23/06/2026
Marta Mertens
THE ART OF EMPTY SPACE
Why the most considered rooms often contain the least.
Negative space is often misread as a lack of decision. In reality, it's one of the most deliberate choices a designer can make — and one of the hardest to get right. Most people fill space out of instinct or habit. Learning to resist that impulse, and to trust what's already there, is where real design thinking begins.
How breathing room changes the way a space feels and functions.
When every corner is filled, a room works hard to impress but rarely succeeds at making you feel at ease. Negative space gives the eye somewhere to rest and allows the pieces that matter to actually register. It's the pause that makes the composition legible. Designers who understand this stop asking "what can I add?" and start asking "what can I take away?" — and that shift changes everything about the result. It's also what separates spaces that photograph well from spaces that feel genuinely good to be in.
What clients get wrong about empty walls.
An unfilled wall isn't an unfinished room. Sometimes it's the most considered decision in the whole space. It takes confidence to leave something bare — and a good eye to know when bare is exactly right.
Less is rarely accidental.
A single object in the right place outweighs a room full of the wrong ones.
Proportion matters more than quantity.
The space between things is part of the design.
