Open Plan Living

Open plan living connects the main kitchen, dining and living spaces resulting in shared zones which can encourage family conversations and connections. It has been a popular way of living to open up internal spaces, allowing rooms to feel bigger with more air flow and natural light to filter through. Open plan allows the occupant to adapt rooms to reflect lifestyle changes as families grow.

The way we live in our homes is ever-evolving, fast tracked in the last 12 months as we adapt to global and community changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our homes must be flexible and work harder for us, offering not only spaces to cook, eat and sleep but also to work, exercise and study. A more modular, flexible approach to house planning is required as we find a need for multi-functional zones. Having more individual spaces can cater for more activities that we are seeing at home such as work and study, even home education, exercise/yoga/meditation or just a quiet sitting space for some alone time. For some, gone are the long days of being out and about working and running errands and only seeing your family at night time in an open plan space to allow for flowing conversation as you cook/sit/watch tv/eat. Some families are growing and changing spending more time together throughout the day and requiring their own more private space to do these daily activities.

We are seeing spaces divided by obvious means such as walls and screens but also courtyards and greenery to encourage natural light and ventilation. Mid-century design is prominent at the moment which embraces timber screening elements and breezeblocks. In a few of our recent projects , we have divided spaces with the outdoors, wrapping kitchen/living/dining areas around a courtyard to create privacy, intimate spaces but still with a gentle connection.

Even though spaces are separated it is still essential that they tell the same story, so our advice would be to link the rooms in a way with materiality or some sort of visual connection. The ease of movement and circulation needs to be considered so when the occupant is moving between the spaces it doesn’t feel challenging.

Schedule a consultation with Weststyle’s custom home design team and build your dream home today.