Home Space Research Articles

To Zone or Not to Zone When Upgrading a Wet Heating System from Gas to Heat Pump for Maximum Climate Impact: A UK View

Domestic heating systems across northern Europe are responsible for a substantial fraction of their countries’ carbon footprints. In the UK, the vast majority of home space heating is via natural gas boilers with ‘wet’ hydronic radiator systems. Most of those use TRVs (thermostatic radiator valves) for micro-zoning, to avoid overheating, improve comfort and save energy. To meet Net Zero targets, 20 million such UK gas systems may be retrofitted with heat pumps. Heat pump system designers and installers are cautious about retaining TRVs in such systems in part because of worries that TRV temperature setbacks that lower heat demand may raise heat pump electricity demand in a “bad setback effect”, thus wasting energy. This paper presents a new view of heat pump control and provides the first exploration of this issue through the development of a simple physics-based model. The model tests an installation industry claim about the negative effect of TRVs, and finds that though real it should not apply to typical UK retrofits with weather compensation. The energy efficiency benefits of TRVs for older and partly occupied homes, and to keep bedrooms cooler, remain valid. Comfort-seeking householders and installers should know that setting ‘stiff’ temperature regulation may invoke the bad setback effect and cost dearly in energy and carbon footprint.

The meaning of the home in the realm of Korean everyday life

Purpose This paper investigates the relationship between home spaces and social practice to explore how social practice informs the spatial typologies of the Korean home in the realm of everyday life. It identifies everyday activities socially embedded within the culture that contribute to a phenomenological understanding of the Korean home.Design/methodology/approach This paper incorporates a literature review of the conceptualisation of the traditional Korean home, as well as theoretical research concerning the spatial usage of the Korean home. This paper investigates (1) architectural and social aspects of traditional Korean homes, (2) social practice in the ondol, maru and madang as living spaces, and (3) the meaning of Korean home through analysis of spatial usages.Findings The analysis of the relationship between everyday activity and the home suggests that the Korean home is marked by (1) flexibility (changing the role and characteristics of individual components), (2) spatial extension (combining different areas), and (3) a blurred boundary between indoors and outdoors.Originality/value This paper considers the social and cultural aspects of the Korean home rather than its physical and architectural components; it demonstrates that the home as an everyday space holds both social and sacredness in a manner that is responsive to Korean cultural and social identity. Therefore, this paper will contribute to an understanding and provide knowledge of particular cultural types of the Korean home.

A qualitative inquiry into the lived experiences of menstrual health and hygiene in the transgender and non-binary people in urban areas of India

Significance Most global research on menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) focuses on cisgender women and girls, with limited evidence on the experiences of transgender and non-binary (TNB) people. This study aimed to document the lived experiences of menstruation management among TNB people in urban India. Methods We conducted 13 semi-structured interviews with TNB adults aged 19–40 years in three major Indian cities in collaboration with community organizations. We asked participants to share their experiences of managing menstruation in multiple spaces of life, e.g. at home, school, workplace, and other public spaces. Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed, de-identified, and cleaned. After a deductive and inductive process of developing a code book, we coded transcripts and developed code summaries to identify emergent themes. Results We identified three major themes in MHH for TNB urban Indians: (i) gendering of menstruation, (ii) navigating physical aspects of menstruation, and (iii) challenges beyond bleeding. ‘Gendering of menstruation’ shaped overall experiences of MHH among participants. Gendered expectations upon menarche triggered gender dysphoria. Participants reported having little knowledge about menstruation prior to menarche, which led to a state of confusion and shame, and exacerbated their dysphoria from gendering of norms around menstruation. ‘Navigating physical aspects of menstruation’ was less challenging in familiar, private surroundings, however, accessing public spaces and bathrooms remained a major challenge and stressor. Though many participants reported undergoing hormonal replacement therapy (HRT) in part to suppress menstruation, they continued experiencing menstrual symptoms which triggered continued dysphoria. Participants reported facing ‘challenges beyond bleeding’ which included burden of multiple diseases, mis-gendered healthcare services, and lack of social support. Discussion Documenting the lived experiences of menstrual health and hygiene among TNB people supports the call to ‘de-gender’ menstruation. Magnifying the voices and lived experienced of TNB people can bolster the development of effective interventions to enhance their wellbeing.

Enhancing Visual Comfort and Energy Efficiency in Office Lighting Using Parametric-Generative Design Approach for Interactive Kinetic Louvers

The number of desk workers who frequently conduct their jobs at home has increased dramatically during Covid-19. Work-from-home flexibility makes it attractive for workers and companies, resulting in a “Work-Style Reform” after the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the quick conversion of home spaces into workplaces cannot always sufficiently respond to users’ visual comfort and daylight performance needs which are primary contributors to occupant well-being and productivity. Therefore, this study adopts a mixed-methodology method that integrates parametric thinking, biomimetic, conceptual design, kinetic strategy and the DIVA approach to develop a real-time parametric-generative circular design for multi-objective adaptability that optimizes visual comfort and electric lighting energy efficiency for multiple occupants simultaneously. Parametric simulations of 1458 different options (five different runs per case: a total of 7290) were conducted to assess how the louvers perform regarding daylight, glare, and electric energy usage. Implementing an interactive kinetic louver greatly improved daylight performance in all orientations while simultaneously avoiding visual discomfort for multiple occupants. Furthermore, the use of this façade modification resulted in a substantial decrease in electrical lighting energy consumption, reducing the values from 14.22 to 0.2 kWh/m2/year, 8.1 to 0.18 kWh/m2/year, and 12.88 to 0.18 kWh/m2/year for South, East, and West orientations, respectively. Integrating users' lighting level preferences and the dynamic transitory sensitive area on the façade considerably reduces electric lighting consumption by around 99% compared to the ASHRAE 90.1 standard's lighting profile.

Contribution of Physical Exercise on the Emotional Regulation of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Purpose: To identify the effect of physical exercise on the emotional regulation of 4 adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) between the ages of 22 and 39. In this population it was found that one of the difficulties presented in these subjects is emotional regulation ( empathy) in their daily activities, such as variations in their routine, these can be changes in time or activities, disorder in their things, sleeplessness at night, etc. Methodology: Qualitative approach with case study design, the Atlas Ti program was used for semantic analysis, for this 4 subjects diagnosed by the Colombian League of Autism were selected, subsequently 15 interventions were carried out from a physical activity proposal and interviews were developed to the parents of the 4 participating subjects, to learn about the effect of exercise on the population of adults with autism. Results and Conclusions: It was found that there are various behaviors that subjects express in different situations, whether on the street, home or other space, in conclusion, the effect of physical exercise on emotional regulation contributes to improving moods, decreasing the escalation phases and generating better empathy towards the execution of activities or exercises in the 4 adults. Implications: This research provides implications for educational and government policy to continue to strengthen public policies for people with ASD. Originality/value: This research offers novelty by glimpsing the impact of exercise and physical activity on people with ASD.

Resisting and transgressing cisheteronormativity at home: LGBT+ youths’ active strategies

Many of the struggles and advances in LGBT+ rights are fought in domestic spaces. However, the political and emotional complexity of the home in relation to gender and sexual dissidence has received limited attention. This research aims to explore the discrimination and coping strategies of young LGBT+ youth in their family and personal home. Through a qualitative methodology, I examine how 27 LGBT+ youth from Bages (Catalonia) experience different home spaces according to their age, gender, and sexual orientation. The results show adultism and pressure to conform to cisheteronormative expectations at the family home. However, these norms dissolve in the personal home, allowing the free development of their LGBT+ identities. The study reveals the resistance and transformation strategies they use to tackle cisheteronormativity, highlighting home as a place of politics, negotiation, power, and complex emotions.

Interior Bowers

I know a rural bedroom with a paper representing a trellis and Noisette roses climbing over it; the carpet is shades of green without any pattern, and has only a narrow border of Noisette roses; the bouquets, powdered on the chintzs, match, and outside the window a spreading bush of the same dear old-fashioned rose blooms three parts of the year. That is a bower indeed, as well as a bedroom (Barker, 1878, p. 11). In Bedroom and Boudoir (1878) Lady Barker describes a number of bedrooms and boudoirs furnished with ornamental linings derived from the natural landscape. As the most private, internal and intimate interior spaces in the Victorian home, such spaces are likened to bowers - clearings in the forest, retreats or nests. Surrounded by surfaces composed of vegetal patterns and colours, the boudoir shows signs of reclaiming vestiges of the outside, not as the manicured garden or the cultivated landscape, but as foreign wilderness. Barker’s remarks critique the notion of the interior as tectonically distinct from the exterior. In contrast, the room is shown to be derivative of the exterior through its use of ornament, furnishings and linings. This paper examines the relationship between boudoir and bower as established by Lady Barker. It then traces the physical description through theoretical positions of the time on the relation of ornament and nature, in order to position the boudoir as an interior space of decorative and tactile envelopment.

Home among right angles: cube living

This article focuses on the dwellings of the Villa in Beroun in the Czech Republic, designed by HŠH Architects, and Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion, with architectural designs inspired by games, toys and creative play. The architectural designs inspired by the stacking blocks Lego®, K’nex® and Cidori® are explored and compared to GC Prostho by Kengo Kuma. The environmental implications of housing designs with malleable layouts, which reduce the need for constant changing and moving of houses throughout occupant lifetimes, are explored. The melding of the house and the game as a basis for rethinking the home space, which allows for rearranging walls and renewable capsular compartments, are analysed through the unsuccessful Nakagin Capsule Tower case study. The Villa in Beroun was dissected using gestalt psychology in order to unpack how the human mind reads its enveloping, malleable design. Due to its unique approach to black steel, concrete and glass material, the Villa in Beroun was analysed against new brutalist definitions.

Love/Hate as lyrical sociology: Mapping the spaces of urban crime

This article considers the sociological function of television drama via the Irish television crime series Love/Hate, which aired over five seasons between 2010 and 2014 on RTÉ, Ireland’s public service broadcaster. Drawing on Andrew Abbot’s concept of ‘lyrical sociology’, it will examine how media discourse surrounding Love/Hate consistently foregrounded the connection between its fictional events and real-life crime scenarios. Media coverage of Love/Hate, as well as the content of the series itself, it will be argued, posed the problem of sympathy between audience and its violent protagonists in spatial terms, as a question of belonging or otherwise in a shared social space. In particular, the experiential quality of home as a space of belonging will be explored as a central organizing structure in the series, one which ambiguously connected the lived spaces of its domestic television audience to the highly gendered home and city spaces of Love/Hate’s story world.

Commuting students before and during COVID-19: academic identity across home and campus spaces

Commuter students are believed to lack academic engagement because they do not `stick around´ on campus, but narratives of student belonging as tied to campus presence were challenged by emergency remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper reports on a longitudinal project on geographical, cultural and emotional dimensions of student practices of learning in an English widening participation university. We use theories of student belonging and mobilities as thinking tools to understand the relationships between students, spaces and learning practices in constructing fluid understandings of academic identity for commuting and residential students. Between 2016 and 2021, 28 students were interviewed. Geographical and cultural distance from university, but closeness to family or the domestic duties of home, affected commuter student practices of learning differently before and during emergency remote learning. When distance was enforced, remote learning was not necessarily easier for commuters, who had complex responses to losing social interaction. By rethinking how the benefits of being physically on campus are conceptualised and communicated, and how commuter identity is shaped by continuing interactions across home, digital, travel and campus spaces, we argue that commuter students′ multiple experiences should inform the post-pandemic university.

Proses Terjadinya Adaptasi Ruang di Rumah Tinggal yang Mengubah Fungsi Ruang Rumah Menjadi Ruang Usaha di Jogokaryan, Kota Yogyakarta

Title: The Process of Space Adaptation in Residential Houses that Change the Function of Home Space into Business Space in Jogokaryan, Yogyakarta City
 Home Base Enterprises (HBE) is one of the businesses run by many Indonesians. HBE is a type of business carried out in residential homes, so adaptation is needed to meet the needs of space that changes its function as a business space. This research aims to discover the process of changing the space function because of the house owner's adaptation. The method used in this study is descriptive qualitative with simple random sampling of data collection. Of the four selected samplings, the result is that the process of forming space in HBE is based on cultural, physiological, and morphological adaptations. For the production business, the method uses an adaptation of extending space, while the trading business uses an adaptation of sharing space.

Care of People Living with Dementia in Bulgaria: Between Over-Responsibility to the Family and Distrust in Public Health Services and Policies

Abstract Thirty years after the transition to democracy in Bulgaria, there is a lack of social and community support for people living with dementia and for their families and caregivers. Both residential and assisted living facilities in the country have remained both unpopular and underdeveloped, and based on in-depth biographical and expert interviews and focus groups, we shall discuss the subjective experience of informal caregivers of people living with dementia, accumulated in the confined space of home and family. We shall try to show how inconsistent application of the European Union’s social policies as well as the existence of enduring socio-cultural stereotypes relating to parental care places caregivers in passive, but over-responsible and implicitly critical positions towards the management both of public and private services for older people in Bulgaria.

Overlooked Realities: Reimagining "Home" and "House" Among Women Domestic Workers in India.

Domestic workers (DWs) are integral to the daily lives of a significant portion of India's urban population, with an estimated 3.9 million individuals employed in domestic roles in urban areas, mostly women. This article explores the perceptions of home, house, and safe spaces among migrant women DWs in Delhi. Through in-depth interviews, it delves into their lived experiences as both breadwinners and survivors of domestic violence, revealing that (a) house and home are differently conceptualized by these workers; (b) their homes are perceived as warzones, reinforcing patriarchy through incidents of domestic violence and gendered subordination; and (c) women DWs navigate the complexities of conflicting identities as breadwinners and survivors within unequal gendered relationships.

The Rural Borderland House: Functional‑Spatial and Ritual-Symbolic Specificities

This publication reviews the monograph by Polish researcher and PhD in Architecture Magdalena Sulima, which addresses the topics of architectural and ceremonial specifics of traditional rural housing in border territories. under-studied in Russia: Sulima, M. Dom pogranicza w kulturze wsi podlaskiej. – Białystok: Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Białostockiej, 2018. – 277 p. The novelty of the work lies in identifying the specific features of the borderland from the perspective of preserving archaic elements in house-building, structuring of home space, and its use in calendar and family rituals. The monograph may interest Russian-speaking readers not only due to its interdisciplinary approach to studying the house and dwelling but also for defining the specifics of border identity and developing its typology. Further studies of dwellings in zones of intensive ethno-cultural contact can broaden the relatively scarce domestic tradition of understanding and conceptualizing the dwelling as a frontier topos.

The engagement of Polish residents with their home space in single-family houses and flats in multi-family blocks of flats

The engagement of Polish residents with their home space in single-family houses and flats in multi-family blocks of flats

Enter Your Chambers and Shut Your Doors behind You: Bodily Containment, Proliferation, and the Right to Privacy in American Law and Gothic Horror

ABSTRACT: Landmark legal decisions on privacy and birth control reiterate gendered Cold War logics of containment by positioning the home as the safe container for female sexuality and fertility. Contemporary horror, however, counters this dualistic construction of safe interior–uncontrollable exterior by portraying the boundaries between inside and outside as artificial and porous. Representations of sexual containment, the nuclear family, and the domestic home space in The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) and Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968) complicate broader cultural and legal conceptions of birth control as a form of protection for the impenetrable marital home.

Forms of Life and Public Space

New words have found their way into the public sphere: we now commonly talk about “confinement”, “barrier-gesture” or “distancing”. The very idea of public space has been transformed: with restrictions on movement and interaction in public; with the reintegration of lives (certain lives) into the home (if there is one) and private space; with the publicization of private space through internet relationships; with the cities’ space occupied, during confinement, by so-called “essential” workers; with the restriction of gatherings and political demonstrations in public space. With these and other recent changes, it is imperative to revisit the concept of public space, which continues to be used as if it were self-evident, despite its profound transformation over the past few decades, in a process of realization and “literalization”. No longer just a comfortable metaphor for reasonable debates, public space has become a concrete reality in the 21th century. This transformation in the various phenomena, such as the occupation of squares and public spaces; the demand for spaces of conversation and expression for those without a voice; the transition of private matters into the public realm through verbal expression; and the expression and circulation of public issues within popular cultures. As a result, the question of public space is increasingly intertwined with that of private spaces, such as the home or individual subjectivities, forming an internal, logical relationship.

A Cultural Geopolitics of Hosting: Domesticity, Violence and Hospitality in the Home

ABSTRACT This paper aims to enhance geopolitical understandings of hosting by exploring the practice of bringing guests – known or unknown – into a home. It starts with a recognition that whilst a growing body of geographical literature has explored the geopolitics of home, this has yet to be substantially brought into conversation with the practice of hosting. Grounded within our research on refugee hosting in the UK, and being hosted in Palestinian homestays we contend that an attention to a cultural geopolitics of hosting enriches geographical accounts of hosting. Our case studies muddy the cultural and political borders of both home and hosting and question the multiscalar and relational understandings of hospitality. A cultural geopolitics of hosting then, demonstrates how hosting intersects with dynamics of geopolitics and culture through and in the multiple spaces of home. This paper, shows how a braiding of literatures on home and hosting is productive for understandings of the geopolitics of home, and hospitality at the different scales of the political.

“My cinema is not diplomatic, it is confrontational”: Decolonial framing of the home in two documentaries by Rosine Mbakam

This article centers on two documentaries about migrant women in their home: At Jolie Coiffure (Chez Jolie Coiffure, 2018) and Delphine’s Prayers (Les Prières de Delphine, 2021), both directed by by Rosine Mbakam. I put in conversation the home as a private space and the home as a national construction which creates categories of exclusion and restrictions. I argue that Rosine Mbakam performs an act of “decolonial framing” by taking an antiethnographic approach and creating documentary events—including the filmmaking process, the film viewing, and real-life interactions centering on the film. This transnational cinema of confrontation creates community for Black, diasporic, and African audiences while reversing the gaze against white audiences. Mbakam films the home to showcase instances of resistance to institutional racism and colonial duress. Showing the home on screen also opens the way to create better homes for all through multiple avenues of participation. First, I analyse Mbakam’s filmmaking process and her own involvement on screen as a co-creative act, I then look at her composition which reflects the complex dwellings of the protagonists and how they are shaped by architecture. Finally, I look at the reception of her films to show how her mobile cinema activities provide the infrastructure for making new home spaces.

How did COVID-19 restrictions impact alcohol consumption in Australia? A longitudinal study.

The state of Victoria experienced more stringent public health measures than other Australian states during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study investigated how these public health measures impacted: (i) total alcohol consumption; (ii) location-specific consumption; and (iii) consumption among different pre-pandemic drinking groups, in Victoria compared to the rest of Australia during the first year of the pandemic. A longitudinal study with six survey waves was conducted between April and December 2020. A total of 775 adults completed data on alcohol use, including detailed consumption location information. Based on their 2019 consumption, participants were classified into low, moderate or high-risk groups. Data were analysed descriptively. There was no difference in total alcohol consumption from 2019 levels among Victorians and those from the other Australian states when Victoria was the only state in lockdown. Location-specific consumption was relatively similar for Victoria and the rest of Australia, with an increase in home drinking, and a decrease in consumption in someone else's home, licensed premises and public spaces during lockdown compared with 2019. Participants in the high-risk group reported a reduction of two standard drinks per day in November 2020 compared with 2019. In contrast, consumption remained relatively stable for participants in the low and moderate-risk groups once accounting for regression to the mean. Contrary to expectations, restrictions on licensed premises appeared to impact high-risk drinkers more than low and moderate-risk drinkers. Reducing availability of on-premise alcohol may be an effective way to reduce consumption in heavier drinkers.