Less pattern, more material. What we're seeing specified in the homes being built along the coast this year.
The clearest shift is away from statement and toward substance. Where a decade ago a house announced itself through scale and finish, the residences being completed now are quieter and considerably more particular about what they’re made of.
Stone is being left rougher. Plaster is allowed to move. Timber is specified by where it was cut rather than by colour swatch. The effect is a house that reads as older than it is, which is precisely the intention.
Rooms that admit to a purpose
Open plan hasn’t disappeared but it has stopped being an article of faith. Architects are putting walls back where a wall does something — around a kitchen that gets used, around a study that needs quiet — and leaving the volume for the spaces that earn it.
Outdoors, the trend is toward shade rather than surface. Pergolas, deep loggias, and planted courtyards are taking budget that would once have gone to a larger terrace, on the reasonable grounds that an unusable terrace is not an amenity.
