Designing outside the box: More lessons from the Builders' Show
Las Vegas -- In the mind of interior designer Marc Thee, designing a home is typically done with the aim of providing a nurturing environment for the people who inhabit it.
The idea of design as a service, or a response to one's modes of living, was central to his education session at the International Builders' Show, titled "Clever, Creative & Just Plain Cool: Great Ideas for 2016."
"Your home should live for you," he said. "If you've disrupted attention to traffic flow, if you've disrupted lifestyle ... have you considered aging in place? Have you considered bad lighting? Have you ever looked at your spouse in bad lighting? It can be life-changing."
Thee outlined three core design trends for the coming year -- trends that have come to inform much of his current aesthetic.
The first, one-room living, suggests that walls are on their way out. "Spaces are blurring into each other," he said. "Kitchens become lounge areas become offices. It maximizes where we invest our money. It maximizes splurge moments. It increases the social aspect of entertaining, and maximizes square footage, views and sight lines."
This motif can even extend to the master bathroom, where a window wall or a partial privacy panel can add natural light to dark corners, or where his and her bathrooms are combined, with the end result of "sexy." "They don't have to be sexy, but they want to live sexy," said Thee of his typical client.
Trend No. 2: embracing the five elements, which are water, metal, stone, wood and fire. This could involve adding candlelight and pools to architecture that blends the use of these materials.
Three, "function hidden in plain sight:" This could mean anything ranging from a day bed with a pullout drink ledge to a coffee table with pullout ottomans, which can double as eating and sitting surfaces.
Storage is a huge component of this motif as well, and Thee is intent on using creative storage to both hide and display the aspects of day-to-day life. He demonstrated, for instance, a beautiful glass case meant to store toilet paper. "The more you hide things, the more you disauthenticize your home. Keep it honest," he said.
Above all, he emphasized form and function working together: "Everything's usable, not just pretty."
Here, a few more design ideas:
Architecture that separates space but has a function, such as a room divider that serves as a bar;
Ceiling panels that define spaces, or a darker wall that serves as a grounding point for a room;
Using layers of light to create a mood: mood lighting, under-cabinet lighting, etc.;
Using asymmetry to break up monotony, as well as haphazardness to keep a space from feeling too stiff;
Laying floorboards in different arrangements;
Using wall coverings on ceilings; and
Adding texture to walls.
The conclusion to all of this was, of course, wrapped up in a pithy one-liner.
"Give it swag, give it game, and make it ridiculous," he said.