Trendspotting: Hobby Rooms

Trendspotting: Hobby Rooms

​    Defined as an activity done expressly in pursuit of pleasure or relaxation, hobbies are an important part of a well-balanced life. Making space in your home for hobbies is by no means a new thing, but we have certainly noticed a recent shift, where more and more homeowners are putting their respective hobbies at the forefront during design, rather than leaving them as an afterthought. So, in light of this emerging “trend”, let’s talk about why this shift may be happening, as well as some examples of hobby-forward design that we’ve seen.

​    As a quick disclaimer, I am not even close to qualified to talk about design trends or the general nuances of homeownership; I am merely a newsletter writer who is all too happy to offer her opinions on, well, anything. With that being said, my thoughts are likely not all-encompassing, but I think there’s a good one or two points in there. 
    You may already be familiar with our Lifestyle Questionnaire—for those who aren’t, it is an in-depth questionnaire that covers all facets of a design project. The questionnaire touches on the pragmatic, like where you plan to live during construction, to the aesthetic, like sharing your Pinterest boards, to the personal, like your family’s day-to-day routine and (of course) your hobbies. It’s an important part of the pre-design work, and our architectural team uses the questionnaire as a reference for creating that first iteration of the design. It’s in these questionnaires that this steady shift is exemplified; over the years, our section on hobbies has gone from mostly left blank to answered (with detail) the vast majority of the time. What’s been parallel to this uptick? Motivation.
​    While I will absolutely not be delving into the economic nitty-gritty of homeownership trends, I think we all have seen that the traditional “starter home” trajectory has waned. In its place, a mindset geared towards very long-term, or even forever, homes have grown to become standard. This mindset of making your current house work in perpetuity has led to a rise in custom, personalized choices for their design. Because if you’re living somewhere for decades, it better fit your lifestyle. 

​Personalizing your home’s design can take many forms, like painting the walls your favorite color, or locating your primary bedroom on the first floor. It also takes the form of the hobby room. Some hobbies don’t require all that much space at baseline, but if we’re motivated to design with ourselves in mind, devoting a room specifically to your own enjoyment seems like a no-brainer! Let’s say, you love to knit—sure, you could just do that on the couch…OR…you could have a room with storage for all of your yarn, a cozy chair to sit in while you knit, and space for all of your finished projects. 
    We haven’t designed a knitting room for a client (yet), but the  hobby rooms our architectural team are working on 

deserve some applause in their own right. I am a personal fan of the artist’s studio—pictured in a rendering on the left side of the page—so much so that I have filed it away for my own dream home. Guest editor, Jeff Rudolph, sought a space for his woodworking hobby, which found a home in the basement of his forever home. Some other rooms worth mentioning: an underground music studio, a plant propagation room and an in-home yoga studio. Of course, I can’t leave out the boss, Bill Styczynski’s forever home, which has the B.A.G. (big-ass garage) for his racing, and his wife, Kerry’s, quilting room.
    Overall, the wide-ranging nature of hobbies themselves mirrors just how wide-ranging the options for a hobby room are. These spaces, at their core, are flexible; you don’t have to spend millions of dollars to create a lovely hobby space (unless, of course, you want to), and adding this personal touch to your home’s design will pay dividends in happiness and relaxation. 

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By: Emma H. 

Emma works as the Marketing Manager for Studio21 Architects. She is the writer behind (almost) all of our newsletter articles, and she works hard to make sure all of our marketing materials reflect an architect-approved design quality!