4 Key Considerations for Simple Modern House Design

While it’s true that no two modern homes will ever be exactly the same, most modern home designs share a number of characteristics that have come to define the aesthetic. One of the most important of these characteristics is simplicity: In form, material palette, detail, etc., modern home design tends to embrace simplicity.

If you are considering a custom-built modern home for yourself and your family, it can be a good idea to think about how the concept of simplicity translates into key areas of the design. Below, we explore four of the most important considerations for designing a simple modern home.

4 Things to Consider For a Simple Modern Design

1. Form

When it comes to the actual form and massing of the house, modern homes tend to embrace simplicity and forgo fussiness.

In practice, this will often translate into the use of an open floor plan and more shared “community” spaces within the home. Avoiding too many bump outs, enclaves, turns, or other odd shapes in your layout will also help to further the simplicity of the home’s form. Creating clean lines is also important in this regard, as it will help you to emphasize the purity of the form.

2. Storage

No matter how clean your home’s layout and form, if it is cluttered then that form will be obscured. With this in mind, eliminating clutter is important for maintaining a simple, modern space. One key concern is ensuring that the home has plenty of storage, and that each item has its own place within the home.

There are creative ways to incorporate storage directly into the home’s design. As just one example, you might design custom shelving to house collectibles and books in an artful way. By incorporating storage into the design, you reduce or even eliminate the need to purchase storage options that potentially clash with or take away from the design.

Plan ahead by creating a list of everything that is needed in the home so that you can be intentional in including sufficient storage and eliminating unnecessary clutter.

3. Material Palette

Your material palette—the actual materials that your home is made from—can go far in either simplifying the look and feel of your home or making it feel busier than it needs to be. This is because, in addition to being the building blocks of your house, the materials have a look and feel to them: Colors, textures, reflectivity, etc. The more different materials you use throughout your home and from room to room, the less “simple” your design will feel at the end of the day.

You can counteract this quite simply by simplifying your material palette and using the same materials throughout your home. For example, you might leverage a flooring material that can continue between several rooms like your kitchen, living room, and dining room. This will not only help the space to feel unified, but can also make the space look and feel bigger. Another example would be to leverage the same material for shelving throughout your home, or the same colors in furniture, and so on.

4. Details

Why? For a number of reasons. First, these details often don’t mesh well with modern layouts and material palettes; incorporating them will feel out of place and disjointed with the rest of your home. Second, visually complex details make your space look and feel busier than it is. If you’ve gone through all of the work to follow the advice listed above, but then fill your home with details that are overly visually complex, then your final design will not be as simple in design as it could be.

This same idea applies to furnishings and decorations. Try to choose simple furniture pieces that complement each other without adding too much fussiness to the space, and ensure that the furniture itself feels at home with the rest of the design elements in your space.

Working Toward Simplicity

Simplicity is one of the central tenets of modern home design. Simple layout, simple storage solutions, simple materials, and simple details all work together to create a home that in many cases feels larger, less cluttered, and less busy. A skilled architect should keep all of these points in mind while designing your home.