What makes a home a home?
Everyone wants to feel at home somewhere, in his own body, in his own home, neighbourhood or country.
‘Home’ is a safe and comfortable place or situation where you can feel at ease and relax. At the same time, the home feeling is also an exclusive emotion. Nobody feels at home in every place and in every situation.
But what makes a home, a home?
RESEARCH DESIGN TOOL
- maatschappelijke vraagstuk en bewustwording
- in opdracht van Willem de Kooning Academie
- Rotterdam, november 2018
Research Exposition "What makes a home a home?"
For this project we made a research tool. First we started with little question cards. We have asked many questions in different categories: loved ones, holidays, home, environment, homesickness, feelings, rituals and traveling. All these categories have to do with feeling at home.
After using the research tool, we decided that it was time to go outside and have conversations with random people about feeling at home. We made a design research tool.
To get people to notice us we made a plan of a house on the ground scale 1:1. Here we asked people to place a carton box somewhere in the house where they feel most at home. This was really amazing, because we had the most fun conversations with very different people. But most of all, we made people aware of the feeling, "feeling at home".
With this knowledge we finished our research document.
Video of researching and testing design tool
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The feeling “feeling at home” is a silent emotion. It is an emotion that influenceses your other emotions, like being happy, sad, calm, energetic, etc. The feeling is a combination of different factors. It is a feeling that a lot of people have never consciously thought about. It is a feeling that is very important for your development and personality. You feeling at home has to do with the atmosphere, a fragrance, sounds that surround you, relaxation, what kind of person you are and it has to do with the people around you. Feeling at home is very personal it has to do with who you are, your memories and your habits. The spaces and places where you find yourself, often reflect yourself. That is why you would not feel at home in certain places and why you do feel at home in other places. The awful cheesy phrase “home is where the heart is” is actually the truth. Feeling at home is a physical space. The geographic place is a factor of this feeling.
There is not just one place where you feel at home.
Manifesto
Final Design
Research Exposition "What makes a home a home?"