on the fifth floor. At a viewing, ask which side a home is on and what the balcony actually looks at.

Interiors in a quiet register

The Gardens' homes, as Binga has seen them, lean towards restraint. The seventh-floor three-bedroom was described as blending "Japandi minimalism with effortless coastal living". In practice that means open-plan living around a sleek island kitchen, three en-suite bedrooms, fitted wardrobes and a built-in desk nook in each bedroom.

Those nooks are a small thing with a large effect. A desk that is part of the joinery leaves the room uncluttered and gives every bedroom a purpose beyond sleep, whether for a child's homework or an adult's laptop. Each of those bedrooms also has its own private balcony. Light and air come to every room, not only the living room.

The top of the building

The tenth floor holds the building's most unusual home: a 3+1 suite of 1,300 square feet with four bathrooms and its own private pool, fully furnished. A private pool on a residential floor in Hulhumalé is uncommon. The suite is the clearest sign of what the developer meant by elegance: water inside the home itself, not only in the view.

What it adds up to

The beauty of The Gardens is cumulative rather than dramatic. A garden in a building named for it, a marina seen from a balcony or a terrace, bedrooms with a desk and a balcony each, and a café and supermarket in the same building as your front door. None of these is spectacular alone. Together they give a building that is pleasant to come back to at the end of a working day.