Designing Homes for the Future
Challenge
Howdens is more than a national kitchen manufacturer, it is a brand built on long-standing relationships with tradespeople, customers, depot teams, suppliers and local communities across the UK.
In a category shaped by shifting lifestyles, economic pressure and changing expectations of the home, product innovation and relevance depends on understanding how people will live next, and translating that insight into commercially viable design decisions.
For Howdens, the challenge was to future-proof innovation by connecting long-term societal change with near-term product development. The business needed a clear view of the structural forces reshaping the home, and a practical way to embed that futures thinking across the organisation.
Our Role
We partner with Howdens to develop an annual Macro Trend forecast, serving as a strategic foresight platform that informs innovation across kitchens and spatial design.
Our role was to move beyond inspiration and build a repeatable framework that linked these macro changes to actionable commercial strategy.
Each year, we identify the key shifts set to influence interiors over the next 12–18 months and translate them into clear direction for product, design, and brand teams. This creates a shared understanding of where the market is moving and how Howdens can lead it.
As part of the most recent programme, we extended this work into a strategic futures workshop, revisiting the six macro forces that we identified last year to be shaping the future of the home: technology, sustainability, wellbeing, work, the cost of living and space. We explored how they are evolving in the current climate.
Our Approach
We began with a macro view of how life in the home is changing. From new patterns of hybrid work to rising environmental expectations and economic pressure on household spending, these structural shifts are redefining what people need from their living spaces.
This long-term lens was then translated into the micro signals that shape design expression: materiality, colour, texture, layout and functionality- ensuring that foresight could be applied directly to product and range development.
We structured the forecast as a connected system of change, showing how the six macro forces interact and where they create opportunities for innovation.
The futures workshop brought this thinking into the organisation, aligning teams around how these forces are moving and what that means for decision-making across the brand.
Impact
This work has created a scalable foresight capability that keeps Howdens ahead of changing customer needs.
By linking long-term lifestyle shifts to immediate design and product strategy, the business can move with greater clarity and confidence in a fast-changing market.
The annual forecast now acts as a common language across teams, guiding innovation, strengthening brand relevance and ensuring that new products reflect how people want to live and not just how they live today. It is a strategic decision-making tool which enables Howdens to design for the future of the home while reinforcing its leadership and innovation in the present.