Housing design forecast: “Sleep is the new sex”
7 January 2007 2 Comments
According to certain people, the era of the conjugal bedroom is coming to an end. Couples, it is predicted, will value their sleep more than in the past weary from long commutes, oversize homes and the “isolation of suburbia.” Homes will, therefore, start coming with divided master suites.
The article does make some other observations worth noting. For instance, the end of the era of McMansions. Homes will have dedicated rooms where families can work, play and entertain with less “excess” square footage to clean and maintain. People will gravitate back to smaller bungalows in the city. “With less space to design and decorate, consumers will make sure the rooms they have are as functional as they are attractive.”
Buildings with rooms that function efficiently and intently. Hmmm. And isn’t it ironic that the “isolation of surburbia” will supposedly force us into further isolation — separate bedrooms.
A list by Mark Nash of what’s in and what’s out in the housing market can be found via this link.
It is not necessarily the “isolation of suburbia” that forces couples into separate bedrooms. Rather it tends to be that ageing, and changing physical comfort requirements often sends couples into separate rooms to sleep. My husband, who was raised in the Yukon, likes the bedroom to be ice-box cold, even in the dead of winter, and because of his increasing arthritic pains prefers a soft mattress. I, on the other hand, prefer to sleep on an almost nun-like plank and like a slightly warmer temperature in the bedroom. Thus the only solution for us was separate bedrooms. This certainly beats his parents’ sleeping arrangements as they aged – they wore blinders and earplugs, slept on single beds in the same room and argued incessantly about reading at bedtime. At some time in life, a body just wants to be alone!
Sure, and I think that is in large part what the article (which was buried in our paper) was getting at as it diverged into how people value sleep and how homes will be created with more intentionality.
Even my own grandparents have slept apart for some years now on account of grandma’s snoring, which keeps grandpa up at night.