It’s very hard for me to understand the motivations behind American home and apartment design. It is the exact, diametrical opposite of the design that anyone w

It’s very hard for me to understand the motivations behind American home and apartment design. It is the exact, diametrical opposite of the design that anyone who works from home, takes work home, or is engaged in any kind of intellectual or creative labour at home would want. And, of course, quite topically: it is especially impossible, in view of such a design, to do any of the aforementioned with small children at home. That may be impossible anyway, but the typical single-family detached house layout assures it. From a European perspective, it’s all rather perverse. Lots of nooks, crannies, partitions, and doors that close are an essential principle of most apartments found in Central and Eastern Europe, at least. Back in Moscow, which I left as a pre-school aged child, we had a small foyer that opened into a long hallway with numerous rooms and doors. The kitchen in itself had a door, which meant one could use the kitchen table to work or study when not cooking or eating. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, I had a 2 BR ~1200 sq ft apartment with wasted space for a needlessly large walk-in closet in the master, and a second bathroom nobody needed. That space could have easily been carved out for a third room! The rooms themselves around here seem to be designed to facilitate ‘private life’ only and do not have functional attributes in mind. Two other perverse tendencies we commonly lament: 1. To combine the front door, kitchen and living room in some way; why would you want someone to walk straight into and through your living room, or your kitchen?! 2. The seeming aspiration in the layout of ordinary apartments to mimic the layout of houses, when they are in fact not houses for many reasons, and serve a very different set of priorities.