Jan 18, 2024
Emerging Multifamily Interior Design Trends for 2024 and Beyond
Western Real Estate Business
Form, function and longevity are priorities for multifamily developers and their residents, with recent global and domestic expositions highlighting these trending topics.
Understanding the relevance of macro-movements in the world of design plays an ongoing and important role for interior design leaders. As such, leading firms continue to explore shifts in perception and styles by analyzing macro movements — not micro-trends or fads, as fads fade. Instead, they focus on global movements and style sentiments that have the longevity and endurance to directly influence multifamily interior design trends for years to come.
On The Global Horizon
This year, our team executives traveled to Milan, Italy to attend the International Salon & Furnishings Exhibition, Salone del Mobile di Milano. Otherwise known as the Milan Furniture Fair, it is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. This extraordinary exhibition showcases the latest in design and furnishings from all around the world. The Mission: gather resources and inspiration to bring back to our design teams, as we collectively explore the future of art and design. This trailblazing exhibit offered a unique glimpse into the global design “macro-move-in aesthetics that will be seen in years to come.
Our key multifamily design take-aways included:
- Biophilic Design: These principles remain at the forefront of the global movement. This includes everything from massive, organic tree-shaped sculptural elements to dramatic living-wall installations. These artfully designed moments exhibit the essence of biophilia by representing nature in the physical space, as well as the nature of the space, with a mimicry of natural analogs.
- Scaled to New Heights: This bend toward maximalist design, which includes items with a heavy a focus on exaggerated proportions in lighting fixtures, wall ornamentation and focal elements, were front and center. Floor-to-ceiling installations and colossal fixtures impose maximum volume, counterbalancing the height and visual weight of double-volume spaces.
- Whimsical Wonders: These design trends give credence to the shift toward a more quirky, col-orful and imaginative philosophy in design. Perhaps in direct opposition to the serious and straight-lined approach that has dominated design for so many years, we’re seeing a more playful attitude expressed in robust shapes, bold colors and (sometimes) risqué forms.
The Domestic Dispatch
Domestically, our teams traveled to the highly anticipated High Point Market in North Carolina to deep dive into the latest trends and offerings of multifamily furnishings, fabrics and accessories manufacturers. With the mission to discover new product lines and suppliers to add to our repertoire of trade-only furnishing sources, our team identified many new innovative products.
Our key multifamily design take-aways included:
- Curves: This trend commanded the exhibition, with nary a straight line in sight. From upholstered furniture to lighting and decorative accessories, curved forms, organic shapes and rounded edges commanded the stage.
- Bold and Evocative: These two terms expressed the sentiment of furnishings, art, and accessories by use of unexpected elements, over-scaled patterns and over-size fixtures.
- Natural Notions: The organic world once again captivated the audience with plenty of nature-made materials, such as seagrass and rattan, hand-thrown clay embellishments, and lighter, honey-toned and ceruse-hued wood finishes.
With multifamily developers seeking guidance on future-proofing their communities for a new generation of renters, design teams have a responsibility to explore and implement designs that compel, intrigue and inform.
Rules that govern design are ever evolving, but macro-trends can provide valuable insight into what renters may prefer over the next decade.
Chelsea Dora-Shibley, President of Interior Design, HPA Design Group