Open-Plan or Broken-Plan Layouts – What’s the Difference & Which Will Suit You Best?

Wondering what broken-plan living is and whether it’s right for you? Architect Opinder Liddar reveals how to get the right balance between large open-plan spaces and private, closed off rooms

by Opinder Liddar

8th March 2025

What is the difference between an open-plan and broken-plan layout, and which one could best you’re your lifestyle? Until the 1990s, most housing in this country tended to have separate rooms for different functions. If you’ve bought an older property that hasn’t been modernised, you may sense this as you walk through the house and wonder how people lived like this for so long.

The way we build our homes, and people’s lifestyles, continually evolve over time, meaning what was considered normal years ago is now quite different – more people are after larger, open-plan spaces inside their homes. Here, I’m taking you through the range of possibilities for the room layout in your own design, in order to meet your living needs, preferences and to provide ample natural light throughout your home.

Why is Having a Good House Layout So Important?

While for many years having a series of separate rooms for different functions was the accepted way to live, you would often find that natural light levels inside these houses was poor and the house layout did not make best use of all the available space, nor allow the social interaction that we often want in our homes today.

The living room, dining room and kitchen would all be walled off from one another, and at best you might have found a set of double doors to link the living room with the dining room, or a small hatch opening from the kitchen. Each room had a very specific use, and housing was often designed for practical purposes. The kitchen, for example, would have been considered purely as a room for cooking, and not as a social space for you to entertain guests or interact with family while preparing a meal.

Open-Plan or Broken-Plan Layouts – What's the Difference & Which Will Suit You Best?

This unique extension by Turner Architects houses an open- plan kitchen diner that benefits from full-height glazing for a great indoor-outdoor connection and light flow. The room is neatly divided up by a central unit that features a woodburner and hidden TV, creating a snug zone within the space. The kitchen is elevated above the living areas, and uses the same timber flooring found throughout the rest of the home. Photo: Adam Scott

I’ve opened up parts of my own home to allow for a change in how we use the spaces and interact with one another. When I think of the changes we have made, I’m often reminded of the astonishment I felt when our 85-year-old neighbour would tell me about how her family of five managed to live out of the back room and galley kitchen, saving the front room exclusively for ‘best’. I wonder whether we would have stayed in this house if we hadn’t taken down the wall between the tight galley kitchen and the living room, and added space to the back of the property for a kitchen-diner.

A decade ago, the majority of clients I worked with were looking for most of their ground floor accommodation to be open plan so that the living room, dining room and kitchen were all combined and the whole family would share the same space. This trend encourages interaction between occupants within one large social area, namely an open-plan layout, and can be great for entertaining guests.

Paul Archer Design completed a knock-down and rebuild extension project to provide this urban home in Hampstead with a new lease of life. Large rooflights and full-height glazed doors both inside and out allow light to travel throughout the entirety of the ground floor. Photo: Helen Cathcart

More recently, people have realised that they need to incorporate rooms where family members can be by themselves or where they can divide into smaller groups, as well as having the larger social spaces. We’re seeing a move towards house designs that combine spacious open-plan areas with more intimate snug rooms – the trending name for this is a broken-plan layout.

I find it interesting how our lifestyles evolve, and how the needs of most clients today have moved away from an entirely open-plan design. The idea of everyone chatting with one another or enjoying a television programme together has changed dramatically in recent times and has challenged the idea of entirely open plan living.

Even when everyone is in the same space together, most individuals in that group are likely to be doing separate things, like engaging with their phones and laptops or playing games rather than having a shared experience. Therefore, an element of separation and the introduction of flexible spaces or a broken plan can add value to your design, as it reflects the needs of you and your family’s evolving lifestyles.

Is an Open-Plan or Broken-Plan Layout Right for You?

You can still have one large open-plan area to get that sought-after sense of space and enjoy the drama of scale. To get the most from this, you need to consider how you’ll live in this open area. You’ll likely have an idea of where you want your kitchen to be, with the dining area nearby. However, it may be advantageous for the lounge space, with sofas and the TV, to be separated in some form, from the eating and cooking zones.

If you’re designing your own home from scratch, you could consider altering the floor levels to change the character of these distinct spaces. Just one or two steps, or a slope, will also change ceiling heights, creating a different feel as you move from one room to the next.

Designed by William Tozer Associates this raised kitchen space neatly zones the open plan kitchen-diner, with a central island counter further dividing up the space. A rooflight illuminates a smaller, casual eating area. Elsewhere, a series of discreet pocket doors provide flexible living through the rest of the plan

If you have a sloping site, this can work really well and, in some cases, the lower level could be even deeper than others, perhaps slightly below ground level, depending on the nature of the land on your site. If steps are not practical, then using different types of flooring or wall finishes between rooms, and perhaps mixing up the wall colour, can help to distinguish between the subtle change in use from one area to another.

In many house designs, when clients want to maintain a large open-plan area but also define different zones within this, we will include screens within the space. This could be open shelving units so that the spaces are linked visually, giving you a feature around which to place furniture. This could also be an open, modern fireplace with a woodburner as the feature, bridging the gap between two distinct living areas.

CLOSER LOOK Mezzanine levels

Most new houses and two-storey extensions we design will include a vaulted ceiling. This feature can help to create beautiful and enjoyable living spaces, and are high enough that we can often introduce another level that you can fully or partly stand up in. The introduction of a small floor area at a higher level within a vaulted ceiling can be useful as a place for a futon type bed for guests, somewhere to exercise, a home office, or simply extra storage. These spaces are referred to as a mezzanine level.

If they’re to be habitable spaces, then you do need to consider safe access and guarding to the area via a staircase that complies with Building Regulations. You’ll also need to ensure this is designed at the outset of your project, as a regulation-compliant staircase will take up a lot of the original floor level and there are certain head heights that must be achieved, again to meet the Regulations.

Above: Build It readers Geoff and Julie Bolam created this stunning mezzanine pod when transforming a Victorian church into their ideal home. The space allowed for an extra bedroom and meant they didn’t have to sacrifice the existing layout by putting up new internal walls. Photo: Simon Maxwell

If your mezzanine is going to be a storage area, then you can easily access this with a drop down ladder which will take up much less space at the lower level – this may be more appropriate for smaller sized rooms and non-habitable areas.

How Can You Create Flexible Living Spaces?

It may be that on several occasions you need your house to be fully open plan, maybe for a party or for family get togethers. At other times, you may appreciate being able to close off spaces when you need peace and quiet or for when there are different groups of visitors in your house.

Moveable internal walls or pocket internal doors (that can be hidden neatly) can provide the ideal balance between open-plan living and creating private areas. These features fold or slide back into your walls so that they do not interrupt the overall space when you want to make use of the open plan. A low wall is also a useful design feature which can help to define different spaces and distinguish seating areas from dining spaces, or to separate your bed from a dressing area.

Designed by Snug Architects, this home in Hampshire features multiple pocket doors with a broken plan setup, allowing the homeowners to zone off or open up the kitchen-living-dining area, whenever needed

In cooler months of the year, you may also want to close off spaces so they’re easier to heat. Rather than maintaining one very large open-plan living area at the same temperature, it would be more sustainable and cost-effective to be able to break it up, using pockets doors or screens, so that you heat a smaller, cosier room.

The kitchen space has become one of the most frequently occupied rooms in a house. It is often at the heart of the home and used as the primary social space. Having an open-plan kitchen enables you to still interact with friends and family whilst cooking, avoiding anyone being shut off. Food preparation can tend to generate considerable mess and washing up which you’d rather not have on display. To help with this, in some kitchen designs, we have included a screen, low wall or small utility area so that the cooking clutter is out of sight for a while, and you can relax with your guests.

How Can You Incorporate Private Rooms into Your House’s Floorplan?

The 2020 Covid 19 pandemic certainly brought home the deficiencies of open-plan living, when suddenly everybody was at home and needed their own space in which to work, study or get some peace and quiet. Even now, with more and more people working from home, we find that creating balance between private and open spaces is key to most initial design briefs.

In new house designs we often include a separate ground floor room in such a way that it has the potential to be a flexible, multiple use space that could be a winter snug, an office, or spot for older children to be with friends without disturbing the others on the same floor.

Loader Monteith Architects designed this stunning 220m² home to replace the plot’s original 1800s steading buildings. Its main interiors are arranged within a unique corridor-like plan, with one room flowing into to the next, providing an open space for light to move freely. Photo: Dapple Photography

It’s useful to ensure that this closed off area is futureproof and could become a bedroom should you or a member of your family not be able to get upstairs easily either now or in the future, and so we usually site this close to a downstairs cloakroom which may include a shower and all the necessary facilities.

How Can You Get Natural Light into a Broken-Plan Layout?

Open-plan house layouts can allow a good amount of daylight to flow throughout the home and this is relatively simple to achieve. When you do consider some degree of subdivision in your house plans, think about how natural light will enter the smaller areas that are furthest away from windows.

Glazed internal screens or internal windows can be a great solution, and these could be opaque or stained to allow light through, while preserving privacy between spaces. You could also introduce high level windows to allow light to enter from another room. This was a design feature of houses built in the 1960s where a toplight often featured over bedroom doors.

Build It readers Kate and Gary Westlake incorporated this cosy snug into their home design. The compact space provides the perfect spot to relax and unwind, while the stunning up and over Oriel picture window floods the room with light and creates an eye-catching focal point

At Lapd Architects, our virtual reality design visualisations are powerful enough that accurate light conditions can be modelled. As your design progresses, we can show you exactly how the lighting will look in the internal spaces. This proactive approach is much more useful than trying to retrofit a glazing solution once on site with your builder because you find that the rooms are too dark.