Home design Interior

What makes our New Zealand home design unique?

Modern architecture and design, including interiors, is a broad umbrella term for design styles united by a common intention – a celebration of material, technology and composition through authenticity, transparency and efficiency.

Inspired by the Modernist art movement that preceded it, the Modernist style, born at the dawn of the 20th century, reinvented our relationship with space and aesthetics to bring us closer in touch with it. A building was more than an inhabitable shell; it was now a machine for living in.

Modernist interiors are therefore often a complex overlay of functional programming, careful compositions and clearly articulated lines and geometry. The inherent materiality of a form is an integral part of the design language here, as is an emphasis on visual and functional simplicity.

Mid-Century modern describes a style that gained momentum in the aftermath of the Second World War. With echoes of the Bauhaus and International movement, this arm of modernist interior design is set apart by its vivid use of color, crisp lines, and interactive dialogues with nature and the outdoors.

The emphasis here is on strengthening interpersonal bonds; space was viewed as being more than just a functional container, and emerged as a canvas for the personal and social ideologies that drove humanity post WWII. Generous, open planned interiors with an emphasis on common, shared areas, broad interfaces between the home and its natural surround, and a functional and visual clarity integral to the Modernist style mark these spaces.

The color palette of Mid-century modern style usually floats in hues of orange, yellow, green and brown, although deviations are not uncommon.

Sparked by the Minimalist arts movement of the 1960s and 70s, and inspired by traditional Japanese design and Zen philosophy, minimalist interiors express the driving concepts of modernism in an almost puritanical palette.

Stripping things down to their bare basics, minimalism offers us an aesthetic that relies on the efficiency of the design. Devoid of distractions or clutter, minimalist interiors are streamlined to maximize on bold visual impacts and the underlying use of the space.

Elements and motifs are kept to a bare minimum, with concealed storage and careful detailing playing their due part. Colors are explored in hushed tones, with an accent or two taking center stage.

The repetition and movement of lines and a generous introduction of natural light keep these interiors light and dynamic.

Industrial interiors celebrate the modernist eye for efficiency and functionality by transforming the working parts of a building into its primary aesthetic.

Beams, columns, pipes, ducts and flanges are brought to the fore to emphasize the ‘machine for living’, rendering these interiors in a largely masculine overtone. Unlike many other offshoots of the modern movement, industrial style interiors do not shy away from weight or roughness, embracing the worn, recycled and salvaged.

Often the style of choice in warehouse conversions and loft remodelings, industrial interiors tend to stick to warm, neutral colors such as grays and browns with iron or steel, exposed concrete and unfinished brickwork complementing them perfectly. When choosing furniture and décor, vintage industrial designs complete the look.