A new generation of digital-native celebrities, relaxed about the blurring of boundaries between public and private lives, have embraced celebrity home tours as a tool to promote their personal brands and to challenge public preconceptions. Emma Chamberlain, a social media influencer who found fame via YouTube, confounded expectations with her sophisticated taste in mid-century design and grown-up love of a kitchen island and copper taps when a video of her home went viral. When Khloé Kardashian posts content showing her impeccably organised pantry on YouTube, it is greeted with the kind of swooning comments that were once reserved for Carrie’s walk-in closet in the film Sex and the City.
https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/feb/10/how-architectural-digest-became-the-new-vogue
Category Archives: bedroom
Apple to Expand Smart-Home Lineup, Taking On Amazon and Google
The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has struggled in the home space and has ceded much of the market to its rivals. Its current devices remain limited in their functionality, with Apple’s Siri voice-control service lagging behind Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant. The new devices — along with upcoming changes to Siri — are aimed at turning around Apple’s fortunes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/apple-to-expand-smart-home-lineup-taking-on-amazon-and-google
Homes Past, Present, Future (Deloitte)
There are many paths forward, and overlaps are likely. We map possible futures on a spectrum from those centered closely around the individual, to those encompassing the places and communities around us.
Why Is Gen Z So Sex-Negative?
Research by Srinivasan, Orenstein, Holden and others all points to the existence of a real trend toward sex-negativity among the young. Yet attributing this trend to Gen Z obscures more than it reveals. More than anything, the idea that Gen Z is especially uninterested in sex erases a history – one that began as a split within feminism but whose reach far exceeds this origin. Indeed, just as earlier generations of sex-negative feminists ended up making bizarre alliances with conservatives in their efforts to criminalise pornography, so too are second-wave talking points today voiced by unlikely actors, including – but hardly limited to! – teenagers on TikTok.
Why Tired Chinese Youth are Going Punk to Tackle Their Sleep Problems
A recent survey shows that in 2020, although people spent more time at home thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, it took them an extra two or three hours to fall asleep, while the number of online searches for sleep problems increased 43%. In just six years, the national average sleep time dropped by two hours, from 8.8 hours in 2013 to 6.9 in 2019. And perhaps not surprisingly, those in their twenties and thirties sleep the latest — and least — among all age groups. Read more (RADII)
Sleep has become an indulgent luxury
On Instagram, influencers share images of bedside tables artfully arranged with CBD tinctures and calming pillow sprays. E-commerce sites devoted to sleep products entice shoppers with serene branding and invitations to “sleep well” and “become your best self”. Read more (BBC)
Lockdown fashion: A changing room tailored to you
The latest lockdown innovation sees a courier bring fashion items to your door and wait outside while you to try them on. Read more (The Times/Paywall)
How AI is transforming the way people shop
Facebook AI researchers and engineers are building the technology to — one day — let you do all this in one holistic, intelligent system. It means teaching machines what people easily learn: understanding the different items a closet or an apartment would have, how a garment relates to an accessory, and how an online product might look in real life — and doing this for millions of people around the world. Today we’re sharing new details on the cutting-edge AI techniques we’ve built to get us there. Our new system, GrokNet, can understand precise specifics about what’s in nearly any photo. We’ve also built technology that can automatically turn a 2D phone video into an interactive 360-degree view. We’re now one step closer to our vision of making anything shoppable while personalizing to individual taste. Read more (Facebook)
The New Comfort: what does “home” mean in 2021?
Out with clean white spaces, and in with tactile havens. The interior mood right now is anything but sterile Read more
Home Trends 2021
Home Trends 2021 (Google Slides)
Home Trends 2021 (PDF download)
MACRO TREND THEMES: Resisting the bunker mentality; Taming the panopticon; Remembering humanity; Rethinking the healthy home; Ongoing evolving migration patterns; Aging populations; Rethinking what brings us joy; Rethinking the commoditization of home; Responsibility as the foundation; Reframing time and space; Making sense of place; Empowering agile materials and techniques; Adaptive and predictive machines for living; Expanding concepts of experience
CES 2021 PRODUCT TREND THEMES: (Whole House) Quick fixes; Empowering devices; Flexibility and adaptability; Ongoing data collection (Kitchen) Design Styling; Adaptive Living; Cultivating and experimenting; Circular rituals (Living Room) Aspirational space; Immersiave space; Human experiences; Designed to protect (Bedroom) Shelter in place; Maximizing downtime; Curative space; Proactive inducement (Bathroom) Prescriptive formulas; Immersive and responsive; Health maintenance; Self-sustaining efficiency
“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims,” said R. Buckminster Fuller. Out of necessity, the future of our homes is coming at us fast. It is loaded with technology and all that tech can do. We need to quickly understand and get ahead of this evolution of home design so that we can better inform what we need. The opportunities for home design will come from a better understanding of how human traits of behavior are adapting to change as well as earlier detection and action on the fragility of our future.
To better understand the context of what is emerging out of this COVID19 moment for home design, we looked at home-related products that will be shown at CES 2021.
We processed concepts through scenarioDNA’s culture mapping matrix to differentiate disruptive from emerging and residual from dominant codes. The analysis reveals greater opportunities to redirect new technologies to more abstract aspects of behavioral change.
Products and ideas exist across a spectrum of archetypes from residual to disruptive. What we are seeing in this is a trajectory of trends. The concern for makers is to understand where you are as a brand in relation to how people are thinking. The most provocative concepts are often the mundane ones that have an impactful tweak. Think of ambient light solar power and hydro-powered speakers informing future off-the-grid possibilities. Knowing what we are feeding now is critical.
Necessity continues to breed invention. At CES 2021, products shown reflect our time: air purification, entertainment, healthcare. Truly compelling is how we are handling the prospects of inclusivity, scarcity and waste. The recent scarcity of necessities has expedited new means of creation and new perspectives. Consider the device that uses an electric catalyst to turn water into plentiful disinfectant. Or the enzyme-powered compost that turns organic waste into air. We need to think ahead like that.
Analyzing Trends with Tim Stock 