Ever wondered how your home will look in 5 years’ time?

Here’s how we think homes around the world will look like in the year 2020.

The Multi-functional Home

Most people think of their homes like pieces of a puzzle that they can assemble into a whole.

Say,

A sofa + a television = a living room.

Or,

A bed + a set of drawers = a bedroom.

But in an urbanizing world, where more people are living in smaller spaces (the World Health Organization predicts a majority of people will live in more tightly packed urban areas), rooms are becoming a lot more cross-functional.

Multi-purpose Furniture

Furniture will also become more space efficient and economical in their use.

Reduced Need For Physical Storage

The history of the home goes hand in hand with the history of storage.

You’ve got chests of drawers, cabinets, cupboards, shelves, CD racks… But not anymore.

People don’t have room for storage in an urbanizing world. And many of the things they used to store, like music, movies, and books, are mostly digitized.

Houses will be less cluttered with things, but what little things we have, we want to display.

People will always want to collect physical objects, as a way of showing who they are, so storage methods will have to adapt to this need.

Seeing your home as your museum, it needs to be functional just as they display character. Think more open shelves and glass cabinets that show off your collection, instead of chests and drawers.

Digital Furniture

IKEA released a range of lamps that wirelessly charge your gadgets, provided they support the Qi wireless charging standard. The Swedish furniture maker believes that furniture could one day use as much silicon as home electronics do.

Who knows, we could be just as excited and curious to download an app update to install new features to our digital furniture.

Flat Design To Packing Furniture

MIT, Christopher Guberan, Product Designer, Erik Demaine, MIT CSAIL, Carbitex LLC, Autodesk Inc.]

In the next 5 years, the industry will look for ways to package furniture more compact than ever. The technology they find may drive down the price of furniture since it’ll be easier than ever to transport.

What’s more, with compact furniture, you can look forward to reduced damage during delivery. This is great news since we’re seeing more irregular shapes in today’s furniture pieces.

Customization

Experts predict the next big thing in furniture design is to figure out customization on a mass-industrialized scale. At present, bespoke pieces are expensive and takes months to be created.

It’ll be interesting to see how mass furniture makers cater to specific customer needs and demands. If they’re successful, customized furniture will more vividly be an extension of your personality.

Unusual Fabric Materials For Unusual Sensations

According to experts, the home of the future is a tactile one.

Introducing unusual fabrics and custom-designed materials, we can look forward to pieces which set a precedence in the furnishing industry.