Incorporating Moveable Feature Walls Into Home Design

Walls As Furniture

A New York project offers dynamic design flexibility

Can interior walls be considered part of the furniture—something that homeowners or renters bring along to their new abode to make a house, home office or other space more suitable for living or working?

It seems like a foreign concept, but it’s an idea that would shorten construction time and lower housing costs, not to mention develop new industries.

With a rise in the number of non-traditional households that include seniors, singles and single parents, the limited choice of conventionally designed interior layouts can no longer suit the needs of all occupants. Adaptable units, though, can accommodate their varying space needs and facilitate the introduction of new building systems without compromising functionality or comfort.

Society has undergone fundamental lifestyle changes over the past five decades. There has been a radical shift in the way people live and form households, work, enjoy their leisure, grow old and die. Yet, the interior layout of dwellings has not kept pace with those changes. We still, for the most part, offer fairly rigid interiors with permanent walls attached to floors and ceilings.

In addition, households of all types undergo changes in composition as their life cycles evolve. To accommodate, people typically choose between moving or home improvement. Adaptable units, though, accommodate varying space needs. They use design concepts and technologies to create an environment in which modifying the building takes precedence over demolition or moving.

One idea that architects are toying with is the concept of walls as furniture. That is, that in addition to separating rooms and offering visual and acoustic privacy, walls can be configured for other functions, such as storing household items.

Well-known for both high-end and humanitarian projects using environmentally sensitive recycled materials,

The design is similar to other models in the series, where the factory-produced units incorporate both structural and space-defining elements. Moreover, the prefabricated construction significantly reduces on-site construction time, waste and costs. Individual components include modular nine-foot floor-to-ceiling ‘furniture units’ that have structural purposes, while also providing spatial division and storage. In addition, during construction, the furniture units work as a flexible system—light enough that two people can move, position and install all the pieces.

All in all, there are a total of 144 furniture units that were employed for Furniture House 5, including closets, bookcases, linen closets, pantry, partitions and HVAC compartments.

The spatial concept divides the house into four separate zones, each enhanced by an individual garden that integrates the interior with the surrounding landscape. In addition, to allow the design to have large cantilevers, each corner is reinforced with triangular pieces of plywood to bear the horizontal and vertical loads of the building and to prevent buckling. Furthermore, the large glazed facades of the living spaces contribute to the indoor/outdoor continuity.

Apart from the design’s flexibility, storage units are seamlessly integrated into the architecture to allow greater living space.

Furniture House 5 is a sequence of spaces, transitions and continuous relationships between the interior and exterior architectural conception, designed for comfortable living in a new age.

Dr. Avi Friedman is an architect, professor and social observer. He can be reached avi.friedman@mcgill.ca.