Will it be Bali, traditional Thai, Oriental, European, or something totally new?

Design fads come and go, while homeowners' personal tastes vary. But for most developers of residential units, the safest bet is a middle-of-the-road contemporary style.

Sleek lines of furniture such as the pieces above can be combined with interesting textures, such as those at right, on view at a recent Italian trade show attended by Sansiri representatives.

Trendsetters like Sansiri Plc, a developer of high-end, single-detached houses and condominiums, say next year's homes will feature an elegant, modern style with a bit of garden greenery thrown in for good measure. Namped Triratanakul, Sansiri's deputy manager for product and market development, responsible for all project design, said more modern-style homes would be hitting the market in the near future.

Ms Namped said that modern features include much lower-pitched roofs, even flat ones. Modern house design favours sleek materials and pure elements for decoration such as naked cement, glass walls, stainless steel or metal sheeting.

She said colour was another indicator, with modern style more likely to use strong colours such as red, green or orange in interior design work, with a mix of earth tones like white or smoky grey. There will be more presentation of different textures in the plain colours.

The modern style, likely to dominate condominium design for at least the near future, won't have much of an impact on housing projects, except in some locations where the target customers are rich younger buyers, who tend to be more open to radical design features.

Ms Namped said that for interior design, Sansiri found that the "minimalist" concept was not practical in the Thai market, particularly in condominiums, because Thais move only rarely, unlike people in other countries. Years of living in the same place requires a lot of storage space to cope with the inevitable accumulation of personal possessions.

Sansiri's new condominium and housing projects will be designed using the concept of a "liveable modern style". Extreme attention to detail will be used in creating attractive living rooms and master bathrooms, as research found that buyers generally focus on these two areas when visiting a prospective house.

Pornchai Wongwannadilok, manager of the design department at M.K. Real Estate Plc, a company that builds townhouses and single-detached homes aimed at the middle-income market, said contemporary style had dominated the market for a long time, as it can be adapted to fit any period. To achieve a degree of uniqueness, developers often add some unique detailing into their products to use as a selling point.

He said the change in housing design trends from the past to the present could best be seen in house functionality. Designers these days were paying much more attention to customer needs than in the past. There is also a lot more use of high-quality materials to accommodate advances in technology.

However, Mr Pornchai was of the opinion that the most significant change of late was the preference for highly-developed outdoor environments and yard infrastructure.

"The housing designs of the giant developers such as Land & Houses haven't changed a lot. Instead they are focusing on attractive and safe environments for their customers," he said.

Sunantapat Chalermpanth of the architectural firm KTGY Inter-Associates Ltd said trends in housing design would move toward meeting the demands of niche markets, as developers create smaller boutique projects to serve the needs of particular target groups.

He foresees no specific trend in terms of architecture and design because preferences would be tailor-made to fit the specific demands of very narrow customer groups.

KTGY, a prominent designer of high-end, single-detached housing projects, found that the adaptive functionality is being emphasised more as buyers would seek houses where some rooms can be adapted to meet a wider range of requirements.