The soft power of designed domesticity

by Jennifer Dyne

8th March 2024

As we announce the 2024 Longlist, Jennifer Dyne, Associate at David Kohn Architects explains how to reimagine the home as an extension of your personality.

Shelter, somewhere to drink, eat, bathe and sleep – that’s all we need from a house to survive. Or at least it used to be… now we have a lot of stuff, endless routines, with complex family structures and social lives. Our homes subsequently must operate at another level, to process all these operations – and sometimes a system update is overdue.

Prepare to feel empowered by a house carefully designed to your way of life. You don’t lose your keys, trip over shoes, or get confronted by muddled laundry in the kitchen. Possessions are meticulously stowed, and spaces adapted to serve your changing needs. A multiplicity of tiny details amplifies the day to day, adding joy to the mundane. 

Reimagining a home is more than just transforming spaces – at David Kohn Architects, we see it as an opportunity to reconceive how you live, with the architecture as background. Whether you need flexibility for a multi-generational family, space for a growing collection of [insert here], or somewhere to support and adapt to illness – the ordinary parts of the house can be put together to create extraordinary domestic architecture that buttresses life. 

This formation of highly functional, versatile rooms creates a house that isn’t just a machine for living in, but a bodily extension of its owner that subconsciously adjusts for comfort. So, let’s redesign our homes as obliging domestic cyborgs – they can’t do your washing (yet), but you’ll actually enjoy doing it in their company.