Futuristic lounge interiors trends
Futuristic Lounge Interiors Trends
Lounges are becoming a more communal area of mixed activities, digital and non-digital. It's no longer a room for simply watching TV. As a consequence, we're starting to see a move away from the mono-direction sofa, with its back against a wall facing the television.
This change is happening because family and group members seated together on sofas are now involved in a variety of individual activities. They're using laptops, tablets, smartphones, gaming, reading, talking and maybe, watching TV. So, although we are still 'together' we're actually involved in separate, lone tasks. This shift in what and how we are engaged when seated together using a sofa means that the sofa itself must change in design so that it allows: multiple uses, multiple room layouts and multiple positions of use such as sitting, lying down and even facing in different directions.
The images show some stylish examples of new sofa configurations that provide for multiple seating directions and positions, and are therefore meant to be moved away from the walls and placed more centrally in the room. People can then access them from different sides.
The lounge is becoming more like a modern Majlis and it pulls the seating away from the wall perhaps requiring lounge spaces to take a larger portion of the open plan spaces many of us have, or that separate lounges become larger. (Majlis - Arabic term meaning 'a place of sitting'.) At the same time that we see this happening, there is also a new focus on the privacy of the individual. We have reached a tipping point where we have shared so much about our lives both off and online, that people are beginning to feel the need to 'take back control' over who sees and knows what about them. This is being seen currently in workplace design where the idea of regaining social solitude is a buzz subject globally right now. There are some excellent lessons to be learnt from workplace design when beginning to plan your 'communal' lounge areas. Because of the issues resulting from the obsession with open plan offices over the past 20 years, there is now a new focus on making spaces that enable people to recharge, be quiet, to focus and concentrate, be comfortable, relax, even to nap, prepare and unwind - 'Social Solitude'.
(top). Cathay Pacific Airport Lounge,
HK (below).
These issues equally apply to our home life, it can be very difficult to find some 'privacy' at home and we all need some. So the lounge of the future could address the issue and provide the solution in workplace furniture.
Some of the high-end workplace furniture designers and manufacturers are producing items that answer all of these needs and cross the boundary between 'office' and 'home' furniture.
Pieces such as Boss Design's cocoon units, Connection's Tryst console and the V1 lounge are all striding across that mythical boundary that to date, has made commercial furniture unsuitable for residential use.
Whilst re-thinking something so radically, why not also give much more consideration to light/power switches that can blend with your design instead of adding that 'jarring white' interruption to it.
A futuristic looking residential lounge could soon be the 'normal' expectation.
Images in the above gallery feature Focus SB's paintable range.
