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When I was 7 years old, my parents decided to do a major renovation of their childhood home. For one thing, my younger brother was born and there was only one shower between the five of us (and little hallway separating the bedrooms), so we knew it was time for an upgrade. Ta. When they created an upgraded second floor floor plan, along with an expanded TV room and wraparound deck, my parents decided it was time to tear down the wall between the kitchen and dining room.
I grew up in a classic New England colonial house, and surprisingly, there were still walls separating every room in the house. The kitchen, living room and dining room were all separate. Next to the staircase was a long hallway that connected these rooms and was the first thing you saw when you opened the front door. I still vividly remember the day my parents took me and my siblings to a house that was being renovated and showed us how the open kitchen had been installed. We had a picnic style breakfast on the floor where the walls were standing.
Parents' desire to free up space is not an entirely new concept. In fact, open-concept floor plans began to take shape around 1880.
History of the open concept home
In the 18th and 19th centuries, walls were actually a symbol of wealth. Having multiple rooms such as a drawing room, library, and even a smoking room was a sign of status. This also meant separating the servants' quarters, including the kitchen where meals were prepared.
However, as the number of servants living on the premises began to decrease, walls and multiple rooms became practically unnecessary. Small rooms with specific purposes were replaced by larger rooms to serve multiple purposes.
Connecting the living room and dining room was common, but adding a kitchen was a concept later developed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In the “Willie House” project of the 1930s, Wright proposed his kitchen open to the homes of middle-income families. They would be doing a lot of entertaining, so having a “workspace” (what he called a kitchen) would make it easier to host the occasion and prepare the meals. he thought.
The walls that usually separated the kitchen were equipped with open shelving for storing glasses and crockery. Yes, the open shelving trend we're seeing right now isn't actually a new idea.
An open concept office is born from an open concept house.
I think it's safe to say that these days it's rare to find a new company that doesn't have an open-concept office. Some companies still maintain segmented cubes, while others follow his open floor plan proposed by the German in the 1950s. This new workspace design was quickly discovered by British architect Frank Duffy, who sketched a new open-concept layout for the office floors. These included workspaces for teams, a new arrangement of open desks, and lots of potted plants. This trend began to spread to other offices in other countries and has now become a popular office he style seen in many workplaces.
The Collapse of an Open Concept Floor Plan
Even though open-concept floor plans were supported by communication research, open-concept floor plans did not encourage communication as originally expected. In fact, having such an open area discourages communication. This forces introverted workers to become extroverted, creating extra tension in their normal working hours. Open-floor offices can quickly become noisy, as there are no walls to block out noise. This means people are hesitant to make any noise at all or wear headphones to constantly cancel out the noise going on around them.
Does this mean the same is true for open-concept homes? Although the types of environments are different, people are beginning to despise living in open-concept environments as well.
reason for their demise
Opening everything up is meant to promote inclusivity, but people are starting to realize that having an open-concept home doesn't actually serve the purpose for which the home was created. Masu.
Many publications are starting to claim that people are just missing the wall. The Boston Globe notes that large, open spaces leave little room for privacy. Plus, keep everything out in the open. Of course, it's great for entertaining, but it also means he has to clean one big room, including the kitchen, before inviting guests. The Atlantic even points out that one architect is proposing “messy” kitchens for homes. So while the real “kitchen” is the place you host, it's the place that tends to get messy after preparing the food for your event.
My childhood home had an open dining room and kitchen, so we were able to host 30 people for Thanksgiving this year, but for my mom, it was all about keeping things looking “presentable.” It takes a lot of effort to prepare dinner for dozens of people. Of course, you can also be a great hostess while doing it. It's no exaggeration to say that this is causing her stress.
Indeed, it is really beautiful to have an open kitchen and dining room. It's truly a blissful moment to enjoy the sunlight streaming in through the gorgeous bay window while drinking coffee. But for most people, the pros outweigh the cons of open-concept homes. There's no room for privacy and little room to hide the mess that everyone inevitably makes after a busy day.