Building or converting homes to the open plan style is long term advantageous. Traditional-roomed homes had load-bearing walls within the interior space. This

Building or converting homes to the open plan style is long term advantageous. Traditional-roomed homes had load-bearing walls within the interior space. This limited your flexibility to make layout changes. Open plan buildings come with load-bearing beams spanning between exterior walls, meaning that all interior walls are purely for aesthetics or function reasons, and can be almost trivially changed. This is why modern office buildings have large open plan spaces with pillars. It is super flexible to set up walls (or not) as the space needs. Conference rooms? Private offices? Break-room? Closet? Just tell them where to put the prefab walls. If you're worried about being in vogue with house layout trends, open plan is the most logical place to begin because rooming off is cheaper than the other way around.