A new article from Fast Co. takes a peek into the near future of home design, based on predictions by Marcus Engman, head of design for Ikea Sweden.
Traditionally, when people thought of their homes, they thought of them almost mathematically. A sofa + a television = a living room. A bed + a set of drawers = a bedroom. But in a constantly urbanizing world, where more people are living in smaller spaces, what makes one room a living room and another room a bedroom is becoming a lot more fluid.
Furniture is going to have to evolve to keep pace. In the past, a sofa was the most important piece of furniture in the living room, and consequently the home. But that’s already changing. The sofa isn’t just for socializing anymore: people eat on their sofa, and in small apartments, they might even use it as their bed. As for pointing your sofa at a television, in a cord-cutting world, there’s no need for that.
Engman predicts that the table – not the sofa – will soon become the most important piece of furniture in most people’s homes: a multi-use piece of furniture you can work, eat, play, and socialize around.
