Technological Revolution in Interior and Architectural Design

Influence of Technology on Architecture

The changes in economic conditions and the advancement in technology have resulted in changing the lifestyle of the people considerably. People seemed to have changed their way of living, the way they entertain themselves, spend their money, interact at work etc. This condition is not only evident in a particular country as such but this change is coming globally.

Today, interior designing is revising its design rules and principles. People are going for multi-functional furniture units, compact places to live in. This does not mean that they don’t love variety anymore. It is just that they want to make everything flexible enough to be used and converted as required. The advancement in technology has indeed brought a huge change in the field of design.

Let us discuss all that we are seeing today and also the reason for this transformation.

Increasingly less defined spaces

If we are to look into this particular aspect, we would notice that the way spaces were designed earlier with a specific purpose of its space allocation (rigid planning) has changed. People are now preferring flexible planning i.e. multi-functional spaces. This is more evident in the west since this trend is not very pronounced in Asia. In India and China, people are still conservative about planning their private spaces.

How did this multi-functionality trend develop?

Earlier, economic crisis that struck Europe led to the decrease in the incomes of the people. People began living at homes since they did not have offices to attend. Lifestyle started changing. People started preferring eating at home since it was less costly, entertaining themselves and just being. This brought the need for more investment into the living spaces. This “OPENNESS CONCEPT” began with the concept of having an open kitchen. Now, if we look at the interiors of the homes today, we can call them “Open Homes”.

“Areas that were strictly separated are now blending into one another”.

People are now multi-tasking at home too. They are sending emails, surfing the internet, holding conference calls (video or Audio chat) since AV (audio-visual) rooms are getting common in the homes too.

Apart from having lesser walls in the house for division of various spaces such as Living room, Dining room, Kitchen etc; people are also opting for multi-functional furniture units which has made designing even more exciting.

Technology is a huge player in this field. Technology has evolved infinite number of possibilities to accommodate the many technical objects which have become part of the necessities of everyday life from hydraulics to tuck away televisions when not in use, to charging stations for mobiles and computers.

“The smaller the better is the key here”.

This same notion is also being used in products. The products are getting smaller and smaller in size with respect to the flexibility required to move the products as well as smaller storage places. People are opting for products that require less storage space. Products such as mobiles, laptops have become very handy. Desks and worktops have shrinked in size to accommodate smaller computers Storage systems are lit by LEDs and need to store far smaller CDs and other devices such as pen drives.

The notion of “Smaller being better” has brought about these gizmo centric products which are futuristic in its design.

Changes in the choice of lighting design

Today, people are opting for eco-friendly lighting products. LED has gained lot of impetus. LED technology has set its footprints on the wet sands of Eco-friendly Design.

People and designers both are opting for LED lighting products instead of other conventional lighting products. Despite of LED lights being expensive, it has gained its own importance in the design industry. LED lights have innumerable variants the designers could choose from. OLED is gaining lot of popularity among designers.

Let us now wait and wait how the changing technology will bring about the changes in the perspective of Designing.

With this, we come to the end of our discussion on “Changing trends in Interior Architecture”.

It would great if you could all share your views and ideas about the changes that we are able to experience around. As Architectural designers, it is very important to be aware of every change that has an impact on the Architectural design.