THE NEW DOMESTIC ERA

How Home Is Changing Us

Times are a-changin’ as the saying goes—and boy, are they ever. The acceleration of AI may be ushering in a new technology age, but the real revolution is happening closer to home. Remote work, on-demand everything and conveniences that deliver whatever you want, whenever you want, and exactly how you want have made home the center of our worlds.

Enter the new Domestic Era — where home makes up the entirety, or at least most, of your personal ecosystem. It’s no longer just a launchpad for our lives—it’s the stage. Architecture and behavior now evolve together, with design called to keep pace with a world that’s shifting faster than we are. The spaces we inhabit, and the habits we form within them, have become the scales that can tip life in—or against—our favor.

It’s a major lifestyle shift, yes, but a physical one too — one that merges home and self like never before. The pandemic may have prompted the first wave of change in what we demanded from our homes, but that’s practically old history now. What followed was an acceleration, a kind of cultural overdrive through technology and convenience that quickly filled the gaps and redefined how we live and work. Today, nearly every part of daily life can be managed from home. Between hybrid work, delivery culture, and an endless stream of digital entertainment, home has quietly absorbed the full weight of our days.

As a designer, I saw this transformation happen in real time. Practically overnight, clients began rethinking how every square foot of their homes functioned. They wanted rooms to expand, spaces to flex, and design to do more. Suddenly, the home wasn’t just a place to live — it was expected to perform. Requests for home offices, gyms, wellness areas, and added storage surged. Even smaller apartments needed to stretch to meet bigger lives with greater demands. The home had become both headquarters and haven, and design became more important than ever to bridge it all together.

I always say home is the stage for everything we become. So if homeis indeed a stage, the epicenter of our world, why does this shift feel like it’s contracting our lives instead of expanding them? I consider myself a hybrid person — facile and comfortable in the outside world and, at home—equally confident at managing my surroundings. I’m smiling as I write this; it’s probably not hard to imagine that my household is a pretty well-oiled machine :)

But I can’t help thinking the outside world has accelerated so much, and businesses have monetized our conveniences so well, that we’ve not only redesigned our houses to keep up — we’ve redesigned our habits, and in turn, ourselves.

This is coming from the biggest homebody, home-lover ever. Is it possible that what began as survival has hardened us into having less sociable, less physical habits — a societal shift disguised as comfort that’s possibly made us a little too comfortable?

At its core, this is what Life Architecture is about— to me, and I hope to you: celebrating beauty, understanding how we live on a deeper level, and designing systems, ourselves, in ways that expand our experience rather than shrink it. And home is such an important part. It’s no longer simply where we start and end the day; it’s where we live the whole day. This new Domestic Era is where identity, productivity, rest, and recreation—everything— now coexist under one roof.

The 18 Hour Time Machine

If I told you most Americans spend upward of 18 hours a day at home, would you believe me? And if I told you this doesn’t seem to be a fad, but a trend—and trends in lifestyle are different than fashion; they don’t go in and out of style, they tend to stick around—would you believe me?

Here’s the thing: We’ve quietly become a nation of 18-hour homebodies — a crazy statistic, right?---not because we’re anti-social or lazy, but because the world outside our front doors has been redesigned to come to us.

To put it in perspective: eighteen hours is the time it takes to fly from New York to Hong Kong. That’s how many hours the average American now spends at home daily, according to a 2024 study in Sociological Science. The study found that adults spend nearly two-thirds of every 24-hour period at home, up more than 90 minutes from two decades ago. The pandemic sped it up, but wow, technology and snap-of-the-finger services changed our lifestyle trajectory entirely.

And this is where it goes off—what followed was a flood of emerging technologies designed to entertain us better, longer, and faster. And if you think gaming is just for kids, think again. Attention is the new currency, and businesses know exactly where to find it — at home, in our hands, on our desks, across our screens. It’s as if the world’s pace quickened to make up for lost time — just when you’d think we’d need to get out of the house, every new convenience seemed determined to keep us in.

All of this has blurred the lines between work, rest, and play. It started with remote and hybrid jobs that erased the distinction between weekdays and walls. Then streaming replaced theaters, delivery apps replaced restaurants, and social media had us staring at our devices more than each other. Add Amazon, Uber Eats, Zoom and others to the mix, and staying home feels not just easy, but logical. After all, why go out when anything you want or need can arrive in under an hour?

The Domestic Drift

If we’re all spending more time at home, it’s worth asking: what are we really doing with it? Because somewhere between nourishment and nesting, comfort crossed a line into numbing. Scrolling became a pastime that’s not social at all. I think we all looked up only to realize we’ve edited too much healthy friction — the kind that’s not always fun, but good for you — out of our days. We all know there’s no growth if you don’t step outside the comfort zone. We may be drawn to ease, but it can leave us flat.

When the shift first began, it felt restorative. We cooked, we organized, we Zoomed in our sweats and socks. But over time, the house began absorbing more than it should — our work hours, our stress, our scrolling. We stopped leaving to recharge and stayed in to be entertained instead. We stopped moving our bodies. And as a result, the boundaries between rest and routine dissolved. Home became everything — and “everything” is too much for any one space to hold.

As a designer, I can tell you a beautiful environment doesn’t automatically create a beautiful life. Home isn’t meant to be a stage set; it’s meant to be the stage for a real production — your life. The form of a room only matters when it supports the function of being alive inside it. Without movement, interest, or context, even the most well-designed spaces are nothing more than shells. Real beauty needs circulation — the flow of light, of air, of thought. Most importantly, a home needs real people — stewards who bring it to life.

Designing Your Home to Outsmart Your Habits

So maybe this moment isn’t about fixing the problem, but using it — turning the domestic drift into a creative opportunity to re-architect the way we see home, and the way we see ourselves at home. If our homes are holding more of us, they can also shape more of us — if we work in tandem with them.

When designed thoughtfully, our homes can be our greatest productivity hack. The spaces we live in can train us toward our best behaviors and selves — inspiring curiosity, self-discipline, and a framework for living that reflects what we actually need. A good home isn’t just where you feel safe; it’s where you grow smarter, calmer, more aware.

Finding Balance in A Modern World

Third party events, socialization, clubs…

The opportunity in this new Domestic Era is design — not décor, but a deeper kind, one of self-architecture: one that builds a framework for living through systems, rituals, and spaces that keep us in motion. And sometimes, that means being shooed out the door, so home can welcome us back as a more expanded and grateful occupant. Our homes can be the most creative labs we have. They can teach us rhythm, perspective, and confidence — among a million other things. But only if we strive for balance.