% of respondents reporting popularity of neighborhood/community trend “increasing” minus % reporting “decreasing;” data from Q3 2020 compared to data from Q3 2019. Source: The American Institute of Architects Home Design Trends Survey
The pandemic has buoyed the custom residential design sector while impacting homeowner design preferences, according to a fourth quarter Home Design Trends Survey from the American Institute of Architects (AIA).
The latest survey results—focusing on community and neighborhood design—showed a decline in homeowner demand for infill and higher-density development, reversing a multi-year trend. Conversely, demand for multi-generational housing accommodations vaulted in popularity.
What Is a multi-generational home?
A house where adults of two or more generations live under the same roof. Sometimes a multi-generational home houses more than one family, but more often, it’s multiple generations of a single family. In the 1950s around 32 million people were living in multi-generational households. Today, over 64 million Americans (19% of the population) live in multi-generational homes. Source: Millenia
Project billings, inquiries, and design contracts also rebounded from a record decline in the first quarter of 2020.
Additionally, all custom residential sectors reported improved market conditions with home improvement reporting the strongest gains.
“The uneven impact of the pandemic on specific construction sectors is nowhere more apparent than in custom residential,” said AIA Chief Economist Kermit Baker, PhD, Hon. AIA.
“Though the initial impact of the pandemic hit residential architects hard,” Baker said, “a stay-at-home lifestyle and the desire for more space and less density has increased homeowners’ desires to modify their accommodations.”
Other findings
The AIA Home Design Trends Survey also found that …
- Durability/low maintenance remained a popular choice for home exteriors
- Fire-resistant materials continued to increase in popularity
It’s a common fact that steel is non-combustible. A steel-framed structure, unlike a wood-framed structure, can help safeguard your assets against fire accidents. Learn more:
- Building with Steel After Record Setting Year for Wildfires
- Don’t Get Burned: Steel for Fire Safety and Insurance Savings
- Steel’s non-combustibility
Business conditions in residential architecture
The AIA Home Design Trends Survey also found that residential architecture firms had good third quarter results.
- Firms in all regions reported strong growth in billings in Q3
- Project backlogs at residential firms continued to increase in the third quarter
- On average firms reported about a six percent increase in the value of backlogs from the second quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2020
The AIA survey is conducted quarterly with a panel of more than 500 architecture firms that concentrate their practice in the residential sector. More information on the latest survey results can be reviewed on AIA’s website.