The trajectory of the modern house has been firmly expansionist. Successive generations have built side returns, rear extensions, excavated basements and extended upwards. But now that all that land has become interior there seems to be a wistful recognition of the pleasance of the presence of nature. Houseplants only take you so far.
How will we live in 2025? Trends in design, interiors and gardening to look out for
Where will we move to, what will we plant, how will we build and which colours will we paint it all? Experts from Kelly Wearstler to Tom Stuart-Smith have the answers
Interiors
DIY reimagined
FAYE TOOGOOD, ARTIST, DESIGNER AND FOUNDER, TOOGOOD
I feel there will be a greater sense of playfulness and a push towards individualism. Limited budgets and a desire to move away from homogeneous high-street collections will mean we will seek to create things other people don’t have. This will mean a renewed enthusiasm for eclectic, vintage and second-hand pieces and DIY. I’m enthusiastic for a more 1970s approach: patchwork curtains made out of old fabrics; a second-hand cupboard painted in a mix of paints found in the garage; a giant fish cushion crocheted with your newfound crochet skills; a canvas on the wall painted by your kids. Let’s not make it too serious and let’s try to not make it identikit.
A second look at stained glass
LUKE EDWARD HALL, DESIGNER AND FT COLUMNIST
I’m having a stained glass moment: I’m spending many of my weekends tracking down the best examples in churches close to me at home in Gloucestershire. I’d like to see more stained glass in domestic interiors. I want to incorporate it in my interior design projects, but you don’t necessarily need to commit to full windows. Try tracking down beautiful old panels at auction and through specialist dealers.
Functional playfulness
KELLY WEARSTLER, DESIGNER
Next year I’m looking forward to experimenting with pieces that serve both as functional objects and artistic statements — pieces that invite interaction, encouraging us to reimagine how we engage with our environments. One example is the 1980s Triangular Suspension Pendant by Mario Botta for Artemide. I love the way its bold geometric form creates an interplay of light and shadow that transforms depending on your viewing angle. The way it commands attention while remaining a functional light source perfectly embodies what I’m drawn to.
Frameless furniture
MARK ALLEN, BUYING MANAGER, ARAM
At Aram, we have seen a trend towards less structured, highly cushioned, and apparently “frameless” sofas and we think this will become more apparent in 2025. Cassina launched the Moncloud by Patricia Urquiola in 2023, and since then we have noticed styles where legs are invisible and cushions are layered. At Milan Design Week 2024, Knoll launched the Perron Pillo Sofa by Willo Perron. Tacchini launched the Solar by Faye Toogood, and BD Barcelona launched the Sausage sofa by Willo Perron and brought Muller Van Severen’s Pillow sofa back into production, taking the trend to the extreme!
Red alert
BRITT MORAN AND EMILIANO SALCI, FOUNDERS, DIMORESTUDIO
2025 is set to embrace individuality and bold designchoices, with hints of red emerging as a key accent.
Textured layering
ED BAKOS, PARTNER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CHAMPALIMAUD DESIGN
Handcrafted, warm, emotional touches are appearing more. It’s a lot less clinical, with wood and layered textures. A bespoke hand-painted wallcovering or a sculptural staircase conveys a human touch.
Red alert
BRITT MORAN AND EMILIANO SALCI, FOUNDERS, DIMORESTUDIO
2025 is set to embrace individuality and bold designchoices, with hints of red emerging as a key accent.
Textured layering
ED BAKOS, PARTNER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CHAMPALIMAUD DESIGN
Handcrafted, warm, emotional touches are appearing more. It’s a lot less clinical, with wood and layered textures. A bespoke hand-painted wallcovering or a sculptural staircase conveys a human touch.
Colour
Toasty tones
CASSANDRA ELLIS, FOUNDER, ATELIER ELLIS
A selection of gentle toasty tones can be a cosseting palette to live within. Contrasting these shades can soften a room and make corners seem to disappear. Our Tea & Toast, Beginnings, Warm White and Solstice, for example, would be good. Or a colour that allows the light to fall beautifully. Our musky purple-brown Fallen Plum feels ancient, and light seeps in and dances across it.
Earth and spice
JOA STUDHOLME, COLOUR CURATOR, FARROW & BALL
We will certainly still be drawn to deep earth tones in 2025, so clay shades and deep greens that feel “down to earth”, such as Farrow & Ball’s Cardamom, Red Earth and Tanner’s Brown, will be popular along with some spicier tones. These will be used in ever more daring combinations, with little white being used on ceilings or trim, and in a mix of finishes — such as Dead Flat being used alongside Full Gloss.
Property
The great school shake-up
LUCIAN COOK, HEAD OF UK RESIDENTIAL RESEARCH, SAVILLS
The addition of VAT on school fees will be one of the key issues at the top end of the housing market. For those whose children are settled at a school, it might mean putting off plans to upsize. That is likely to suppress demand and could act as a drag on a recovery in the prime housing market. Those whose finances are more heavily squeezed are likely to look further afield, often focusing on areas where there are clusters of higher performing state schools, such as Winchester and Bath, or counties with a grammar school system such as Kent and Lincolnshire. This will mean intense competition for both school places and houses in these areas: the trade-off between house prices, commutability and schools will be hotly debated next year.
Saunas 2.0
JEMMA SCOTT, PARTNER, THE BUYING SOLUTION
Sauna tech is what our clients are after. A recent client has installed a smart sauna — most traditional saunas take a while to heat up, this client switches hers on when she’s on the train home from work via an app. Those with special outdoor spaces like bothies in their gardens are also transforming them into “wild” saunas.
The protected landscape premium
LIAM BAILEY, GLOBAL HEAD OF RESEARCH, KNIGHT FRANK
The UK government is committed to development — lots of it. If you want economic growth it might make sense, if you want to live your dream country lifestyle, then less so. However, there are still some protected landscapes such as the Golden Valley near Bath, Cairngorms National Park or the Cotswolds. According to Knight Frank’s research, the premium for living in a National Park is 22.6 per cent, and in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), it’s 29.2 per cent. Expect a big increase in complaints from local residents — and recent transplants — about rising demand, escalating prices, and pubs serving fancy “London food”.
Millennial Miami
MICHAEL STERN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE, JDS DEVELOPMENT GROUP
In the past five or so years, Miami has grown up to provide a diverse and stable economy and real cultural depth. It was always fun and playful but now it has also become a serious place to do business. In the old days, a chief executive would retire here. Now that CEO is coming aged much younger — and bringing the company with them.
Super-prime renting
BECKY FATEMI, EXECUTIVE PARTNER, UK SOTHEBY’S INTERNATIONAL REALTY
I’m seeing clients try before they buy, renting homes instead of buying at the top end of the market. Next year is going to see some seriously big transactions for Dubai and London. We have some big searches already for London for next year from American families interested in schools. They are looking to spend up to £40,000 a week for a two or three-year rental, and then will assess their situation. Dubai is hot right now, but it is a transient place and crucially it is not everyone’s “forever” view.
In 2024 we struggled with stock but we have recently been valuing a lot of prime London properties, from £10,000 a week upwards, in areas like Mayfair and Belgravia. These are properties both that have been used as family homes by non-doms looking to move temporarily abroad, and others that have been on the sales market and not sold. We are seeing the return of the accidental landlord.
Dumb tech
JONATHAN BRANDLING-HARRIS, CO-FOUNDER, HOUSE COLLECTIVE
Our clients are increasingly rejecting smart home technology. Even things like classic light switches are being favoured over complex systems — people want knobs, not panels. One major reason for this shift is the fear of systems failing or becoming too complex to manage. Recently a client’s doors and windows suddenly opened and stayed ajar for 10 hours until an engineer could fix the issue.
Flowers and gardens
Mocha roses
WHITNEY BROMBERG HAWKINGS, FOUNDER AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE, FLOWERBX
The rose is having a bit of a comeback, especially in more muted tones, like the Mocha rose which is similar in shade to the Pantone colour of 2025, Mocha Mousse. I think this “quiet luxury” of a flower will take centre stage as we move into more subdued decor.
Edible meets ornamental
HAZEL GARDINER, FLORAL DESIGNER
In the face of the climate crisis, traditional ornate gardensare being replaced by purpose-driven, high-yield spaces that prioritise functionality — combining edibles with ornamentals.
Rewilding and naturalistic planting are no longer trends but essentials. Beyond supporting pollinators, gardens may feature hard-working plants such as drought-tolerant Eryngium giganteum, which brings structural beauty and winter interest. I predict we will seek out colourful medicinal species such as Calendula officinalis, alongside pollution and sound-absorbing plants.
Even wilder wildness
TOM STUART-SMITH, LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT AND GARDEN DESIGNER
Gardens will see an increasingly intense response to the degradation of the natural world around us. They will be seen as havens not just for all of us but also for other species, whether they are plants or animals. So I look forward to ever greater diversity, wildness and complexity — and less of the other stuff, with plastic at the top of the list.
Architecture
Building nature indoors
EDWIN HEATHCOTE, FT ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN CRITIC
The trajectory of the modern house has been firmly expansionist. Successive generations have built side returns, rear extensions, excavated basements and extended upwards. But now that all that land has become interior there seems to be a wistful recognition of the pleasance of the presence of nature. Houseplants only take you so far.
The result is a proliferation of internal courtyards as people invite air, light and nature back in. It’s a trend I think at least partly influenced by the imaginative modernist houses of Brazil and Japan and by new designs from south-east Asia, where architects create compact tropical gardens which help ventilate, illuminate and vegetate the interior.
But in northern Europe and the northern US cities, lacking that tropical abundance, they are creating something a little more Zen — rocks and gravel with a few striking plants or perhaps a single tree.
Prioritising water
AMANDA LEVETE, ARCHITECT
Water is a precious resource and it is under tremendous pressure. As architects we need to be more mindful of this and collect every drop of water that falls on our sites, creating a circle of reuse and management. We need to use water to help cool our cities, to irrigate and to design roads and paths that absorb water. In the US, agriculture is responsible for 80 per cent of all water consumed — one way we can create more efficient water use is for architects to incorporate urban allotments for communities to grow food.
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