Design Trends That Are Refinishing, Reshaping Homes

Soap, work sheds, dog showers, and the color purple are ascendant in home design. A-frame homes have also regained popularity, due in part to a broad, cultural revisiting of midcentury modern, says one architectural historian.

Chad Randl, architectural historian teaching at the University of Oregon says that among designers, “there’s the ongoing interest to have a challenge, to adapt," by building and revitalizing A-frame homes. The New York Times likens the architectural style to Mr. Potato Head, "a basic form allows for add-ons: floor-to-ceiling windows, second-story decks, solar panels, cozy front porches." The newspaper adds that A-frames are also environmentally low-impact, aesthetically distinctive and pleasing, and economical. 

A striking number of designers are taking breaks from furniture and interiors to reconsider the humble soap bar. Folly Soap by the New York product and lighting design firm Pelle offers soap in simple geometric forms inspired by fanciful buildings ($16 to $80 each) ... Jasper Morrison, the British designer with a penchant for everyday objects, his Soap for Brooklyn company Good Thing ($29) is a slab with scored lines that allow it to be snapped into four individual bars. “Why not remove the preciousness of the individual wrapping,” Mr. Morrison asked, “and sell it like the consumable product it is?”

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