Think about a diner party with half dozen or so close friends eating in a fine dining room. Compare it with a typical school or even many family mealtime routines. House design relates to family values. Designers can point out the effect of various choices. Multiple use spaces often can be effectively designed, but it is easier to make a single use space aesthetically appropriate and effective for an intended use.
Today there is a serious integrity problem with much of our constructed and manufactured design.
We live in a plasticland of contradictory and untruthful visual relationships. We can easily purchase Early American or Colonial furniture finished with plastic laminates that are so realistic that some can't be recognized as fake. Children growing up in an environment of pretense are being conditioned to excuse and rationalize fakery as quality. What they live with, has a quality surface appearance while its heart is actually sawdust covered with plastic pretending to be something it is not. Plastic can be given good design that does not need to look like another material to be beautiful.