When it comes to building your dream home, the world can feel like your oyster. From something Hamptons-inspired, to perhaps a more traditional bungalow, Australian home owners love the idea of building their perfect modern home. But what does a modern Australian home actually look like?
What is the most popular house design in Australia?
For architect and James Hardie ambassador Joe Snell of Studio Snell, modern Australian homes take after five key architectural styles: mid-century modern, minimalist, coastal, the scandi-barn, and mixed-material. In all of these styles, clean lines and clever materials abound.
“Generally speaking, the modern trend features clean lines, confident shapes and minimal ornamentation,” explains Joe. “There is a focus on form and function, but a number of different design trends such as coastal and Scandi have added to the style, each based on their own influences and principles.”
Before creating your dream modern Australian home, it’s important to be familiar with the type of style you’re really looking for. Here, Joe shares the five most popular types…
MID-CENTURY MODERN
Mid-century modern grew in popularity between the 1950s and 1970s, and has more recently returned as a major design trend for both home design and interior decor.
Embracing a love of clean lines, indoor-outdoor living and rich materiality, mid-century modern design is pared-back in style with an emphasis on functionality.
Often featuring flat or raked roof lines, these homes highlight rich timber tones and large windows to amplify a sense of connection between the indoors and the outdoors.
“The mid-century modern look is achieved by revealing the structure of the building and blending simple lines with natural tones and materials,” says Joe.
MINIMALIST
Modern minimalist homes feature a pared-back design that deliberately excludes most ornamentation.
Much like the Marie Kondo-style decluttering trend, minimalism is all about removing things that don’t spark joy from the home, and instead keeping only those that do enrich your life.
Modern minimalist homes are designed to focus on the home’s residents and their personalities and lifestyles — without the clutter!
“Getting the look right takes an eye for detail and nuanced design that adds subtle interest without removing the focus from inward reflection,” says Joe.
“Aim to use a monochromatic palette and add macro details to surfaces with large format cladding panels like the James Hardie Matrix panels or simple natural textures to break up big spaces, without making them look too busy,” he adds.
MODERN COASTAL
If you’ve had a quick flick through any home design magazine from the past few years, you would have noticed just how much Australians have embraced Hamptons style in their homes — and for good reason!
There’s nothing Australians love more than bringing our relaxed coastal lifestyles into our homes, and we’ve definitely transformed the Hamptons style into something uniquely ours.
From crisp all-white palettes to a bohemian-style love of natural textures, and of course, ample connection between the indoors and outdoors, modern coastal homes in Australia are undoubtedly one of the most popular styles to have emerged this decade.
“The challenge for modern homes is to capture that light, breezy aesthetic of the coast, while remaining true to the tenants of modernism,” says Joe. “In modern coastal homes, simple textures and tones of the coast are brought into the clear shapes and lines of the modern look. Feel free to add soft curves and horizontal weatherboards too.”
SCANDI BARN
Scandi style has become one of the biggest trends in modern Australian design in the last decade. Taking its design cues from the simple styling paired with blonde timber tones that are a staple in Scandinavian countries, Scandi style has been a natural fit in Australian homes.
When it comes to modern home design, Joe says that we’ve taken this concept a step further with the rising popularity of the “Scandi-barn” architectural style. Think of a barn, but Scandinavian.
“The Scandi-barn exemplifies the basic principles of modernism,” says Joe. “The simple archetypal house shape, angular, steeply pitched roofs and deep eaves were originally designed to stop snow collecting on a home, yet in Australia they provide a striking contemporary silhouette and shade to entrances and alfresco areas.”
Internally the design language is all rustic-meets-Scandi, with pale timbers and a minimalist colour palette. Minimal ornamentation is paired with ample natural light and simple living.
MIXED MATERIALS
When it comes to modern homes, many Australians are playing around with mixing up their materials palettes, says Joe.
From a combination of weatherboards to stone, bricks and steel, modern homes with austere ornamentation focus on highlighting organic materials and their natural beauty.
Architecturally, these homes tend to be on the blockier side and fit in easily on any contemporary streetscape. The addition of mixed-materials for the facade give homeowners the ability to customise their home without breaking the mould too much.
“The mixed materials trend is an art of layering profiles, materials and colours in a way that makes sense,” says Joe. “It’s important to understand your design story and what you want to accentuate to avoid the façade looking cluttered,” he adds.
WriterChristina Rae
