THE LOOK
Home Design Trends: Functional Spaces
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
THE PANDEMIC’S BEEN a
busy time for interior designers,
as clients restricted to their
living rooms, kitchens and
desks are finding that the new
normal might call for a new
couch. Interior designers Amy
Cuker (Down2Earth Interior
Design), Candice
Adler (Candice Adler Design) and
Michelle Erdosi (Aeternum
Design Studio) spoke to the
Exponent about the choices
they and their clients have
made in the past year.

Amy Cuker,
Down2Earth Interior Design
Since the pandemic began,
Cuker and her team at Elkins
Park-based Down2Earth Interior
Design have worked exclusively
on residential projects. With
lockdowns and shelter-in-place
orders, Cuker anticipated that
clients would come to see the
home office as newly essential.

They’d not only need a comfort-
able, productive space to work
in, Cuker theorized, but one that
served as a cocoon in a home
with children.

But it didn’t turn out that
way. Instead of home offices,
Cuker said, it’s been mostly
about basements, whether
unfinished or in need of an
update. When one party needs
noise and the other needs
quiet, it seems that the squeaky
wheel is getting the grease.

And extra time at home has
afforded more attention to
worn surfaces, nicked corners
and scuffed paint. Projects that
might’ve been put off in the
past in favor of travel, summer
camp or leisure activities are
finally getting completed.

“Counterintuitively, these
aren’t necessarily projects that
address a specific pandemic
need,” Cuker said. “It’s more
just, you’re finally prioritizing
them.” Kitchens are a priority, as
always. Storage space is valued
in a way that it wasn’t before,
Cuker said, as families are
finding that they want more
food in the house. And Cuker’s
seen formal dining spaces
reclaimed as an extension of
the kitchen, as the pandemic
has allowed some families to
admit the truth: They weren’t
entertaining all that much
before, and they don’t plan to
start when it becomes a possi-
bility again.

Candice Adler,
Candice Adler Design
Like Cuker,
Cherry Hill-based Candice Adler has
found the extra time at home
has turned “maybe next year”
changes into “why not now?”
projects for her clients.

But Adler’s guidance for the
people she works with hasn’t
changed: When it comes to
couches, chairs and sitting
areas, she says, “if it’s comfort-
able enough for a seder, then
it’s going to work.”
Non-functional seating
that serves purely aesthetic
purposes is waning in
popularity, while functional
space is the name of the game.

Spare bedrooms increasingly
double as gyms and offices, and
basements that needed work
have gotten it. Unlike Cuker,
Adler has seen a slight increase
in the demand for home offices,
but she’s noticed a greater
emphasis on the kitchen as a
place to congregate, which has
led to more attention to space
and storage — larger fridges,
especially. And whereas silver was the
trend in kitchens for a long
time, brass is coming back,
Adler said, so everyone who
got rid of their brass in favor of
silver is switching it back, and
everyone who dragged their
feet on making the switch is
delighted to find that they have
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THE LOOK
A kitchen designed by Amy Cuker of Down2Earth Interior Design
YOUR ONE-STOP
DECORATING SHOP
Families now want more kitchen space, according to Candice Adler, who
designed the rooms above.
Photo by Candice Adler
no switch to make.

“They’re like, ‘Oh my God,
it’s come back!’” Adler said.

Lastly, Adler sees that her
years of stressing the impor-
tance of lighting are finally
paying off, as clients now
realize how transformative
new lighting choices can be.

“If you really want to give
your room a face lift without
spending a ton, a little bit of
paint and a fabulous light will
go a very long way,” Adler said.

“It can change everything.”
Michelle Erdosi,
Aeternum Design Studio
private homes.

“It all kind of comes down
to having that people-centric
sense of hospitality and experi-
ence, to be the focus of how we
design,” Erdosi said.

This year, being people-cen-
tric has meant designing for
interiors where working
hours often bleed into after-
work. Creating home offices,
living rooms and kitchens that
are “a little bit more multi-
functional and a little more
flexible,” Erdosi said, is her way
of meeting client needs.

Erdosi is seeing the same
trends as Cuker and Adler:
Goodbye, beautiful, inhospi-
table chairs; hello, function and
performance in every room —
but especially the kitchen.

“I see that as a performance
space, where we ask of that space
and we need it to deliver and not
just look cute,” she said. l
Aeternum, based
in Fishtown, typically splits time
between private residence
jobs and commercial design.

Erdosi’s specialty is hospitality,
so as the world of her clients
contracted, her expertise in
figuring out what makes a
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