Survey reveals appetite to ‘better design’ one’s own home

SOME 23 per cent of respondents to a survey have declared that they would be ‘happier’ if their home was ‘better designed’.

New research, commissioned by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), investigated the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on how people want to live and work at home.

Says RIBA: “UK homeowners are increasingly demanding environmentally-efficient properties that better support their new ways of living, as well as their mental health, happiness and family cohesion.”

Among other findings:

Spending more time in their home has made people more stressed (11 per cent), anxious (ten per cent) and depressed (ten per cent); they’ve found it harder to relax (nine per cent) and it’s negatively impacted their productivity (six per cent);

Respondents went on to say that a ‘better-designed home’ would help them relax more (31 per cent) and sleep better (17 per cent); and

More than one in ten respondents (11 per cent) said that making changes to the design of their home would help them to live more harmoniously with others in the house.

Eight out of ten respondents (79 per cent) identified one or more of the changes that they’d now like to make to the design of their home after lockdown; these include:

Nearly a quarter of home-owners (23 per cent) would reconfigure their existing spaces. A fifth want to create more space by extending their home;

Nearly one in ten (nine per cent) would change their open-plan design in favour of creating separate rooms. In contrast, 14 per cent would like to make their home more open plan;

40 per cent want more environmental-design features, including improving the amount of natural daylight, improving the energy-efficiency of their home and improved sound-proofing between spaces;

Eight per cent would like more flexible living, eg rooms that can easily be divided;

17 per cent would create an office space to support working from home;

Seven per cent want to be able to accommodate an extended family including parents, grandparents and grown-up children; and

12 per cent need more personal space.

Source: RIBA, ‘Pandemic reveals demand for UK home transformations’, published, here, October 8 2020.