Tayo Adejumo, the amazon founder and CEO of Kimberly Group, a construction and architectural company in Nigeria, has called for a radical shift in the nation’s luxury housing market from expensive finishes and impressive features to homes intentionally designed around the people who live in them.

She questioned the model being operated in the country, where expensive houses are deemed to be luxury pieces by property market operators.

Adejumo, an environment and architectural strategist with wide expertise in infrastructure and housing development, said in an interview that Kimberly Group has grown into a dominant force in the industries in which it operates, with her vision continuing to drive the purpose of each entity. She said the group’s ambition is not only to change the taste of luxury homes in Nigeria, but also how homeowners feel about the spaces they inhabit.

“We talk about luxury homes in Nigeria largely through price: ₦500 million, ₦1 billion, ₦2.5 billion, ₦5 billion. Then we describe the inventory — six bedrooms, cinema, swimming pool, elevator, imported kitchen, marble floors, chandeliers, walk-in wardrobes and smart-home systems. All beautiful things. But if someone can afford a ₦2.5 billion home, money is clearly not the limitation. The more important question is: what has all of that got to do with the person who is actually going to live there? At KÏMBERLŸS GROUP, I believe luxury residential design should begin with intention. A truly exceptional home should not merely announce wealth; it should improve the quality of the owner’s everyday life,” she said.

According to Tayo Adejumo, who is charting a new frontier in luxury housing, homeowners investing hundreds of millions or billions of naira in private residences should expect architecture to respond to their actual lifestyles rather than simply replicate conventional luxury-house templates.

“A person investing hundreds of millions or billions of naira in a private residence should be able to demand more than expensive finishes. The home should understand how they wake up, dress, work, entertain and rest; how much noise they tolerate; how they experience light; whether nature calms them; whether they prefer intimacy or openness; whether they work from home; whether their children are young, grown or constantly returning; whether parents may eventually live with them; and how domestic staff and household services should operate,” she said.

She added that “Even the less glamorous realities of residential life — laundry, waste, water, solar systems, maintenance, storage and heavy rainfall — deserve intelligent planning. That is the design. Not merely the allocation of rooms or the application of marble, but the creation of an environment that understands the life taking place inside it,” she stated.

She explained that a home continuously influences the experiences and routines of its occupants, making factors such as sound, light, temperature, movement, privacy, nature and clutter important elements of luxury design.

“A home is an environment acting on you every day. Sound acts on you. Light acts on you. Temperature, clutter, movement, privacy and nature all influence how a space is experienced. A home can quietly create friction, or it can remove it,” Tayo Adejumo stressed.

“This is why I am increasingly interested in designing around the human being rather than beginning with a conventional room schedule. For me, real luxury lies in the layering of functionality, aesthetics, acoustics, lighting, temperature, flow, privacy, nature, storage, service circulation, maintenance and wellbeing.” She said designers should consider “how a space feels at 6 a.m., how it feels at midnight, how it sounds when 20 people are visiting and how peaceful it becomes when everyone leaves,” stressing that “The home should not simply look beautiful in photographs; it should feel beautiful to live in.”

On integrating nature into residential architecture, the enterprising business woman said it should not be treated as decoration added after the building has been designed.

“Nature, too, should not be decoration added after the architecture is finished,” she said, describing another residential concept in which a mature tree sits at the centre of the house, with the building wrapping around it. She said the upper floor incorporates “a covered internal veranda around an open-to-sky courtyard, allowing the owner to remain connected to the tree even when it rains