UNDERSTANDING THE MODERN COTTAGE

Learn how to design a cottage that works in today’s world.

Check out these ideas and trends inspiring cottages that work in today’s world.

For some, a cottage is a modest home that encapsulates a simple life.

For others, a cottage is a vacation home in a dreamlike location. The reality is a cottage is a lot of things. In her new book, The New Cottage: Inspiration for America’s Favorite Home, Katie Hutchison describes what makes a cottage a cottage

in the modern world.

THE HALLMARKS

“A hallmark of a cottage has long been how it’s integrated with the landscape,” writes Hutchison. Design features of a cottage should be representative of the context that surrounds the home. A cottage may be smaller in order to preserve outdoor living space. If a cottage resides in a community, it may engage with that context with strategic placement of rooms in relation to its neighbors and perhaps add something particular to the neighborhood like a porch.

How the materials are shaped and joined is important for both past and present cottages. Craftmanship is something that cottage owners and architects both take great pride in, as it communicates what their style is. And, in a small home such as a cottage, it is easier to notice these smaller details.

SIMPLICITY

“There’s an inherent simplicity to a cottage, and that simplicity extends not only to its massing but to the materials that compose it,” says Hutchison. A cottage uses materials that are simply assembled and are presented in a way that is easy to understand. Hutchison uses the example of a Monopoly house, a cube with a gable roof. While your cottage does not have to be that simple, it should be simple enough for you to wrap your head around its design.