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" ELLE DECOR: What&amp;#039;s the new direction in architecture?  DEBORAH BERKE: We jokingly talk about &amp;quot;the new normal.&amp;quot; Ever since the economic downturn, fee negotiations and budgets are more aggressive. There&amp;#039;s also a new normal in residential design\u2014a return to understatement, and an interest in environmental approaches.  ED: Are we still in a period of retrenchment? How does that affect design?  DB: Retrenchment sounds like we&amp;#039;re taking steps backward. There has been a lot of redefining of design and domestic priorities, and that&amp;#039;s going to stick with us for quite a while. It&amp;#039;s about simplicity and ease of use\u2014 rooms that are easy to be in.  ED: Where are the most exciting things happening in architecture?  DB: That question may be less relevant than it has ever been, because talented people are doing work all over the place, and ideas move so quickly between designers and cities and cultures, thanks to the Internet.  ED: What&amp;#039;s the future of design in an increasingly DIY world?  DB: I don&amp;#039;t see it as a do-it-yourself world. I don&amp;#039;t think most people know how to do very much with their hands, and it would be better if they did. They&amp;#039;d appreciate how hard it is to do something well.  ED: What&amp;#039;s your favorite design blog?  DB: Remodelista\u2014I think it&amp;#039;s honest.  ED: What are people looking for in their homes these days?  DB: People are always looking for comfort, but today the home really needs to feel like a welcoming retreat and a safe haven. And that does affect design.  ED: What&amp;#039;s the hardest room to design?  DB: The hardest for me now is the living room. In my house the library/family room is the one with lots of books and a big sofa and a big TV. But as the way we engage all these various media changes, the rooms in which we hang out are changing. In the past, we did houses with dens and libraries and media rooms. As people become more interested in having smaller homes, those hang-out spaces are turning into one room. Now it&amp;#039;s about how much of the room&amp;#039;s wall space is devoted to the TV screen, to books, to art, to windows.  ED: Do you have a favorite room?  DB: My kitchen. I like to eat, to drink, to cook. We just bought an iPad for our kitchen\u2014we figured it was the best way to settle our dinnertime disputes. The room is really the center of family life.  ED: If you could design just one piece of furniture, what would it be?  DB: A desk for life today. On my desk there would be a beautiful laptop, but also plenty of space to work, to write, to draw, to pile up things that inspire.   Click here to see more of our Women in Design.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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