Modern vs Traditional Home Design

With the new year around the corner, don't you think it's also perfect timing to improve your house and lot in the Philippines? Between modern and traditional interior design, which suits your personal choice? If you need some guidance in designing your own home, Let Lumina Homes help you decide with a list of design elements of both traditional and modern homes. Who knows, perhaps you can choose to do a combination of modern and traditional design in your own dream home.

Key Differences and Common Features of Modern and Traditional Homes

What flashes across your mind when you hear the word home design? If you remember hardwood floors and capiz shells on windows, then you probably thought along the lines of a traditional home. But if you thought of large windows, and lots of natural light, chances are, it's a modern home that struck your mind. The distinction doesn't end there. Check out how these two styles differ.

Architectural Styles

When you say architectural style, it refers to the overall aesthetic of your home. When you want to determine whether traditional style vs. modern style best fits your home, you should consider the way your house is built. Does it lean towards turn-of-the-century traditional designs such as victorian, colonial, and neoclassical architecture? Or do you prefer a clean and sleek design, and minimalism to be the center of your house?

To envision traditional architecture, you just have to reflect the historic style of many traditional houses you see when you are visiting your grandparents' ancestral homes.

Since the construction of these traditional homes belonged in the past, these traditional homes tend to feature traditional style famous back then.

On the other hand, newly-built houses have modern architecture etched on them. If traditional houses are built to reflect tradition and history, then modern homes reflect contemporary design, trends, and technology, which seems to be the theme of many builders today.

Materials Used

When you think of your interior design, what do you see in your mind? Do you see a wooden floor plan or a modern house floor plan?

With most traditional houses, you will see that they use natural materials such as metals, and unpainted wood. But if you're looking at an example of an affordable house and lot design, you can also notice that our houses use traditional building materials such as natural fibers such as coconut, nipa, cogon, and other indigent plants to build homes. In some cases, builders also use brick, plaster, stucco, and stone in their traditional architecture.

In addition to these traditional materials, most people also use traditional textiles for their curtains, table runners, and rugs, among others to beautify traditional houses.

Meanwhile, true to their modern design theme of simplicity, sophistication, and minimalistic, most modern homes use technologically advanced materials, such as newer and stronger glass for their windows and doors, concrete for their walls and flooring, reinforced steel, or even plastic. These technologically advanced building materials support the modern architecture with natural materials improved with technology.

Some examples of these modern materials are carbon fiber can be used to replace bricks, reinforced concrete blocks, and wooden structures, self-healing concrete to fix breaking off hollow blocks and cracked concrete, liquid granite used for finishing walls and floors, and richlite, commonly used for modern furniture.

With these modern materials, not only can you upgrade the quality of your modern homes, but you can also ensure that your modern architecture can withstand the test of time. However, one modern material you won't often see in modern construction is textiles. For modern-style homes, you can rarely see curtains, instead, they make use of blinds, which are typically made of plastic.

Basic Structure

Another distinction between modern and traditional architecture and style is their basic structure. For starters, a traditional home divides its floor plan into rooms. It may be a few large ones with distinct functionality. You know where the bedroom, the living area, the dining area, and the kitchen will be located. On the other hand, for modern floor plans, your modern home typically has an open floor plan design. These open-concept spaces allow your modern house floor plan to adopt popular styles such as minimalist design.

Other Features

There are other features that set apart the contemporary design of a modern-style home from a traditional home. Below, we've listed a comparison of features between traditional houses and modern houses you can take into consideration before you buy an affordable house and lot for sale.

a. Temperature Control

Traditional homes are inherently warm, as opposed to modern houses. Hence, the window treatments differ. Modern houses compensate by putting blinds in their windows to block off sunlight, but also to keep the warmth contained within the room. As for the traditional style of a traditional home, people who has a decent house back then make use of stained glass to decorate their windows and use thick and double curtains to keep the warmth or to get a better fit for their homes.

b. Lighting

Most historic styles of a traditional house involve antique interior lighting, stained glass, and classic art pieces to brighten up a room. Because electricity was not readily available back then, more artificial lighting is incorporated into the design. This can include getting a candle, or a brighter lamp or other means to improve the lighting in every room.

On the other hand, a modern home chooses natural light to come in their modern homes as much as possible. Hence, modern houses often incorporate windows of different shapes. Because of this contemporary homes' modern house style, windows became a focal point in any modern home with the aim of getting as much natural lighting as possible to enter. This modern design aims to let natural light reach all parts of the house, with the help of an open-concept floor plan.

c. Design

It all comes down to the tiny details. No matter how sturdy the materials used, nor how historic the style is, it's not enough to differentiate the two popular styles. Rather, it's in the details. While traditional architecture prefers straight lines and equal division of space, a modern home may also forego them so there are no divisions in the area.

The intricate details of hand-carved woodworking, and the classical flourishes of classic art pieces can only be found in a traditional design. Plus, if you love antiques, they will always have a space in your home. You can also try to stick with classic colors or even a dash of something bright to give life to a room. On the other hand, a contemporary design of a modern house tends to focus on the elegant details only contemporary architecture can offer. Some examples of these charming details are plain colors, often white black, or gray, or neutral colors. This style also focuses on vertical and horizontal lines. Hence, for those who prefer this, you also need to consider clean furnishings and raw concrete walls.

With the difference between modern and traditional homes detailed here, do you now have an idea of what your dream home would look like? No matter which you choose, it pays to get a partner who not only knows how to build homes but also understands that every homeowner may have a personal preference about their interior design--Lumina Homes! For more details about this, kindly speak to a Lumina accredited seller today to start a good investment of a lifetime.