- 17 December 2020
How covid-19 is forcing a rethink in home design
Much has changed in 2020, not least of which our relationship with the workplace. Thanks to the great work-from-home experiment, more organisations are realising the benefits of flexible work arrangements. We sat down with Kristin Brookfield, Chief Executive – Industry Policy at HIA, to discuss what impact COVID-19 has had on building design trends.
A year like no other
From business shutdowns and enforced social distancing to widespread supply-chain shortages, the coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the property and construction sector in Australia. This disruption has trickled all the way down to consumers, who weren’t even moved to splash out on renovations with the $25,000 HomeBuilder package.
With so much unexpected chaos in the sector this year, there have inevitably been changes. However, Kristin Brookfield from HIA says we’re unlikely to see any concrete effects for several months.
“Right now what we know is mostly anecdotal,” she says. “Nobody has hard data as of yet, but we do know the designs are changing. The thing about designs is that they take quite a long time to change. It takes a builder probably three years to shift to a new version of a home design.”
What we are seeing, Kristin says, is new demands from buyers. “Before COVID, people only occasionally worked from home, and if there were two adults in the house they weren’t necessarily both working at the same time. So a single space in a house suited them.
“What happened this year was that everybody was working from home at the same time, and with them all being in the same space it got distracting. So there’s now a big driver for additional spaces in the home. I think the demand for that will flow through into new designs in the next 12 to 18 months.”
A focus on energy and flexibility
Whether it’s renovating a current property or planning a future renovation, consumers are increasingly looking for ways to expand their space and add more secluded areas where they can work.
“From a design perspective, builders are being asked, ‘How can I make this space more functional, more flexible?’,” Kristin says, adding that energy is also a hot topic of conversation.
“For renovations, people are saying they need more connectivity, more plugs, extra power points and USB plugs. You can actually have an electrician do a reasonably quick retrofit of a room to provide more connection points and therefore make the room more practical – a better workspace.”
This is all feeding into higher energy usage, however, and Kristin believes this will lead to greater interest in adding solar panels and battery storage to counteract rising energy bills.
Creating a home to work in – not just a space
While we haven’t seen any drastic shifts to the building and design sector right now, what we are seeing is a concerted effort to make the home more liveable for work. That will ultimately result in a shift in design trends, and Kristin says key to it all will be ensuring “working from home isn’t stressful”.
“Pre-COVID, very few people were working from home,” she says. “Then during the height of it most of us were working from home. That will settle back down, but we're still going to see most industries allow more flexible work, so the more functional your house can be to help you work from home, the better.”
She adds that future home designs will need “the capacity for people to be scattered around the house, as and when they need to work from home”. From quiet, separate spaces to building a better indoor-outdoor flow for greater mental health, the modern home will have to learn to adapt as a workspace.
