Architect Breaks Down Why All American Diners Look Like That | Architectural Digest
 Interior design, much like any form of art, has experienced movements and changes throughout the years. It affects how your home is perceived and how you are perceived, subconsciously or not, by others.
While many people are house-proud and have preferences on how their home should look, interior design is about transforming a place into somewhere that encourages the room’s occupants to feel a specific way, maybe even influencing their behavior. Uncomfortable rooms are either badly designed or intended for a brief, passing use only, whereas cosy, inviting spaces are for spending long periods of time. So whether you’re designing your own home from scratch, redecorating or hoping to improve your house before selling it on, careful interior design can have a surprising impact on unexpected aspects of your life and the opinions of potential buyers. Here are a few helpful pieces of information that outline the various basics of interior design. Once you have a grip on these, use them to make your home more appealing to yourself or stand out on the property market. One: Windows and Doors Every home has windows and doors, but that doesn’t mean they have to be bland and invisible at first glance. On the contrary, you can turn anything in your home into a statement; the trick is just deciding which elements to downplay and which to bring to the fore. Windows and doors are both practically and psychologically important as they act as barriers and portals through which we either experience space or shut it out. Small windows or windows with heavy gratings are oppressive and somehow cosy, reminiscent of old cottages or cabins. Conversely, large windows and doors open the space and create a feeling of opportunity and freedom and a lack of privacy. If you cannot change your actual windows or doors but would still like to pay them some attention, various ways of designing around them can make a vast difference. For example, doors with glass panels allow light from other rooms to be shared and add an almost open-plan effect to any space. Remove the door entirely for increased ease of movement and flow. Dress windows in creative ways to play with how you view the outside world from within. Plants on the windowsill are popular. Plus, elegant drapes or blinds to shield you from unwanted sunlight can also add style to the room. If you’re looking for inspiration, here are some roman shades ideas that are great for creating a sleek, understated look. Two: Textures Depending on the room of the house, you should be considerate about which textures and materials to use. Solid, smooth surfaces are for practical uses, such as in the more purposeful rooms like the kitchen and bathroom. Softer textures create more depth and therefore draw a person in to be comfortable and rest. Match the textures to the purpose of the room for a space that feels both practical and stylish. For example, carpet in the kitchen is normally regarded as a bad idea. Decide whether space is more about comfort or utility and work from there. For example, do you want To bedroom with hard surfaces that encourage you to get up and be productive or a soft, comfortable space with plenty of opportunities for relaxation and leisure? This is where your lifestyle plays a huge part in how you want a room to look. If your kitchen is decorated in raw wood and porous tiles, you might be more likely to put off cooking and spend more time eating elsewhere. In contrast, polished concrete work surfaces and reflective metal cupboards bring to mind a more efficient, proactive kitchen scene for more avid chefs. Of course, if you have your heart set on a particular style, then these considerations become less significant, but be aware that textures have a subliminal effect on how you use a room. Three: Layout and Movement Subconsciously or subliminally, a building’s layout can hugely alter how you use the space. Walls divide space for privacy as well as hygiene, security and style reasons. For example, living with a large family in an open plan home doesn’t mean that the bedrooms are visible from the lounge but that the family has space to move without obstruction or delay. However, an open plan home for a single person or couple may not even require walls to separate the bedroom as the context allows for fewer walls without compromising privacy. It all depends on who the home is for and how they will use it. For a more secretive, warm layout, many rooms hidden behind many doors makes a place feel secure. Often, however, it is financially or practically too difficult to drastically change the layout of walls within a building. However, the layout of furniture within a room still affects movement and flow. Take a look at Feng Shui for a good basis upon which to guide your furniture arrangements. Regardless of the superstitious elements of the idea, Feng Shui is excellent at explaining the way a room’s layout can speak to your mind. You can even come up with your own set of guidelines that help you decide where to place your furniture. For example, do you hate being unable to see the door? If so, always angle chairs and your bed so that your back faces a wall. Do you love the sunlight while you are working? Position your desk or workspace by a window and out of the dark corners. Four: Future-Proofing If you are redecorating your own home or have decided to move and need to attract buyers and sell up, it is important to future-proof your home’s interior design against the inevitable yet unpredictable changes to contemporary trends and fashions. Trends are great for giving insight into new design ideas and even new designers whose work might one day become hugely influential. Still, they also threaten individuality within the home and can quickly become tired and overused. Instead of following interior design fashions, go your own way and come up with your own style. Almost any style can be considered effective and attractive as long as it is consistent within itself. Too many disparate looks colliding is far more unattractive than a unique style. That being said, there are ways of incorporating current trends into your home without condemning it to become dated and stale. Essentially, do not implement a change to your home design that will be difficult to reverse or remove based on a trend. If bare brick suddenly appeals to you, resist stripping the plaster from your walls without thinking about whether or not you would still appreciate it in a few years. The dreaded avocado or peachy pink bathroom suite has become a laughable mark of an outdated home simply due to the changes in taste over time. It is common to look back upon past styles and find them amusing or ugly, but if you can appreciate them as a product of their time, you can use contemporary styles without fear of designing a future disaster. Maybe you enjoy the irony of retro fashion and want to design your home around it deliberately? The main point is to avoid spending money on something for your home that you will later regret. Five: Size and Purpose Many common interior design mistakes are due to mismanaging or misunderstanding the sizes and proportions of a room and its furniture. For example, sofas and televisions that are too big for the room they’re in will make the room seem smaller and give it a cramped feel. Conversely, large rooms with sparse or small furniture make it feel empty and cold. Strike a balance and learn about how to fill a room without overcrowding it. If your kitchen is rather small, resist the urge to have an island or breakfast bar installed as this will take up valuable space. Similarly, if your bathroom is large, you can be creative with the extra space and perhaps have a separate shower and bathtub. It doesn’t really matter if a room is big or small, just that it is designed and furnished proportionately. Six: Turn it Upside Down While all of the above points are a fine basis from which to start redecorating your home, the most important thing to remember is that when it comes to interior design, rules are made to be broken. Only once you have a strong understanding of how a room is supposed to look and feel can you subvert expectations playfully and successfully. Create a contrast in textures to throw off the expected purpose of a room deliberately. Plan a unique layout that has never been tried before. Purposefully furnish a room in such a way that it is disproportionate and messes with your sense of perspective. Interior design is about making your home fulfil its potential. Once you understand the basics, you can go wild.  Have you ever been trapped in a problem so entangled with conflicting demands, that every attempt to solve it only tightens the knot? You argue both sides, weigh every option, and yet the harder you pull, the more stuck you become. This is when you need to step back, breathe, and look at the problem from a higher vantage point – and then, sometimes a radical third way appears.
Consider “Einstein’s Leap.” In the early 1900s, Newtonian physics was crumbling. Light, motion, and electricity defied old rules, and Einstein’s special relativity, while revolutionary, still couldn’t reconcile gravity. Scientists were frantically patching-up the old theories and piled equations after equations onto Newton’s failing framework, creating chaos. Then Einstein stepped back and had a sudden insight, that he’d later call: “the happiest thought of my life.” He imagined a man in free fall from a house roof and realized that, during the fall, the man wouldn’t feel his own weight, he’d feel weightlessness. That insight became the seed of General Relativity. A theory so elegant it became the foundation of modern cosmology, technology, and our understanding of the universe. All because he stopped trying to force gravity into the old framework. This is how it works. You step back. You give up on the ‘sunk cost fallacy’ that tells you you’ve wasted years on this already so you must stick with it. You step away from the ‘fallacy of the false dilemma’ that tells you that there can only ever be two opposing options, and one must be right. You step up into the imagination and free associate from a perspective above. Need more proof? Well, there’s the astronomer, Copernicus. Four centuries earlier, astronomy was just as stuck. Ptolemy’s Earth-centered model had dominated for 1,400 years, but there was no way to explain why planets sometimes looped backward in the sky. The math worked, barely, but it was a knotted mess. Astronomers kept adding more adjustments, like scribbling corrections in the margins of a flawed manuscript. Copernicus stepped back, mentally rewinding the cosmos, and asked a different question: What if Earth isn’t the center? The Greeks had floated the idea, but Copernicus did the math, proving the Sun-centered model simplified and explained all planetary motion. His 1543 breakthrough shattered the medieval worldview. Galileo’s telescope later confirmed it, Kepler perfected it, and today we know: the solar system is heliocentric. In both cases, the solution came from questioning the framework itself. So next time you’re gridlocked in a business strategy, a relationship, or a creative block, pause. Step back. Ask yourself: What am I assuming that might be wrong? Is there a bigger pattern I’m not seeing? What if the opposite of my premise is true? We often spend most of our time trying to solve problems within the system. Optimizing. Adjusting. Adding more epicycles. But sometimes, the system is the problem. Einstein didn’t feel trapped by gravity. He imagined falling, and in that weightlessness, he found his answer. Source: gapingvoid  It felt like every part of my life improved after a recent nasal surgery, from my allergies to my mental health. That may not be a coincidence. Nose breathing is a superpower hidden on the front of your face. For as long as I can remember, each breath felt like preparing for a swim underwater, a hard suck of air that never quite filled my lungs. Often I'd walk around with a faint whistle in my nose, praying that no one could hear it. The worst problem was a minor disability that most people refused to believe was real: something about the cruel architecture of my face made it physically impossible to blow my nose. The world was a constant sniffle. Life cursed me with a deviated septum. My right nostril was blocked on the best of days, and I'd wind up breathing through my mouth at the slightest hint of allergies. The nasal troubles even contributed to my sleep apnoea, a breathing condition that makes you wake up multiple times at night, which apparently leaves you more likely to die of any cause. But after decades of unpleasantness, my doctor suggested surgery. The plan was to straighten my septum and reduce my turbinates – bony structures covered in a mucous membrane that condition the air as you breathe – nasal tissues that I didn't even know I had. I was ready to try anything, so on 3 January 2025, I went under the knife. It's simple. Your nose is for breathing and your mouth is for eating – Ann Kearney One month of healing later, I was the proud owner of a newly functional nose. I was able to breathe clear and deep out of both nostrils for the very first time. I learned that blowing your nose is an ecstatic pleasure, one I now enjoy as often as possible. And though my sleep apnoea wasn't cured, it did improve. The procedure probably led to a variety of other blessings, too. It turns out there are some surprising benefits to breathing out of your nose, and you don't necessarily need surgery to enjoy them. In fact, nose breathing might even improve your mental health. Your personal air filter The most obvious benefit to nasal breathing comes from those turbinates, according to Jacquelyn Callander, an ear, nose and throat doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. "They're kind of our primary mediator for warming and humidifying air, and that's incredibly important. But they also act as a filtration system," Callander says.  Nose breathing is more hygienic, helps avoid tooth decay and could even be a boon to your mental health (Credit: Serenity Strull/ BBC) Together with your nose hairs, your hard working turbinates sift through dust, bacteria, viruses and more, an advantage you won't get from breathing through your mouth. "They can be the first line of defence for your immune system," she says. It's not just the merits of nose breathing to consider, however. Breathing through your mouth has consequences. "There's a lot of research that associates mouth breathing with oral health problems," says Ann Kearney, a speech-language pathologist at Stanford University Medical Center who studies sleep and swallowing issues. We've gained an increasing understanding of nose breathing's physical benefits, but the connection between the nose and the brain is often overlooked Mouth breathing has been shown to increase acidity and dryness in the mouth, linking it to cavities, demineralisation of the teeth and gum disease. A growing body of research also suggests mouth breathing as a child can affect the development of your teeth and jaw, leading to crooked teeth and even changing the shape of your face. "It's simple. Your nose is for breathing and your mouth is for eating," Kearney says. For some people with seriously deviated septums or other nasal obstruction, nose breathing isn't an option. But she says a lot of mouth breathers can choose the nasal route in many circumstances. "It may not be comfortable at first. The shift from mouth to nasal breathing can be an adjustment," But, Kearney says, the perks kick in with each breath. The nose at night Most healthy people breathe through their noses when they sleep, but some open their mouths in a nocturnal quest for air. That's bad news, Kearney says. "It's about the position of the tongue." Kearney says you can get a feel for this yourself. When your mouth is closed you're more likely to keep the tip of your tongue pressed to the roof of your mouth and the back of your tongue relaxed, opening up your airway. But stop reading for a second, let your mouth hang open and slacken the muscles in your face. You'll probably notice your tongue rolls towards your throat, especially if you lean your head back. "That can restrict the airflow and cause some obstruction," Kearney says. You might even hear something that sounds like snoring if you breathe as you try this. People with obstructed noses tend to breathe through their mouths when they sleep, a phenomenon that often contributes to sleep apnoea. The condition affects an estimated one billion people, as much as 50% of the population in some countries. At best, sleep apnoea worsens your quality of life. At worst, its effects may be as dramatic as an early death. Even if you don't have sleep apnoea, nighttime mouth breathing can cause snoring and all the drawbacks described above. But across the internet, health and wellness influencers are raving about a controversial remedy for this problem: mouth tape. It's exactly what it sounds like. You use a piece of tape to keep your mouth shut or even completely sealed. In theory, this forces you to breathe through your nose while you sleep. However, some experts warn there are serious risks to consider. Kearney swears by mouth tape but says it may make breathing more difficult for some people. The only way to know if you're one of them is to see a doctor – do not try this at home without seeking advice from a medical professional first. "If you snore, have difficulty breathing through your nose or have any reason to think you might have sleep apnoea, you need to see an ENT [ear, nose and throat doctor]," she says. The risks of mouth tape Some people breath through their mouths when they're asleep, which can be an indication of a serious medical condition such as obstructive sleep apnoea. Tape that forces you to breathe through your nose could help certain people – but so far, there hasn't been enough research, and it could make problems worse in some cases. "If people have moderate or severe sleep apnoea, those episodes where you open your mouth to breath at night are probably important for returning their oxygen levels back to normal, and I usually advise them not to try mouth tape," says Jacquelyn Callander, an ear, nose and throat doctor at the University of California, San Francisco. "There are a lot of patients who have no idea that they have a problem," she says, so it's important to see a doctor before you try tape. The practice of mouth taping is still in its infancy. Many ear, nose and throat doctors say there hasn't been enough research into its efficacy or safety. A few early studies suggest it might be helpful, though none are definitive. For example, one study of 20 people in Taiwan found mouth tape significantly improved sleep apnoea and snoring, but the researchers said the small sample size and lack of a control group limited their conclusions. "So far we don't have great objective evidence that mouth tape helps decrease sleep apnoea or improves breathing at night," Callander says. "But it's low-cost and may be beneficial." She believes that mouth taping shows real promise, but agrees it calls for medical advice. If you're thinking of trying it, step one is to talk to a sleep specialist or an ENT. What you can try, however, is nose strips that hold your nostrils open from the outside, Callander says. "Some people have what's called 'nasal valve collapse', where inhaling causes negative pressure in your nasal cavity. For those people, nasal strips can help." Some people even wear them while they exercise. However, if you have a deviated septum or enlarged turbinates, like I did, nose strips probably won't help, she says. A wind chime for the mind Over time, we've gained an increasing understanding of nose breathing's physical benefits, but the connection between the nose and the brain is often overlooked. In my case, the simple act of breathing through my nose brought a variety of bodily relief, but the way we breathe, particularly through the nose, can have a surprising impact on our psychological wellbeing.  The primary treatment for sleep apnoea is a CPAP machine, which delivers a continuous stream of air at night, and encourages nose breathing (Credit: Serenity Strull/ BBC) You can think of the nose like a wind chime for the mind; when air moves through your nose, it seems to have a significant influence on your cognitive processes. Nasal breathing has positive effects on the limbic system – the parts of the brain that regulate emotion and behaviour – in ways that mouth breathing doesn't Some research indicates that rhythmic, drawn-out nasal breathing slows down brain waves across your entire cerebral cortex, indicating a calmer state of mind. A 2023 study, for example, found that nose breathing lowers blood pressure and the variability and frequency of the heart rate, indicating relaxation. "It's not going to treat hypertension [high blood pressure]," says Joe Watso, an applied physiologist at Florida State University, who led the study. "But breathing in and out through your nose seems to have a calming effect on your nervous system." Studies have even shown that breathing through your nose improves performance on spatial tasks, enhances memory function and betters your reaction time. Experts don't know exactly why that is. What we do know is breathing through your nose triggers the olfactory nerve – the nerves responsible for detecting odours – apparently even when there's nothing to smell. A leading theory is that this synchonises electrical activity across different areas of the brain including the amygdala and the hippocampus. Whatever the cause, nose breathing appears to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which helps the body to conserve energy and slows down bodily functions when you're relaxed. Science is telling us what meditators and yoga practitioners have said for thousands of years: nose breathing can help with mental wellbeing. Some research indicates that rhythmic, drawn-out nasal breathing slows down brain waves across your entire cerebral cortex, indicating a calmer state of mind. Watso and others suggests nasal stimulation could even offer a physiological explanation for the benefits of meditating. Almost every part of my life has improved in the months since I got my nose fixed. That includes my mental health. My anxiety has lessened, I'm more able to focus and my mood is better overall. It may be no coincidence. Callander says nose breathing could actually be making me a calmer guy. "It's possible," Callander says. "If you're getting better sleep, that's intrinsically tied to your quality of life and wellbeing. But I do think you might be activating your parasympathetic nervous system more often than you previously were." In my experience the classic advice is spot on: when you're feeling anxious or upset, take a deep breath. But next time, you may want to take it through your nose. Source: BBC
* All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. Bergen Review Media & The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. Bergen Review Media & The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health. Thomas Germain is a senior technology journalist for the BBC. He's covered AI, privacy and the furthest reaches of internet culture for the better part of a decade. You can find him on X and TikTok @thomasgermain. |
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April 2026
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