Live data from Hacker News

The Case for Rooms

citylab.com

41–50 of 165 posts

Re: The Case for Rooms

#41

I don't really see rooms making a full recovery from the current open floor plan trend. While I agree that there are some downsides to an open floor plan (sound, cleaning, etc), I would be surprised if the open floor plan does not have serious longevity. Specifically, the open kitchen, which seems to be where the open floor plan started. Attitudes towards meal preparation have had significant changes over the past fe…

"While I agree that there are some downsides to an open floor plan (sound, cleaning, etc)"

Sound could be mitigated at least somewhat if these rooms weren't so often hardwood floors, windows, and drywall on every surface. I'll cop to being at least somewhat above average on sensitivity to such things, but while a big space will always have a certain big space-y sound to it, it doesn't have to be a booming echo where the high-frequency sounds bounce around for seconds at a time.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#42
post #7

The open (Kitchen) floor plan to me represents the idea that cooking isn’t a chore separate from eating and socializing. I want to cook for an hour without being alone. Privacy in the kitchen would never be desireable. “Entertaining” doesn’t require guests. There is also a matter of space. A shared living/dining/cooking space can use a lot less space than three separate rooms. I couldn’t afford the separate solution…

> I want to cook for an hour without being alone.

Exactly my thoughts reading this. I would guess this author does not cook. Or has not done so in a closed isolating kitchen while family or friends chat happily just around a wall out of earshot.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#43
After just spending two months working with an architect to design the remodel our 6,000 sf house, here are my observations. We like to entertain. We usually have people over for some kind of party at least every month. During parties, people gather in the kitchen (for some reason). So we try to encourage people to get out of the kitchen. Pathways are important. Every common area should have at least two pathways, and dead-end rooms should be avoided. The easiest way to accomplish all of these is the open concept floor plan with the kitchen at the center.

Now, with folding exterior doors, the open concept is moving outdoors to create indoor/outdoor spaces. So, actually, the trend is going towards even more open concept floor plans.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#44
post #10

My parents live in a house built in 1840 (in the UK so this isn’t too unusual) and I grew up being continually told to close doors (every room is separated from connected rooms by doors) to conserve heat and, particularly importantly for the kitchen, to stop the house smelling of cooking. All the homes I’ve lived in as an adult (mostly in the US) haven’t had the same separation and I like when my house smells of cook…

My biggest part of having an open floor plan is grease finds it's way from the kitchen to the living room to coat the TV

Re: The Case for Rooms

#45
post #7

The open (Kitchen) floor plan to me represents the idea that cooking isn’t a chore separate from eating and socializing. I want to cook for an hour without being alone. Privacy in the kitchen would never be desireable. “Entertaining” doesn’t require guests. There is also a matter of space. A shared living/dining/cooking space can use a lot less space than three separate rooms. I couldn’t afford the separate solution…

I once lived in a Tri-level with a very large and open kitchen. I also lived in a house with very big main rooms but a tiny kitchen.

The trouble is everyone congergrates in the kitchen! That's fine if it's nice and wide and has plenty of counter space, but awful if it's really tiny and the only means between the living room and the patio where your other friend is grilling.

I agree with other comments on how a dining room is kinda useless. If you have a big pot-luck, it feels more relaxed if people are just sitting in various rooms or outside with a paper plate on their lap .. and if it's just you and one other person, a couch works just fine.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#46
post #7

The open (Kitchen) floor plan to me represents the idea that cooking isn’t a chore separate from eating and socializing. I want to cook for an hour without being alone. Privacy in the kitchen would never be desireable. “Entertaining” doesn’t require guests. There is also a matter of space. A shared living/dining/cooking space can use a lot less space than three separate rooms. I couldn’t afford the separate solution…

>I want to cook for an hour without being alone.

I'm the opposite. Nothing drives me up the wall more than people trying to talk to me when I'm trying to work, whether on a computer coding or in the kitchen cooking/baking. I can't concentrate at all when someone tries to talk to me. I can communicate, or I can cook/code, but I can't do both at the same time.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#48
post #14

The historical context portion of the article is interesting and well written, but the critique of the open-concept layout at the end seemed rushed and unconvincing. Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? I currently live with my wife, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot split level and we all dream of a big open-concept house some day... but apparently some people are getting t…

We just bought a house, it was recently renovated and basically all of the walls in the kitchen/dining/living rooms were removed, and it sat on the market for a long time compared to similarly priced houses in the area. Based on location and everything else, the only thing we could conclude was that people don't like open floor plans as much as HGTV would lead us to believe, but it's awesome for us.

Our major complaint about every apartment we've ever lived in is that half the square footage is hidden in bedrooms no one ever spends time in. We have small children, and apartment buildings were generally quite reluctant to rent us less space than they thought we needed, but we generally chose apartments based on how big the living/kitchen area was. Given the choice between a 1,500 sq ft 2 bedroom with a 1,200 sq ft living room, and a 2,000 sq ft 4 bedroom with a 600 sq ft living room, we'll take the 2 bedroom all day, because we spend all of our time in the main space together, and we only sleep in the bedrooms. Having open space where we can all be together is massively important to our quality of life. (Naturally this will probably change as the kids get older...)

Somewhat related, when I was growing up, all of the families in our friend group tended to congregate at one family's house. They had the biggest house by far, but what I find funny in retrospect is that everyone's homes were laid out the same way, but the big house was SO much bigger, that even the compartmentalized rooms ended up feeling like an open floor plan.

People seem to subconsciously want a kitchen and a dining room and a sitting room and a living room like Downton Abbey, but they don't notice that each room in Downton Abbey is the size of a small gymnasium. At least from my perspective, it's better to have one room like that, than to try and cram all of the other rooms into a too small space.

Reading back over this, I realize I sound very opinionated, and I suppose that's because I am! Sometimes I go into a house and I just can't believe how someone could make a whole 2,000 sq ft feel so small and cramped.

Re: The Case for Rooms

#49
post #14

The historical context portion of the article is interesting and well written, but the critique of the open-concept layout at the end seemed rushed and unconvincing. Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? I currently live with my wife, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot split level and we all dream of a big open-concept house some day... but apparently some people are getting t…

> Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment?

A continuous kitchen/dining/living space was a hard requirement for me when searching for a new place. It has nothing to do with "entertaining", and everything to do with not having walls between people, as well as making the space feel so much larger.

I like being able to look all the way from the kitchen into the living room, and have a comfortable conversation while cooking.

(That said, I don't want that space joined with the entryway; I want to have a foyer, then walk through an archway into a huge open living space.)

Re: The Case for Rooms

#50
post #14

The historical context portion of the article is interesting and well written, but the critique of the open-concept layout at the end seemed rushed and unconvincing. Anyone here who lives in a modern open-concept house care to comment? I currently live with my wife, 3 children and 2 dogs in a 1200 square foot split level and we all dream of a big open-concept house some day... but apparently some people are getting t…

I grew up in a house that looks like the first picture in the article ("An open-concept house in Massachusetts in 2005"). To me it always felt more like a hotel than a home, and the way sound traveled was horrible. You couldn't watch TV or talk in the family room at any reasonable volume without disturbing whoever was trying to sleep. It also seemed like a ridiculous waste of space. Instead of those high ceilings we could've had 2-3 more rooms.

There was also a constant battle between the family room and the living room, which housed the piano. The person watching TV would turn up the volume to hear over the piano, then the person playing piano would play a little louder so they could hear over the TV, and this would continue until both were shouting at each other.

Open concept homes look great in pictures but they're terrible to live in, imo.

Post reply on HN