From high-tech to hygge, our homes changed dramatically in the 2010s. What will the 2020s bring?
When families gather to celebrate the old year and look forward to the new, the home becomes far more than what Le Corbusier, the Swiss-French modernist architect, called a "machine for living". As an anxious decade ends with the world in political turmoil, our homes comfort us. They are reflections of ourselves in their size and shape, how they are furnished and the devices they contain. Their evolution is a census of the decade.
We may have barely noticed, but homes have changed in three significant ways in the past 10 years, driven by forces beyond our physical boundaries. Some houses have grown larger, with basements and extensions added to 19th-century structures. Others have become softer, with wood-burning stoves, candles and throws offering a cocoon effect for tense occupants. Still others have been filled with more technology, the kinds of objects of which Le Corbusier might have approved.
For many, the value of home has risen, not just economically but also emotionally — the average American spent eight days more at home in 2012 compared with 2003, partly due to home working. "The world is a scary place. You get calm and strength and foundation at home," says Lisa White, director of lifestyle and interiors at the consultancy WGSN. "Generation Z is more homely than we thought."
Inequality is played out in housing. There are more homeless people on the streets of big cities than there were a decade ago. Meanwhile, the owner-occupier often lives in a house that is not only worth more but is lighter, warmer and more comfortable. Many UK building codes are tighter and today, it is more common to hire an architect, not simply a builder, when remodelling one of the 15m English homes built before 1967.
At the same time, ownership has become rarer and less attainable for the millennial generation, whose parents could more easily put down deposits and secure mortgages to buy whole houses, even in London. A decade of asset-price inflation since the 2008-09 financial crisis has shattered old verities about settling down with children in our own homes, and has created a "generation rent".
"People's basic needs have not changed — to be loved, to belong, to work, to be safe and secure, but technology and the environment have changed," says Axel Unger, a partner in the design company Ideo. "It used to be a fireplace that gave you comfort, but maybe it is your family Netflix account now. Some physical elements of homes are dematerialised by technology."
Return of the bedsit
The first way in which the home changed in the past decade was space — its size and form. This was a continuation of a gradual process over the past half-century, reflecting the fact that many homes are old and built for a different style of living. The British prefer old houses but do not want to live like Victorians, with kitchens, parlours and outside toilets.
"Homes have been extended a lot more in the past 10 years because the shape of the family has changed," says Alex Depledge, chief executive of Resi, an online architecture and design consultancy. "Original homes are not fit for purpose any more, so the entire stock is being upgraded." Her business has been helped by changes in UK stamp duty that made it more expensive to move, and cheaper to stay put.
London streets may be full of builders digging out basements and converting lofts but the house project of the decade was the side-return conversion, with its glazed rooflights and sliding doors. Modernist boxes with plenty of light that combined kitchens, dining rooms and even working spaces proliferated, breaking down the warren of the Victorian originals.
But that was not the end of the story. Rooms were originally designed for privacy and to stop the smell of cooking spreading, and architects are noting a recent fashion to re-establish those boundaries. "Some people are trying to divide kitchens off again, at least with sliding glass," says Amin Taha, founder of the architecture studio Groupwork. Zoning will define the next decade, not open-plan layouts.
Depledge calls the phenomenon "broken plan" — the marking off of areas of space with screens and plants. The decade saw a rise of multi-use rooms — with a sofa in one corner of a kitchen, or a desk tucked into a living-room alcove. As millennials cram into apartments, the 1960s British bedsit — that self-contained bedroom/sitting room combination — is returning.
The Scandi effect
The second element of the changing home was furniture and furnishings. One trend was hygge, the Scandinavian style of decoration and fitments designed to make homes cosier. Christian reformers advocated installing a pump organ in the parlours of US homes in the 19th century to play hymns; the fire around which a family gathers was the past decade's equivalent.
The wider Scandinavian movement in interior design was established in the 1960s with brands such as Habitat. In the 2010s, it continued with mid-century modern furniture, a trend that spread across both Europe and the US. For the millennial generation, its combination of fabrics and wooden frames evoked traditional craft, and the abundance of second-hand furniture in the style made it more ecological — and affordable — than buying new.
"Softness is a trend that will only grow: furniture with shearling and throws," says White of WGSN. "I'm seeing wingback chairs that make you feel a little secluded." Even the family dining table performs a symbolic role: "It's reassuring for the young to be sitting around a table with the generation that is between them and death."
The home as tech hub
The third — and most significant — way in which the home changed was technology. At first glance, many of the consumer devices found in homes in 2019 are similar to what could be found a decade ago — flatscreen TVs, radios and cleaning appliances. But ubiquitous broadband, the rise of streaming and the dominance of apps have transformed the way in which they work.
Netflix and HBO have replaced linear television, but connectivity also made it easier to get other things. Amazon couriers arrived throughout the day, rather than residents going out to do their shopping; Uber Eats and Deliveroo reduced the need to go out for dinner; even spinning classes could be done in living rooms on Peloton bicycles. In the 2010s, the home became a hub.
There were fewer wires and more smart gadgets, from audio systems such as Sonos to smart speakers. Half of US homes have at least one device such as a smart thermostat, says the McKinsey consultancy. Connectivity has limits, though. "Do I want my toaster to talk to my microwave? What would they talk about?" asks Jeremy Eaton, a McKinsey partner.
Technology also changed the meaning of domesticity and gracious living. Instagram and Pinterest became not only places to ogle others' homes and furniture but also to envy them, and in the latter case, attempt to trade up. The aesthetic of the ideal home spread on social media and property sites such as The Modern House, which blurs lines between online estate agency and lifestyle brand.
That boosted spending, not only on furniture but also on specialist devices, from Nespresso machines to rice cookers and filtered-water taps. Revenues from what WGSN calls the "home industry" are projected to increase by 5.5 per cent a year until 2021. "Homes are private enclaves but also status symbols. You design the home for others to see," says Depledge.
Despite the decade's trend for urban microliving, US homes steadily became bigger in the past few decades. The median size of a US single family home built in the 1960s or earlier was 1,500 sq ft, while those built between 2005 and 2009 were about half as large again at 2,200 sq ft. They had more bathrooms, bigger living rooms and more space generally. But over the next decade, conspicuous domestic consumption may give way to a countervailing trend: environmental consciousness and an aversion to waste and excess.
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Homes may become smaller, driven not only by high property prices in the cities where many professionals aspire to live, but also by a sense that too much space is harmful.
Ryan Mitchell, who estimates that about 10,000 Americans now live in "tiny houses", is a pioneer. His 150 sq ft house sits about 20 minutes from downtown Charlotte, North Carolina. He built it himself after losing his first job in the financial crisis and deciding that he could only reduce his spending radically by cutting his rent.
His house is mostly made from timber — including the maple-hardwood floor that cost him $400 because the area is so small. "I am so used to it now that I hardly think about it any more," Mitchell says. "I spent a lot of time figuring out details when I designed it because I only have limited space. It has pros and cons, but it suits me pretty well."
The environmental crisis is changing attitudes everywhere. Taha's development in Barrett's Grove in north London, shortlisted for the Riba Stirling Prize in 2017 and built largely with wood, is an example of a thoughtful architectural response. "New houses and flats with timber structures and internal finishes could be carbon neutral — or even negative. They could have next to zero heating needs," he says.
One decade is ending, in which many homes have evolved, and many have wholly transformed. As another begins, what households and families demand from the places in which they sleep, work and bring up families will keep changing.
The local index staged a turnaround.