“…We Honestly Just Got Sick of Doing Working Together.” Spatial Negotiation of Adult-Child Thrown togetherness During Lockdown

Abstract

Following a pre-pandemic decline in family time at home, the Royal Institute of British Architects called for multi-functional living spaces to become the new family social hub, where familial togetherness materializes. However, a deeper understanding of the family home as a socio-spatial system, shaped by the negotiation of values, is required to inform housing design. This article draws on the concept of throwntogetherness to explore the family home during COVID-19 lockdown as a conflictual site of value discrepancies. Qualitative analysis of 45 in-depth interviews unpacks adult-child throwntogetherness as a state of negotiation between adults, children, and the spaces and values (care, companionship, control, privacy, play) upon which the family home is built. The study identifies the spatial strategies (Connectedness, Compartmentalization, Containment, and Together-space) used to reconfigure domestic space to negotiate lockdown throwntogetherness. The findings contribute new spatial understandings of adult-child togetherness, with important implications for open-plan housing design, questioning pre-pandemic assumptions.