There is a particular madness to a city in a heatwave, and this summer London discovered its own. The parks filled by ten in the morning. Rosé appeared at lunch as though by civic decree. Everyone became, briefly, an expert on cross-ventilation and the precise hour to open the windows. We watched the whole performance from the studio, charmed and a little uneasy, because underneath the novelty was something we recognised: a city improvising comfort it used to be given for free.

Heat does this. It strips a place back to how it really works. You learn very quickly which rooms are kind and which are not, which café keeps its shade, which friend has the flat you actually want to be in by four o’clock. A hot week turns all of us into connoisseurs of cool, and almost none of us, we noticed, looked to the building itself for the answer. We looked to the machine.

We kept thinking, through it all, of a house in the hills above the Atlas Mountains. You know the kind, even if you have never been: low and white, windows like deep-set eyes, a courtyard at its heart with water moving somewhere out of sight. People have been photographing these houses for a century and calling them romantic. They are not romantic. They are devastatingly practical, disguised as romance. Step inside at the cruellest hour of the afternoon and the air turns to early evening. You feel your whole body recalibrate. It is the most luxurious thing in the world, and it costs nothing, and it runs on nothing, and we have somehow decided it belongs to the past.

It did not separate comfort from beauty. The cool room and the lovely room were the same room.

This is the quiet comedy of how we live now. We will pay a great deal for the idea of these places, a holiday in a riad, a long table under a fig tree, the linen, the lime wash, the whole sun-warmed fantasy, and then come home and build the opposite. Thin walls. Vast glass. A view we cool at enormous expense and call, without irony, a luxury.

We bought the postcard and threw away the instructions printed on the back.

Because there were instructions. Mass, so the wall drinks the cool of the night and returns it slowly through the day. Shade, because nothing flatters a room, or a face, like being kept out of direct sun. Water, for the air and for the nerves both. The riad knew this. So did the patio, the cortijo, the hammam, every culture that ever had to be elegant in the heat rather than merely survive it. They did not separate comfort from beauty. The cool room and the lovely room were the same room. That was the whole art of it.

Somewhere we let those two things drift apart, and decided that beauty was the look of a place and comfort was the thing we’d add later, with a remote control. The houses we keep returning to, in a hundred villages no magazine has bothered with, never made that mistake. They are still standing. They are still cool. They are, if you go quiet enough inside one, still teaching.

We are not nostalgists, and we are not against the machine. We are simply struck, every summer a little more, by how much pleasure we have engineered out of the way we live, and how recoverable it is. When people ask why we build the way we do, this is the closest we come to an answer: we are trying to make rooms that know how to hold you, in the heat and out of it, without being asked. Most people can still remember a room like that. The strange luxury of our moment is that we get to build them on purpose.

Friends,

We wanted to share a few thoughts today on open plan living — and why separation is quietly re-entering the conversation.

Open plan spaces have done a lot of heavy lifting over the last few decades. They brought in light, loosened up layouts, and made homes feel more generous than their square metres suggested. At their best, they encourage flow, conversation, and a sense of ease.

They also set a certain expectation of togetherness.

But our homes are being asked to hold more than they used to. They’re no longer just places to gather at the end of the day. They’re where we work, rest, host, retreat, focus, and reset — often without much transition between those modes. And that overlap is starting to show.

What’s coming up again and again isn’t a rejection of openness.
It’s a desire for control.

Share Alame Pedrosa

FLOW

Open plan was originally embraced for very human reasons — light, visibility, and ease of movement. Kitchens became the core of the home: where you cook, eat, talk, help with homework, and now sometimes work at a laptop. It was an architectural expression of togetherness.

Historically, this idea of flow isn’t new.

If you look at early modernist plans — particularly those by Le Corbusier — space was conceived as something continuous and liberated from heavy partitions. His open plans were meant to free the body, allowing movement, light, and air to circulate without obstruction.

Later, Mies van der Rohe pushed this even further. His domestic interiors were often defined less by walls and more by planes, furniture, and material shifts. The idea wasn’t emptiness — it was clarity.

There’s still a place for this kind of fluidity. When it works, it feels generous and connective. Spaces relate to one another easily. Life unfolds without complications.

But uninterrupted flow can also mean everything happens at once.

When planning open space, allow for moments of pause. Even small shifts — in layout, orientation, or use — can help a space breathe without losing its openness.

Share Alame Pedrosa

FRICTION

That’s where friction emerges.
Not as a design problem, but as a lived one.

When activities overlap — work calls over dinner, screens humming in the background, daily life without clear edges — the home can start to feel like it’s always “on”.

The very qualities that once made open plan desirable — visibility and continuity — can become sources of tension if they aren’t balanced.

This tension isn’t just architectural; it’s cultural.
In painting, too, moments of rest are created not through emptiness but through contrast. Think of Giorgio Morandi — tightly composed still lifes where proximity creates calm, not chaos. Objects are close, but never competing.

Similarly, friction in space doesn’t need to be eliminated.
Used intentionally, it becomes a cue.

Instead of trying to smooth everything out, use friction deliberately.
It can signal a change in pace.
A shift in use.
A moment of transition between one part of the day and the next.

SEPARATION

Separation isn’t the same as closure.

When working with open layouts, lean into intentional delineation — ways of breaking a continuous space into parts without reverting to rigid, boxed-in rooms. Think of this less as dividing space, and more as tuning it.

This approach has strong precedents.

Traditional Japanese interiors, for example, rely on screens and sliding panels to define space without fixing it permanently. The work of Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa continues this logic — where transparency, lightness, and separation coexist.

Lean on elements like:

• partial dividers that allow air, light, and sightlines to pass through

• shelving used as a threshold rather than a barrier

• subtle level changes, reveals, or material shifts that suggest a new zone

• screens and furniture layouts that create distinction without isolation

An extreme but beautiful example of how a divider can shape space, create pause, and still allow light and movement.

This kind of broken-plan logic, somewhere between open and closed, offers both clarity and connection. It allows different activities to coexist without competing for attention.

It’s less about dividing space, and more about giving it structure.

FLEXIBILITY

At the heart of this isn’t a rejection of open plan.
It’s a demand for flexibility that aligns with how we actually live.

Homes today are expected to be:

• workplaces

• places to rest and sleep

• social hubs

• quiet retreats

• spaces for meals, creativity, play, and focus

All within the same footprint.

Design for flexibility by allowing spaces to shift throughout the day.
Flexibility doesn’t mean everything happening everywhere. It means purposeful adaptability — knowing when to open things up, and when to introduce softness or separation.

Architects like Carlo Scarpa understood this instinctively. His interiors are layered, paced, and deeply attentive to thresholds — moments where one space yields to another. You’re never rushed through them. You’re guided.

Good flexible design doesn’t erase flow.
It channels it.

The most successful homes right now aren’t choosing sides.
They’re balancing openness with structure, and freedom with control.

Open plan and separation aren’t opposites. They’re tools.
Used together, thoughtfully and lightly, they help spaces get out of the way.

Friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about gathering lately, what it means, what it does, and how it shapes the way we live. A talk by Sumayya Vally stuck with me, where she described gathering almost as an institution: a place where memory, ritual, and care all sit together.

So this week, I wanted to look at hosting through that lens , not perfection or performance, but the small, smart, design moves that shift the atmosphere instantly. The things that quietly raise our home to the occasion.

Before we get into the heart of it, here are a few things we’ve learned that always make hosting easier, calmer, and more enjoyable:

VARY HEIGHTS.

A flat table feels dead. Add height changes, a tall candle, a low bowl, a mid-level dish. The eye starts dancing, the table gains movement, and people feel more drawn in. Height is energy.

USE A NATURAL MATERIAL.

Every table needs one element that feels alive, wood, linen, clay, stone. Swap out something synthetic or shiny for a natural texture and watch the whole atmosphere change. Natural materials soften the mood, warm the tone, and make the table feel more inviting without adding any clutter. One honest material can carry the entire setting.

ADD A LAYER.

Tables always look better when something sits on something , a bowl on a cloth, bread on a board, glasses on a tray. One simple layer adds depth, softens sound, and makes the whole setting feel more intentional without adding more “stuff.” Layering brings warmth and dimension in the easiest possible way.

Setting the tone.

Hosting begins long before the first knock at the door. It starts with the feeling the room gives even when empty. Not tidy or perfect. Just settled.

A few things always help.

Clear one small surface.
Visual noise becomes emotional noise. One cleared area instantly calms the room.

Lower the lighting by one level.
Turn off overhead lights. Use lamps and warmer points of glow. People relax when the room feels grounded rather than bright.

Add one warm signal to the centre.
A pot simmering, a bowl of fruit, bread on a board, or a single candle. Anything that shows life is already moving in the space.

Open something.
A bottle of water, a jar, a linen napkin. A room that looks in use makes people feel welcome.

Seating Height and How People Settle

People do not choose seats randomly. Their bodies choose for them.

LOW SEATING creates softness.
People curl up, relax, and conversations start to deepen. We love this.

MID SEATING feels steady.
This is the comfortable zone for long talks and slow drinks.

HIGH SEATING feels social.
Perches or counters work for movement and casual drifting in and out.

We recently discovered Blocksfinj, and they do really nice modular seating.

You do not need a perfect layout. You only need range.
One low option, one medium height chair, and one place someone can hover.
Choice creates comfort. Comfort creates connection.

Hosting Across Cultures and Designing for Everyone

Bowls instead of plates.

Contrast materials.

No head of the table.

Food in the centre.

The best tables feel open to everyone. Emotionally, socially, and culturally.

Wood or stone or clay communicate warmth everywhere without carrying a script. Bowls feel universal. They create instant comfort across many traditions. Circular tables or relaxed seating remove hierarchy and make conversation flow. Sharing plates soften barriers faster than any conversation starter.

A culturally open table is not about aesthetics.
It is about removing friction.

Points of Resonance

Every home has its natural magnets. Where people naturally gather
The kitchen corner. The soft bend of the sofa. The warm lamp. The window ledge.

Place something there.
A drink setup. A bowl of olives. A cluster of glasses. A board with snacks.
Anything that tells people this spot is meant for them.

Gathering happens in clusters.
Lean into that natural rhythm.

The Labour of Love

Hosting is work.
Good hosting is care disguised as ease.

It shows up in the way you warm the room.
In the quiet editing rather than adding.
In the choice to let things be imperfect and alive.

Gathering has always been one of the most natural forms of connection.

A table, a few materials, something warm to eat, light in the right places, and the feeling of being welcomed.

When we host, we are not building a scene.
We are creating a moment that becomes a memory.

See you next week,

around a table maybe?