Thinking about doing something different with your home’s interior in the year ahead?
Well, if you’re like a majority of people who’ve been holed up in their dwelling places pretty much around the clock during Covid, you’ve probably already given serious consideration to running a bulldozer through all your rooms and redesigning them from the floors up to look, feel, and function a lot better than they used to.
So, as you continue mulling over the possibilities of how to do more with the space you have (or to use it more creatively for the enhancement of your wellness and comfort), you might find it profitable to take a look at these five trends the experts are telling us will influence your 2024 choices for home office furniture and biophilic interior design.
Trend #1: Function will take priority over form.
Assuming you were among those trapped inside by the pandemic for endless hours each day, you almost surely soon developed a really wicked case of cabin fever which, in turn, caused you to realize you weren’t using your spaces to best effect.
The way you’ve probably been dealing with that realization was further optimizing your rooms to be more than what they were designed for. Example: your kitchen. It’s for cooking and eating, but with a little hocus-pocus it transformed into a room that also supported a workspace, an area for play, an area for socializing and connecting, and even an area for lounging. It may have been a bit much for some people, especially if nothing had been done to adapt to that extreme multifunctional usage.
Want another example? OK. Your bathroom. For many, it went from a basic functional space to an almost spa-like self-care and wellness center, according to interior trend researcher Oona Horx-Strathern.
Trend #2: Versatile, ergonomic furniture will increase in demand.
This trend goes hand-in-glove with the first one: if you’re going to have rooms that serve multiple functions, you’re going to need to fill those rooms with furniture that adapts. In other words, furniture that’s versatile.
Start with an active chair to get healthy movement all day. You can use it all day long while working and then—if it’s designed right—it can blend in at night as a dining chair. You can do much the same with a standing desk: when the sun goes down and you punch out at the time-clock, you can simply tuck away the desk or use it as a living room table.
Another item of versatile furniture that will be in demand this year is the portable partition. Available in a variety of dimensions and designs, partitions give you instant privacy whenever you need it during or after the workday. They also help preserve your sanity by blocking your view of foot traffic tromping back and forth through your space. Partitions can also be used for such things as hiding your kitchen-situated office when you’re ready to reclaim that area for dining.
Trend #3: Unique and personalized designs will totally slay.
The mass-market stuff you can buy from the major retailers probably won’t float your boat as much as it once might have (if it ever did at all).
What will excite you instead, according to Apartment Therapy’s latest research, are one-of-a-kind designs that lift your work and living spaces up from the ho-hum ordinary so that they more closely match your lifestyle and tastes.
Trend #4: Yearnings for coziness and comfort will rise through the roof.
We’ve talked about biophilic design a lot in the past—and now will be its moment to really shine.
Biophilia is the art and science of adding coziness and comfort to an indoor space by incorporating materials, shapes, lighting, and perspectives bearing nature’s own patterns.
Look for wood and soft-touch organic fabrics to be more popular this year. Similarly, creative green solutions: it’ll be a must-have not merely to provide deeper accents but also to further surround you with the peacefulness that comes from being closer to nature.
Trend #5: Eco-friendly furnishings will be highly coveted.
Many of us have been concerned for a while now about climate change and the earth’s sustainability. Furniture and accessories makers have been too, so this year you’ll find them offering more planet-saving product and initiatives.
And that’s fantastic because it’ll mean a larger selection of goods—quality goods—made from recycled materials and designed to last a very long time. Find out more about the hidden cost of non sustainable furniture.
To Summarize
If there’s a common thread to these five trends, it’s that they are responding to our increased search for wellbeing and to our shifting lifestyle habits.
Although our lives have been turned upside down by events of the past two years, the silver lining is that those disruptions are now inspiring us to radically rethink our interiors so that they can be better fitted to our needs, comfort, office practicalities, and health-oriented lifestyles.
Here at PhilZen Design, we source our collections with the aim of helping you achieve that better fit. We invite you to browse our catalog: it features a thoughtful selection of sustainability-minded, biophilic and home-office furniture including ergonomic chairs, standing desks, green solutionsand partitions—all designed to promote your physical and emotional wellness in 2024.
