5 ms·

The historical context portion of the article is interesting and well written, but the critique of the open-concept layout at the end seemed rushed and unconvin

by jpm_sd 7y ago

The historical context portion of the article is interesting and well written, but the critique of the open-concept layout at the end seemed rushed and unconvincing. Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? I currently live with my wife, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot split level and we all dream of a big open-concept house some day... but apparently some people are getting tired of theirs and adding walls back in? https://www.philly.com/philly/news/open-floor-plan-fixer-upper-hgtv-real-estate-trend-new-construction-townhouses-hybrid-20180913.html https://www.philly.com/philly/news/open-floor-plan-fixer-upp... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/realestate/im-over-open-concept-design.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/realestate/im-over-open-c...

eropple 7y ago
I'm always torn about this. My girlfriend and I (no kids) just bought a 1050 sq. ft. house in a very dense area and the biggest problem with separate rooms/separate spaces is square footage--it's hard to do that without making it feel really cramped. And that's just with two of us and two dogs. We ended up taking out all of the walls on the first floor to create a large kitchen/living/dining space and it feels so much larger and more pleasant than it did beforehand when there was a (small) kitchen, a (small) living room, and a (small) third room that was probably being used as a dining room. If you live somewhere where square footage is cheap--although, growing up in such a place, heating and air conditioning might not be!--I can see the appeal. But urban life puts some severe constraints on space and more open plans seems to make it more pleasant as well as more usable, at least for me. I don't know if I'd want to go back. (Though, at the same time, I really value having an office with a door that I can close. That too is important!)
aetherson 7y ago
I live in a house with an open plan and the author of that article couldn't be more wrong about my preferences. An open concept is key to making a house usable to me. Now, I do like it if it's not the case that my dirty dishes are literally the first thing you see from literally everywhere in the non-bedroom, non-bathroom parts of the house. Modern SF remodels often have a kitchen that has no separation of any kind from the living/dining areas, and that's not ideal. I am not a domestic god, I do often have mess in my kitchen. But going from there to a fully walled-off kitchen, even if it has doorways instead of doors, is even worse. In any social event, someone is going to be in the kitchen some significant amount of time. Some significant amount of the time I spend just hanging out with my family is me cooking or cleaning in the kitchen. I don't want enforced isolation during those times. Plus, a little nudge to not let mess pile up in your kitchen is a good thing. In my ideal house, the kitchen is open to the living/dining across a wall or archway, but has its own nook that it retreats back into so that you can at least not have everything in the kitchen be front-and-center all the time. Dining rooms per se are even worse than closed-off kitchens. They're a big waste of visual space. I am not Victorian, I do not have big formal sit-down dinner parties. Most of the entertaining or hanging-out space is the kitchen and living room, the dining room should be as fungible with that as possible.
ksdale 7y ago
We just bought a house, it was recently renovated and basically all of the walls in the kitchen/dining/living rooms were removed, and it sat on the market for a long time compared to similarly priced houses in the area. Based on location and everything else, the only thing we could conclude was that people don't like open floor plans as much as HGTV would lead us to believe, but it's awesome for us. Our major complaint about every apartment we've ever lived in is that half the square footage is hidden in bedrooms no one ever spends time in. We have small children, and apartment buildings were generally quite reluctant to rent us less space than they thought we needed, but we generally chose apartments based on how big the living/kitchen area was. Given the choice between a 1,500 sq ft 2 bedroom with a 1,200 sq ft living room, and a 2,000 sq ft 4 bedroom with a 600 sq ft living room, we'll take the 2 bedroom all day, because we spend all of our time in the main space together, and we only sleep in the bedrooms. Having open space where we can all be together is massively important to our quality of life. (Naturally this will probably change as the kids get older...) Somewhat related, when I was growing up, all of the families in our friend group tended to congregate at one family's house. They had the biggest house by far, but what I find funny in retrospect is that everyone's homes were laid out the same way, but the big house was SO much bigger, that even the compartmentalized rooms ended up feeling like an open floor plan. People seem to subconsciously want a kitchen and a dining room and a sitting room and a living room like Downton Abbey, but they don't notice that each room in Downton Abbey is the size of a small gymnasium. At least from my perspective, it's better to have one room like that, than to try and cram all of the other rooms into a too small space. Reading back over this, I realize I sound very opinionated, and I suppose that's because I am! Sometimes I go into a house and I just can't believe how someone could make a whole 2,000 sq ft feel so small and cramped.
JoshTriplett 7y ago
> Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? A continuous kitchen/dining/living space was a hard requirement for me when searching for a new place. It has nothing to do with "entertaining", and everything to do with not having walls between people, as well as making the space feel so much larger. I like being able to look all the way from the kitchen into the living room, and have a comfortable conversation while cooking. (That said, I don't want that space joined with the entryway; I want to have a foyer, then walk through an archway into a huge open living space.)
radcon 7y ago
I grew up in a house that looks like the first picture in the article ("An open-concept house in Massachusetts in 2005"). To me it always felt more like a hotel than a home, and the way sound traveled was horrible. You couldn't watch TV or talk in the family room at any reasonable volume without disturbing whoever was trying to sleep. It also seemed like a ridiculous waste of space. Instead of those high ceilings we could've had 2-3 more rooms. There was also a constant battle between the family room and the living room, which housed the piano. The person watching TV would turn up the volume to hear over the piano, then the person playing piano would play a little louder so they could hear over the TV, and this would continue until both were shouting at each other. Open concept homes look great in pictures but they're terrible to live in, imo.
- opportune 7y ago
  Yes, I grew up in a house with an open floor plan for the first floor and open for the basement too. I never felt like I had any privacy because I could basically hear everything in the house at all times. Never had friends over in my teenage years because the way it was set up, there was no way to spend time with friends without my mom hearing everything
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
matwood 7y ago
I live in a mostly open concept. You walk in the front door and have a large area living, dining, and kitchen. A couple rooms/small hallway on one side and master on the other. I think it's great. I can cook and clean and still hold a conversation or casually watch whatever is on TV at the same time. When people come over there is enough space for everyone to be in the same space. Appliances like dishwashers are very quiet now, so running them is not an issue. And in general, when I cook I'm not banging pots and pans the whole time. Walling off rooms would make me want to cook less since it would be imposed separation from everything else going on.
appleiigs 7y ago
I had a condo that was 1200 sqft. but it was 2 floors, each floor being 600 sqft. The bottom was open: kitchen, dining, living room. The top floor had a bathroom, laundry and small bedrooms. It really worked well. With the downstairs being one room with 600 sqft. wide open it felt large and spacious, sociable. Upstairs was more functional (as in you didn't spend much time there) but also made it cozy enough to retreat or read if you wanted. EDIT: having large window and minimalist furniture helps.
wincy 7y ago
I live in a 2100 square foot house and the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all the same giant room. We got the house mostly because of this room, because it allows us to keep tabs on our two little ones pretty easily. We don’t make great use of the other 1000 square feet. It was more an issue of “we want to live in this nice neighborhood” so we bought too much house. I really wish I could have bought a 1200 square footer in a safe neighborhood but where I live in flyover country that’s just not how it works.
SimianLogic2 7y ago
My only complaint would be that my dog is an asshole (our fault, should've never given him people food). I'd love to be able to close the door to the kitchen and leave something out on the counter, but if you don't watch him every second he'll sneak in and grab something. Other than that I love having a big kitchen, being able to prep food + watch TV. We barely use our dining table (we have a nice bar around our kitchen).
c3534l 7y ago
I live in a small studio apartment alone. The open floorplan seems to work for me.
njharman 7y ago
> 2 adults, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot gah! I now feel very spoiled / wasteful american stero type. I'm single (1 dog) and would really not enjoy having less than 2000sqft, currently in 2900+. I have hobbies that need space and I enjoy having dedicated rooms (office, painting, tv/reading/palor, sleeping)
l_t 7y ago
I've lived in multiple open-concept homes. They can be done well. But in many ways, I've come to see an open concept layout as an inefficient use of space. There are two factors: - Area / Perimeter ratio. If a room is too large, it's tough to use space efficiently. In open-concept rooms, there is limited space on the walls for traditional bookcases, art, buffet tables, etc. Of course you can still use the space, but you can usually fit more furniture when you have more walls (up to a point, then the inefficiency swings the other way). - Privacy. Depending on how many people live in your house, a single large room may not offer enough privacy and noise exclusion as a day to day living space. Therefore, even if you have an open layout, you usually also want other more private and cozy rooms (e.g. a separate family room or den). My conclusion is that an open layout is fine, but shouldn't be the be-all and end-all public living space in your home. If you have a 2k+ square foot house with an open layout and another separate living space, I think most people will be happy with that. For a single person/couple, having the extra living space might not be needed.
rwmj 7y ago
I happily live in an old cottage with lots of small rooms. I like it that way because there's some privacy and always a quiet space to go to. I have a friend who has knocked through their ground floor and now it's impossible to watch TV at his house while anyone is cooking or talking around their dining table. I guess it's a matter of preference, but mine is firmly against open plan. Actually now I've written that, I guess it's really not that dissimilar to the open office plan arguments.
asciimov 7y ago
I grew up in a small house in the 90's that was essentially open concept, the small galley kitchen was isolated to one side like a small hallway opposite from the bedroom hallway. But could still see the open space. Good things: 1. It is nice for entertaining. 2. Easier to keep an eye on children. 3. Flexibility to layout. --- Issues: 1. How often do you really entertain? Not counting family visits, way less often than you think. 2. You will always be on top of other people. Examples see [2a] 3. Less flexibility than you think, tables and chairs still have to go somewhere. 4. Nowadays it is extremely popular to put a half bath in the large space. I don't like listening to people potty, I don't like being listened to while I potty, and potty smells can linger. 5. Do you like to clean? People today don't just drop by like they used to, a shame really, but any time you think people might be coming by, even just to drop off a small item, the whole area needs to be picked up. When you have separate rooms, you can quickly pile things into that area that your visitors wont see, not so with open concept. 6. Surprise parties are now harder to pull off. --- [2a] - Say you have company down, and only want to talk to some of them, like when the women want to talk separate from the men. You want to do homework and have a quiet area. You want to read, your kids want to watch the same episode of Mickey Mouse Club House Again. You want to watch the big game, she wants to watch her "stories". You have two teenagers who like to fight for attention, can't separate them far enough with an open space.
TomVDB 7y ago
Family of 3 in a 2100 sq.ft. open concept house. We have one wall the adds separation between a family room and the dining place, and we're in the process of adding a hole in it (though the reason is increased light.) In general: we love it. The article is right about the enormous energy inefficiency of it all. We have no way to separate living room/dining room/kitchen/family room from each other, so we're heating the whole thing in the winter. It's also true that sounds travels everywhere, but in our case, with only 1 kid, that's not a problem.
spaceprison 7y ago
Moved to Colorado 4 years ago and open concept was unavoidable... It sucks 88% of the time. The only win is holidays and even then with nothing to break up the sound you're one loud conversation in the other "room" away from forced participation. And then there's meal prep... A kitchen is loud heaven forbid there's a quiet moment on a show the same time someone wants some ice in a cup.

by jpm_sd 7y ago

eropple 7y ago

I'm always torn about this. My girlfriend and I (no kids) just bought a 1050 sq. ft. house in a very dense area and the biggest problem with separate rooms/separate spaces is square footage--it's hard to do that without making it feel really cramped. And that's just with two of us and two dogs. We ended up taking out all of the walls on the first floor to create a large kitchen/living/dining space and it feels so much larger and more pleasant than it did beforehand when there was a (small) kitchen, a (small) living room, and a (small) third room that was probably being used as a dining room. If you live somewhere where square footage is cheap--although, growing up in such a place, heating and air conditioning might not be!--I can see the appeal. But urban life puts some severe constraints on space and more open plans seems to make it more pleasant as well as more usable, at least for me. I don't know if I'd want to go back. (Though, at the same time, I really value having an office with a door that I can close. That too is important!)

aetherson 7y ago

I live in a house with an open plan and the author of that article couldn't be more wrong about my preferences. An open concept is key to making a house usable to me. Now, I do like it if it's not the case that my dirty dishes are literally the first thing you see from literally everywhere in the non-bedroom, non-bathroom parts of the house. Modern SF remodels often have a kitchen that has no separation of any kind from the living/dining areas, and that's not ideal. I am not a domestic god, I do often have mess in my kitchen. But going from there to a fully walled-off kitchen, even if it has doorways instead of doors, is even worse. In any social event, someone is going to be in the kitchen some significant amount of time. Some significant amount of the time I spend just hanging out with my family is me cooking or cleaning in the kitchen. I don't want enforced isolation during those times. Plus, a little nudge to not let mess pile up in your kitchen is a good thing. In my ideal house, the kitchen is open to the living/dining across a wall or archway, but has its own nook that it retreats back into so that you can at least not have everything in the kitchen be front-and-center all the time. Dining rooms per se are even worse than closed-off kitchens. They're a big waste of visual space. I am not Victorian, I do not have big formal sit-down dinner parties. Most of the entertaining or hanging-out space is the kitchen and living room, the dining room should be as fungible with that as possible.

ksdale 7y ago

We just bought a house, it was recently renovated and basically all of the walls in the kitchen/dining/living rooms were removed, and it sat on the market for a long time compared to similarly priced houses in the area. Based on location and everything else, the only thing we could conclude was that people don't like open floor plans as much as HGTV would lead us to believe, but it's awesome for us. Our major complaint about every apartment we've ever lived in is that half the square footage is hidden in bedrooms no one ever spends time in. We have small children, and apartment buildings were generally quite reluctant to rent us less space than they thought we needed, but we generally chose apartments based on how big the living/kitchen area was. Given the choice between a 1,500 sq ft 2 bedroom with a 1,200 sq ft living room, and a 2,000 sq ft 4 bedroom with a 600 sq ft living room, we'll take the 2 bedroom all day, because we spend all of our time in the main space together, and we only sleep in the bedrooms. Having open space where we can all be together is massively important to our quality of life. (Naturally this will probably change as the kids get older...) Somewhat related, when I was growing up, all of the families in our friend group tended to congregate at one family's house. They had the biggest house by far, but what I find funny in retrospect is that everyone's homes were laid out the same way, but the big house was SO much bigger, that even the compartmentalized rooms ended up feeling like an open floor plan. People seem to subconsciously want a kitchen and a dining room and a sitting room and a living room like Downton Abbey, but they don't notice that each room in Downton Abbey is the size of a small gymnasium. At least from my perspective, it's better to have one room like that, than to try and cram all of the other rooms into a too small space. Reading back over this, I realize I sound very opinionated, and I suppose that's because I am! Sometimes I go into a house and I just can't believe how someone could make a whole 2,000 sq ft feel so small and cramped.

JoshTriplett 7y ago

> Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? A continuous kitchen/dining/living space was a hard requirement for me when searching for a new place. It has nothing to do with "entertaining", and everything to do with not having walls between people, as well as making the space feel so much larger. I like being able to look all the way from the kitchen into the living room, and have a comfortable conversation while cooking. (That said, I don't want that space joined with the entryway; I want to have a foyer, then walk through an archway into a huge open living space.)

radcon 7y ago

I grew up in a house that looks like the first picture in the article ("An open-concept house in Massachusetts in 2005"). To me it always felt more like a hotel than a home, and the way sound traveled was horrible. You couldn't watch TV or talk in the family room at any reasonable volume without disturbing whoever was trying to sleep. It also seemed like a ridiculous waste of space. Instead of those high ceilings we could've had 2-3 more rooms. There was also a constant battle between the family room and the living room, which housed the piano. The person watching TV would turn up the volume to hear over the piano, then the person playing piano would play a little louder so they could hear over the TV, and this would continue until both were shouting at each other. Open concept homes look great in pictures but they're terrible to live in, imo.

opportune 7y ago
Yes, I grew up in a house with an open floor plan for the first floor and open for the basement too. I never felt like I had any privacy because I could basically hear everything in the house at all times. Never had friends over in my teenage years because the way it was set up, there was no way to spend time with friends without my mom hearing everything
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

matwood 7y ago

I live in a mostly open concept. You walk in the front door and have a large area living, dining, and kitchen. A couple rooms/small hallway on one side and master on the other. I think it's great. I can cook and clean and still hold a conversation or casually watch whatever is on TV at the same time. When people come over there is enough space for everyone to be in the same space. Appliances like dishwashers are very quiet now, so running them is not an issue. And in general, when I cook I'm not banging pots and pans the whole time. Walling off rooms would make me want to cook less since it would be imposed separation from everything else going on.

appleiigs 7y ago

I had a condo that was 1200 sqft. but it was 2 floors, each floor being 600 sqft. The bottom was open: kitchen, dining, living room. The top floor had a bathroom, laundry and small bedrooms. It really worked well. With the downstairs being one room with 600 sqft. wide open it felt large and spacious, sociable. Upstairs was more functional (as in you didn't spend much time there) but also made it cozy enough to retreat or read if you wanted. EDIT: having large window and minimalist furniture helps.

wincy 7y ago

I live in a 2100 square foot house and the living room, dining room, and kitchen are all the same giant room. We got the house mostly because of this room, because it allows us to keep tabs on our two little ones pretty easily. We don’t make great use of the other 1000 square feet. It was more an issue of “we want to live in this nice neighborhood” so we bought too much house. I really wish I could have bought a 1200 square footer in a safe neighborhood but where I live in flyover country that’s just not how it works.

SimianLogic2 7y ago

My only complaint would be that my dog is an asshole (our fault, should've never given him people food). I'd love to be able to close the door to the kitchen and leave something out on the counter, but if you don't watch him every second he'll sneak in and grab something. Other than that I love having a big kitchen, being able to prep food + watch TV. We barely use our dining table (we have a nice bar around our kitchen).

c3534l 7y ago

I live in a small studio apartment alone. The open floorplan seems to work for me.

njharman 7y ago

> 2 adults, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot gah! I now feel very spoiled / wasteful american stero type. I'm single (1 dog) and would really not enjoy having less than 2000sqft, currently in 2900+. I have hobbies that need space and I enjoy having dedicated rooms (office, painting, tv/reading/palor, sleeping)

l_t 7y ago

I've lived in multiple open-concept homes. They can be done well. But in many ways, I've come to see an open concept layout as an inefficient use of space. There are two factors: - Area / Perimeter ratio. If a room is too large, it's tough to use space efficiently. In open-concept rooms, there is limited space on the walls for traditional bookcases, art, buffet tables, etc. Of course you can still use the space, but you can usually fit more furniture when you have more walls (up to a point, then the inefficiency swings the other way). - Privacy. Depending on how many people live in your house, a single large room may not offer enough privacy and noise exclusion as a day to day living space. Therefore, even if you have an open layout, you usually also want other more private and cozy rooms (e.g. a separate family room or den). My conclusion is that an open layout is fine, but shouldn't be the be-all and end-all public living space in your home. If you have a 2k+ square foot house with an open layout and another separate living space, I think most people will be happy with that. For a single person/couple, having the extra living space might not be needed.

rwmj 7y ago

I happily live in an old cottage with lots of small rooms. I like it that way because there's some privacy and always a quiet space to go to. I have a friend who has knocked through their ground floor and now it's impossible to watch TV at his house while anyone is cooking or talking around their dining table. I guess it's a matter of preference, but mine is firmly against open plan. Actually now I've written that, I guess it's really not that dissimilar to the open office plan arguments.

asciimov 7y ago

I grew up in a small house in the 90's that was essentially open concept, the small galley kitchen was isolated to one side like a small hallway opposite from the bedroom hallway. But could still see the open space. Good things: 1. It is nice for entertaining. 2. Easier to keep an eye on children. 3. Flexibility to layout. --- Issues: 1. How often do you really entertain? Not counting family visits, way less often than you think. 2. You will always be on top of other people. Examples see [2a] 3. Less flexibility than you think, tables and chairs still have to go somewhere. 4. Nowadays it is extremely popular to put a half bath in the large space. I don't like listening to people potty, I don't like being listened to while I potty, and potty smells can linger. 5. Do you like to clean? People today don't just drop by like they used to, a shame really, but any time you think people might be coming by, even just to drop off a small item, the whole area needs to be picked up. When you have separate rooms, you can quickly pile things into that area that your visitors wont see, not so with open concept. 6. Surprise parties are now harder to pull off. --- [2a] - Say you have company down, and only want to talk to some of them, like when the women want to talk separate from the men. You want to do homework and have a quiet area. You want to read, your kids want to watch the same episode of Mickey Mouse Club House Again. You want to watch the big game, she wants to watch her "stories". You have two teenagers who like to fight for attention, can't separate them far enough with an open space.

TomVDB 7y ago

Family of 3 in a 2100 sq.ft. open concept house. We have one wall the adds separation between a family room and the dining place, and we're in the process of adding a hole in it (though the reason is increased light.) In general: we love it. The article is right about the enormous energy inefficiency of it all. We have no way to separate living room/dining room/kitchen/family room from each other, so we're heating the whole thing in the winter. It's also true that sounds travels everywhere, but in our case, with only 1 kid, that's not a problem.

spaceprison 7y ago

Moved to Colorado 4 years ago and open concept was unavoidable... It sucks 88% of the time. The only win is holidays and even then with nothing to break up the sound you're one loud conversation in the other "room" away from forced participation. And then there's meal prep... A kitchen is loud heaven forbid there's a quiet moment on a show the same time someone wants some ice in a cup.