6/28/2024
Embracing Simplicity: One of the fundamental principles of open and functional spaces is simplicity. By minimizing clutter and unnecessary furniture, you can create a clean and streamlined environment that promotes relaxation and ease of movement. Opt for multifunctional pieces that serve multiple purposes, allowing you to maximize space without sacrificing functionality.

Maximizing Natural Light: Natural light plays a crucial role in enhancing the openness and spaciousness of a room. Embrace large windows, skylights, and strategically placed mirrors to amplify the influx of natural light and create an airy ambiance. Light, neutral color palettes further contribute to the sense of brightness and openness within the space.

Strategic Furniture Placement: When furnishing open spaces, thoughtful furniture placement is key. Arrange furniture in a way that encourages natural traffic flow and conversation, avoiding blocking pathways or disrupting the visual continuity of the room. Opt for furniture with clean lines and low profiles to maintain a sense of openness and cohesion.

Decluttering and Organization: Clutter is the enemy of open spaces. Embrace storage solutions such as built-in cabinets, shelving units, and hidden storage compartments to keep belongings neatly tucked away and out of sight. Regular decluttering sessions can help maintain the streamlined aesthetic of the space and prevent it from feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary items.

Creating Zones: While open spaces promote a sense of interconnectedness, it's essential to delineate distinct zones within the room for different activities. Whether it's a cozy reading nook, a functional workspace, or an entertainment area, creating defined zones helps to establish purpose and functionality within the space while maintaining its overall openness.

By prioritizing simplicity, maximizing natural light, strategic furniture placement, decluttering, and creating defined zones, you can cultivate open and functional spaces that not only exude a sense of spaciousness but also enhance the functionality and livability of your home. Embrace the beauty of open design and enjoy the freedom it brings to your living environment.
Interior Designer since 1985
CEO & Founder, Italian Design in the World
Kitchen and bathroom are where the home meets water every day — preparation, cleaning, care, rest. That is why they are also where the gap between beautiful in rendering and sustainable in use shows first: droplets at joints, twisted paths, light that lies about the face, surfaces that demand obsessive cleaning.
In the city, those few square metres beyond the door are often the only truce between the flat and the noise outside. They are not a decorative extra: they are a border — different light, different wind, different rules. Yet too many balconies stay storage for crates, folding chairs and rushed tiles, as if design stopped at the glass.
The prejudice comes from years of institutional rooms where function crushed aesthetics. In residential work, things have changed: handles that are objects, walk-in showers that are elegance before aid, wide doors and near-invisible thresholds that are build quality before regulation. The gap is not budget: it is awareness that dignity lives in daily details — the ones you touch hundreds of times a year.
Open a catalogue of contemporary homes and you often find cover-worthy kitchens, theatrical bathrooms, living rooms that look like photo sets. Between one image and the next, a narrow corridor appears, lit by a sad single point — or a vestibule reduced to a knot between doors. That is not a technical detail: it is silent design about what life spends most of its time doing — passing through, pausing, shifting register, leaving one room before entering another.
Open plan has dominated the image of the contemporary home: few walls, few boundaries, maximum flexibility. The promise was freedom — kitchen in dialogue with the living room, light flowing, no "closed" rooms. Over time many have discovered the downside: noise travelling, no refuge, difficulty concentrating or switching off. The response isn't to go back to the closed-off house of the past, but to rethink the value of dedicated spaces: environments with a clear function that the body and mind learn to recognise.
Interior design has long favoured sight: colours, shapes, surfaces. Only recently have we started to talk about touch and smell. Hearing, by contrast, remains the most neglected sense at the design stage — yet it's the one we can't switch off. We live in homes that boom, reverberate, carry voices and noise from one room to another. The result is stress, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and resting.