What Makes a Home Feel Good? 7 Lessons from John Pawson’s The Minimal Home

In John Pawson: The Minimal Home, written by Deyan Sudjic, the designer’s approach is explored through cooking, eating, resting and working. Published thirty years after Minimum (1996), it considers minimalism beyond how a room looks.

As a collector of John Pawson books, we find ourselves returning to the same underlying philosophy: more thought, less clutter. We asked Pawson which objects he lives with have remained the most useful and stood the test of time.

“I love simple, well-designed objects that work, like my WASA paper scissors, which I first saw in AG Fronzoni’s studio in Milan,” he explained. “I will never tire of the visual appeal of their attenuated proportions, but they are also functionally beyond compare.”

Pawson is equally disciplined about what he allows to accumulate: “It’s easier to be rigorous about preventing anything you don’t need from finding its way into your home in the first place, than to clear out a cluttered space”. Books, however, are afforded their own status. A library, Pawson says, “is a privilege and a boundless source of pleasure.” Among his most precious are the volumes of The Mies van der Rohe Archive.

Here are seven lessons we took from his new book:

For Pawson, a room begins with what people will do there: prepare a meal, settle down to sleep, or spend time together. It’s easy to be seduced by how a room looks and forget what we need it to do. Where does the light fall when you read? Is there somewhere to put your coffee cup? What do you have to move every time you prepare dinner? Before changing a room, it’s worth noticing these small points of friction. The answer might be a better lamp, or simply moving the one you already have.

Pawson describes a mind that jumps between tasks; physical order helps him concentrate. In his London studio, facing a blank wall helps him focus; at Home Farm, a view across the countryside is more likely to lead his attention elsewhere. He also recognises that other people work perfectly well amid a mess. Sometimes a blank wall, a clear desk or a quiet corner is enough.

At Home Farm, the Oxfordshire home Pawson shares with his wife Catherine, there are original timbers, lime-plastered walls, boiled wool curtains and thick linen sheets. Catherine’s textile knowledge helped shape these rooms, where texture does much of the work. With less competing for attention, you notice the grain of a table or the feeling of a floor beneath bare feet.

Some of the book’s most practical advice concerns something as ordinary as kitchen drawers. Pawson explains that overly specific storage can limit how a space is used: a drawer with pegs for plates becomes less useful when you want to store pans. The same thinking informs his preference for uncomplicated utensils and glasses that serve multiple purposes. Before buying something new, could a bowl, table or glass we already own do that job?

Meals occupy an important place in Pawson’s family life. At the Life House in Wales, comfortable dining chairs were chosen to encourage guests to linger in conversation. It’s a rather good measure of a dining space: how happily people stay at the table once the food is gone.

Pawson explains that achieving the simple appearance of his tap design makes it more expensive and difficult to fit. He also acknowledges that his preferred round door knobs are harder to grip than levers and cannot be operated with an elbow. There’s an interesting contradiction here: something can appear beautifully resolved and still ask too much of the person using it. Before bringing something into the home, it’s worth considering what it will require from you as well as what it will give.

Towards the end of the book, Pawson questions the idea of timelessness. Even much-loved designs gather associations, while technology dates others. What he describes more warmly is getting to know a home over several years — its rhythms and changing light.

A home reveals itself through use. We learn where we prefer to sit, which objects we reach for, what feels awkward and what quietly earns its place. There’s good reason to live with a room for a while before deciding what it needs.

John Pawson: The Minimal Home, John Pawson with Deyan Sudjic, is published by Phaidon, £39.95.