Kieran McCarthy: Why 'open plan fatigue' is real — and how to design intrigue back into your home

From strategic 'nooks' to the nifty magic of pocket doors, open-plan spaces are all about balancing flow with a little bit of privacy

Kieran McCarthy: "When you walk into an open-plan space I think it is nice if you can’t see all of it at once. This might mean designing in a dining nook or perhaps the living area might be tucked around a corner so you can't see it all in one go. This provides the added benefit of some privacy for those in the dining or living areas if a stranger is welcomed into the kitchen area."

Hi Kieran,
We are planning a larger open-plan kitchen, dining and living space but we’ve seen homes where it feels too vast and lacking in atmosphere.
How do you design open-plan spaces in large homes so they feel warm and usable?
Louise, Foxrock, Dublin

Hello Louise,
I love this question and it really is vital to the enjoyment of your new home — whether it’s an upgrade to a modest house or a new build luxury home, the principles are the same. The advent of the open plan space really gained ground during the Celtic Tiger. Open plan living became the ultimate prize in terms of opulent home living and became a must-have when building or renovating your house. But are we suffering from ‘open plan fatigue’? Has it lost some of its sheen? What needs to be fixed?

I think when you look at an open-plan space it’s worth going back to basics. The centre of your house is your kitchen, in fact I’d go as far as to say it’s your island. Ideally, your kitchen needs to have access to southerly light and be located a reasonable distance from your front door. Close enough for convenience but far away enough for privacy. Your utility room is generally sited off your kitchen and has access to the outdoors for laundry (assuming you use a clothes line) and your dining and living rooms are typically both situated off your kitchen.

That in essence is how a floor plan in a modern house typically works. So what’s wrong with this picture of bliss?

The above principles work from a purely logical perspective. All the basic needs are met when it comes to light, flow and practicality but, as this is your primary living space, is it really a space you want to spend all your time in?

Build in some ‘intrigue’

Having designed dozens of living spaces — and having lived in several I designed — I can tell you that there are many subtleties that also need to be considered. I’ve always felt that when living spaces are being designed, they need to be considered in terms of ‘intrigue’. What I mean by this is that when you walk into an open-plan space I think it is nice if you can’t see all of it at once. This might mean designing in a dining nook or perhaps the living area might be tucked around a corner so you can’t see it all in one go. This provides the added benefit of some privacy for those in the dining or living areas if a stranger is welcomed into the kitchen area.

To further this concept, I am seeing people consider pocket doors or at least an arch type structure at the entrance to the living area. This allows for a partition of the living area either now or in the future which I find can really be of benefit in terms of the noise of a television interrupting people in the kitchen... or vice versa, the noise of a blender or coffee maker interrupting a movie or live match in the living room.

The next thing to consider is smells...

So all modern kitchens have reasonably good cooker extractors these days but you would certainly need to consider a whole house mechanical ventilation system such as demand control or heat recovery. This is vital in new homes particularly with large interconnected spaces. It can otherwise be difficult to head off the smell of burnt toast
migrating into the living areas.

Adaptability is key

The last thing to consider is what stage you are at in your family life. I find that very young couples (say in their early to mid 30s) who haven’t had children yet may be designing their living space around entertaining.

People in their later 30s may be focused on designing every aspect of their new home and living areas around young children (interconnected rooms so children have access to mum and dad at all times). Whereas parents in their mid 40s and beyond may be happy to put some blue water between them and their teenaged offspring.

Whatever the situation, the interconnectivity of the rooms off your kitchen needs to be adaptable. It may be the case that you build a square arch or introduce wall nibs at each side for now which could take a partition later as needs be. I do find that the sliding partition that we retrofitted in our house was worth its (considerable) weight in gold, particularly during those crunch Six Nations finales!

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Kieran McCarthy: "I am seeing people consider pocket doors or at least an arch type structure at the entrance to the living area. This allows for a partition of the living area either now or in the future which I find can really be of benefit in terms of the noise of a television interrupting people in the kitchen... or vice versa, the noise of a blender or coffee maker interrupting a movie or live match in the living room."

Kieran McCarthy is a building engineer and director of KMC Homes who specialise in designing and building luxury new homes for busy people in Cork.

He is also presenter of the RTÉ TV show Heat My Home, showcasing deep retrofits in Irish homes.

Kieran’s instagram @kierankmc has more home building info, tips and Q&A advice.

You can also follow Kieran on the Built Around You Youtube channel.