The open plan was a genuinely good idea that got applied indiscriminately. In a small apartment it buys light, sightlines and a sense of generosity. In a larger house it can produce one enormous room in which no activity is fully possible because all activities are equally present.
What we are being asked for now is not a return to the cellular plan. It is something more specific: one room that can be closed. Usually the dining room, occasionally a study, very occasionally the kitchen itself.
Acoustic separation, visual connection
The detail that makes this work is a wide opening with a real door in it — a pocket door, a pair of glazed leaves, a heavy curtain on a recessed track. Open, the plan behaves as it did. Closed, the acoustic separation is complete, which is the thing people actually wanted.
“People did not want walls back. They wanted the option of quiet.”
We now design most residential ground floors with at least one closable room, and we size the opening so that the door, when open, disappears entirely. The flexibility costs very little at plan stage and is effectively impossible to add later.
Demo editorial — written for this build
