Welcome to the Post-pandemic Dream Home

Updated at 6:19 p.m. ET on February 9, 2021.

With all the additional time Americans are spending at home, the pandemic has made many people hyperaware of what they like—and what they don’t—about the space they live in: Natural light went from being a perk to a lifeline; an open-concept floor plan went from being an occasional annoyance to an exasperating privacy killer. Sometime hopefully not long from now, though, the threat of the pandemic will lift and homes will go back to being just one place among many where people spend a great deal of time. What will they have learned about what they want from their living space?

Recently, I consulted a dozen housing-industry experts as well as individual buyers and renters about how the design of homes—their size, features, layout, and location—might respond to pandemic-era needs, desires, and complaints in the next few years. COVID-19 could significantly accelerate two forces that were already on designers’ minds well before 2020: the rise of the home as a workspace, and a deeper emphasis on health and well-being.

For many Americans who are struggling financially during the pandemic, the question is not