Separateness in the home: From home-ness to work-ness in a post-covid environment

Marco, Elena; Sinnet, Danielle; Oliveira, Sonja

Abstract

COVID-19 brought unprecedented restrictive lockdown measures across the globe. This ‘enforced togetherness’ brought transformative changes in how homes were used and inhabited. The home was tested to its limits and the use of its spaces renegotiated, redesigned and resynchronised. Post-COVID, working practices are more flexible with many employers now adopting ‘hybrid working’ that formalise the use of the home as a workplace. This study presents the lockdown lived experiences of a small number of architects using a novel interpretative phenomenological approach applied in an architectural context. The study identified four ‘lockdown-socio-spatial affordances of the home’: Connectivity, Adaptability, Communality and Individuality, that must be included in future housing design. It also identified two critical attributes for the meaning of home: as a nurtured space and as a negotiated space. Considering future housing design, in the context of homeworking, this study concluded that these four affordances were linked to the spatial adaptation of the home and the transition of the ‘outdoors’ into the home. Spaciousness and cleanliness need to be designed-in so that spaces can be versatile. Digital and physical connectivity between the inside (e.g. reshaping rules, structures, routines) and outside (e.g. work, home-school or seeing friends) worlds must be delicately balanced to ensure a respite from the online world and conflicts within the household, to ensure the inhabitants’ physical, social and emotional wellbeing. Separateness from home- and work- communal environments must be reconsidered in future housing design and hybrid working policies, so inhabitants can disconnect and recharge from this ‘enforce togetherness’.

• Presentation Conference Type: Presentation / Talk
• Conference Name: Urban Studies Conference
• Start Date: May 23, 2024
• End Date: May 24, 2024
• Deposit Date: May 28, 2024
• Keywords: housing; working-from-home; architecture
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/12013051