Home renovations, design: return of the curve

Nervous homemakers are turning to nature to help them feel more attuned and at peace when they are at home.

Leanne Bradley in her Queenscliff home with her curved lounge. Picture: John Appleyard

Have you ever considered what your brain processes when you look at a couch?

Or a corridor? A driveway?

The amygdala is the primitive but vital part of your brain responsible for emotions and motivation, triggering your fight or flight response. When it observes you observing your surroundings and computes straight things, it gets … well, a little nervous.

Harvard Medical School’s 2006 Humans Prefer Curved Visual Objects report analyses this “uncomfortable” response to square, angular and sharp things and finds our reaction is a primal survival mechanism.

Basically, sharp things hurt: spears, sharks’ teeth, claws.

And while we’ve evolved to subdue our response, it still influences our “approach-avoidance” decisions, says a University of Toronto Scarborough multidisciplinary team led by Psychology Associate Professor Oshin Vartanian.

Nature is slightly bent.

We like that organic message of safety and comfort.

Do curves make you curious? Picture: John Appleyard

The Vartanian report argues that people perceive beauty in the same manner. The control group perceived round objects as ‘beautiful’, and square as ‘not beautiful’.

On a grand scale, contemporary architecture reveals a demand for less linear, more curvaceous design – a desire that dates to the earliest known man-made shelters.

Curves are also the trend du jour in contemporary furniture.

The current flood of curvaceous furniture seems a considered response to our need for comforting design post-Covid, far more than a simple coincidence.

“The trend has also made its way to smaller pieces of furniture, coffee tables, for example, accessories and lighting – providing an organic, warm and holistic feel to interior decoration,” says Coco Republic head of interior design Diana Ribarevski.

Bending your mind.

“The curved sofa shape is organic and intimate and radiates luxury. As soft lines gain popularity globally, the demand for curved furniture is increasing.”

Intuitively and in practice, curves invite a greater sense of conviviality, conversation and comfort – but why? For Selling Houses Australia’s resident interiors maven Wendy Moore, it starts with the circle being “such a beautiful shape”.

“Curved edges, the sense of infinity around the curve is kind of intrinsic – we understand that there’s a real flow to it,” Moore says. “Curves are organic, so … that make it more comfortable at the top level, then … that trickles down to functionality.

“We all know that a round table or a curved table creates better conversation and is a more social table.”

Selling Houses Australia interior design guru Wendy Moore. Picture: Foxtel/supplied

Moore agrees that there are also more subliminal messages at play.

“When you walk into a room and you’re met with curves, then your sense of how easy it is to move within that space is instantly more relaxed than when you have sharp edges,” she says.

Cultivating that sense of ease and relaxation with curves can be even more crucial in small spaces, Moore says. In the new season of Foxtel’s Selling Houses Australia, a compact house in Greystanes NSW gets a curvy makeover from Moore.

“That was actually about utilising the space and making it as functional as possible but without letting the function get in the way of the flow,” she says. “Introducing a curved dining table was a great way to create a dining space without interrupting the connection between the living space and the outdoor space.”

Accents were added that give the curvaceous dining space greater context.

“Linking that curve to other areas of the house was really important,” Moore says. Further key decisions back in the kitchen pull the curved dining table into a state of perfect spatial wholeness.

The Return of the Curve.

”Because that (dining table) was a semicircle, I created an arch and recessed arched bench seating in the wall on the other side,” Moore says. “It was about creating as much seating space as you could … without having to push out into that space, because it was really small.”

By copying that curve, it gives the impression that the dining table is a flip-down that fits really neatly, suggesting that heightened flexibility our minds look for. The house had original wallpaper from the late ’60s, early ’70s. Right on the retro trend now, the genuine article was in bad shape.

Freshly papering the wall of the recessed dining nook cleverly connects the curved feature to the colour scheme in the rest of the house, Moore says.

“If I had done a solid yellow, it would have been overpowering, so that fine, palm frond feel with that mustardy yellow was a light touch that turned it into a feature,” she says. “But it didn’t scream, it was a bit soft.”

In line with nature.

Finally, Moore installed a simple arched door in the kitchen cabinetry.

“It’s not something you see very often. I wanted to show that there’s lots of easy ways that you can incorporate curves,” she says.

Mum-of-two Leanne Bradley recently changed her style from rectangular or square sofas to a rounded design. The look is sympathetic to the era of the family’s coastal home and the new couch brings a welcome new perspective.

“It offered a way of being a bit more social,” says the financial services executive, who says the curves allow more enjoyment of both the room and beach environment.

“We have a TV as well as water views, so with the rounded couch you can see both.”  The piece makes a statement and defines the overall look of the room. “This couch looks great from every angle,” Bradley says.

Curves can make a home more inviting.

How to make a curve the hero of each room’s story

Because curves are so welcoming, they work well in entry ways and hallways. Bathrooms are particularly prone to being hard spaces, with hard tiles and other hard-wearing materials, so curves are a great way to make a bathroom feel softer and much more organic.

Curved furniture makes navigating a room calm and comfortable – and that makes it feel more welcoming. Spatially, a curved room is almost an advancing feature, whereas a corner is a receding feature.

When creating an arch feature, it becomes the focal point. Loud, block colours on the surrounding walls confuse the hero of the room. Colour should complement rather than fight the curve.

It’s much faster to introduce curved furniture than building curves. Lengthy construction processes mean curves take longer than simply buying a round dining table or curved furniture – and they cost more too.

Episode two of Selling Houses Australia, featuring the Greystanes house, airs on March 29 on Foxtel