The past couple of decades introduced the world to new ways of living as a result of different social, economic, and ecological changes. Naturally, these changes found their way into the architecture and urban practice, provoking new concepts within traditional typologies. Designing a space, regardless of its function, has always prioritized users' needs and ensured practicality and functionality, but recently, keywords like flexibility, privacy, inclusivity, and eco-consciousness have become driving forces behind design processes. In this interior focus, we will look at how current cities and living trends across the world have reshaped interior design and introduced modifications to typical typologies.
Undoubtedly, economical, political, and cultural challenges have provoked endless questions on how people will live and work together in the future. Given that by 2030, it is estimated that 60 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban areas and the workforce is still undergoing constant transformations especially after the pandemic, architects have been addressing these changes by implementing new features and modifying typical residential, commercial, and cultural projects.
Read on to learn more about how the current cities and living trends have defined new interior projects, explored through 17 projects from our database.
Work from Home
Evident changes in traditional workspaces have been observed during the past decade: startup culture, freelancing, the "Great Resignation", and the infamous two years of working from home. Following a completely unexpected confinement period, employees had to find ways to integrate offices into their houses. Not all of them had an extra room to spare, so they either squeezed in a desk in the corner of the living room or bedroom, or transformed their dining table into an office desk, completely disregarding ergonomics, privacy, and wellbeing. For that reason, post 2020, architects began implementing a radical modification of how and where people work and live, especially in small-scale housing projects.
Khiankhai Home & Studio / Sher Maker
Varanda Building / Todot Architects and Partners
Co-Living
As more cities grow bigger, urban density remains a critical concern for architects and urban planners; How can they ensure the privacy of residents while providing communal and recreational spaces? This put cohabitation projects under the spotlight, proving that if properly designed, the density of a building does not necessarily equal to the overcrowding of people. Although this community-driven typology accommodates unrelated individuals within the same housing unit, each get their own private dwelling with its essential facilities, complemented with shared communal areas. In addition, multigenerational living has also found its way back to modern housing. As younger generations find difficulties affording private houses and the elderly are at risk of isolation or neglect, more families are bringing back traditional living conditions and are opting for the “all under one roof” lifestyle.
Zeze Osaka Coliving House / SWING
LT Josai Shared House / Naruse Inokuma Architects
Multigenerational Living
Three Generation House / BETA office for architecture and the city
House for 4 Generations / tomomi kito architect & associates
Sustainability
Sustainability and the responsibility of achieving net-zero architecture remains an important ethos in the architecture practice. Architects and urban planners are always questioning how the built environment can be eco-friendly and energy-efficient while keeping its functionality intact. Several solutions have been implemented to minimize the fact that the construction industry, to this day, accounts for nearly 40% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions (11% of which are a result of manufacturing building materials such as steel, cement, and glass), whether it being by utilizing local materials, blurring the boundaries between nature and architecture, or tackling the issue of sustainable living and the housing crisis,
Local Materials
Sunyata Eco Hotel / Design Kacheri
Kakapo Creek Children’s Garden / Collingridge And Smith Architects (CASA)
Direct Access to Landscape or Water
E Poolhouse / Habif Architects
Strong Arm House / MCK Architecture & Interiors
Biophilic Design and Bringing the Outdoors in
Scaffold House / Gaurav Roy Choudhury Architects GRCA
Biophilic Office / Andyrahman Architect
Micro-living
As the global population is constantly evolving and moving from one place to another, employees are increasingly migrating to bigger cities, which has generated a new living challenge; finding an affordable, reasonably-scaled place to live in within these busy metropolises. Some workers choose to settle far from city centers, benefitting from larger houses and quieter areas, but in return have to spend more time and money commuting. Others on the other hand, choose to live in tiny city studios that provide the basic functions of a house, gaining proximity to commercial, transportation, and recreational facilities in return. That, in addition to several lifestyle and cultural changes observed between millennials and Gen Z,
such as having different financial means or preferring to have small families, one of the increasingly recurring living trends across the world within the past decade is micro-living.
Apartment Renovation in Singapore / Studio Wills + Architects
Uxolo Apartments / Two Five Five Architects
Wellness as a Priority
Although wellness has long been a priority, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically influenced the way people value their physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, causing rapid and unprecedented changes across almost all aspects of life. In architecture, many residential projects integrated gyms or natural elements, or used specific interior design aesthetics to exude a sense of warmth and coziness, and promote physical and mental wellbeing. In offices, employers were already concerned about the well-being of their teams and how to attract new talent to work in their physical spaces way before the pandemic, so they integrated quiet zones, recreational and leisure areas, giving employees the chance to decompress and improve their performance.
Google EMEA Engineering Hub / Camezind Evolution
AN Amsterdam Office / Studio Noun
A Private Reading Room / atelier tao+c
Find more interiors influenced by current cities and living trends in this My ArchDaily folder created by the author.
This article is part of an ArchDaily series that explores features of interior architecture, from our own database of projects. Every month, we will highlight how architects and designers are utilizing new elements, new characteristics and new signatures in interior spaces around the world. As always, at ArchDaily, we highly appreciate the input of our readers. If you think we should mention specific ideas, please submit your suggestions.
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Cities and Living Trends. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and projects. Learn more about our ArchDaily topics. As always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.
