The unfitness of dwellings: why spatial and conceptual boundaries matter

The boundaries of work and home are constantly evolving. Working from home challenges the prevailing understandings of what a home is supposed to be and do, and what work is. Currently, most research around working from home and architecture focuses on spatial and functional qualities of homes that facilitate work productivity, highlighting inhabitants’ struggle with integrating work in their homes. Instead of further identifying challenges, this article focuses on why these challenges have emerged. Through an interdisciplinary literature review illustrated with example homes, this article explores why contemporary work does not seem to fit in the home; how conceptions of work and home have shifted over time; and how this has affected spaces and functions of the home. Findings highlight that these shifts have rendered homes spatially and functionally ‘rigid’, and that work has slowly been excluded from the spatiality of the home. This results in dwellers having to continuously manage physical, temporal and social boundaries in their homes, a practice often found tiring and challenging. To address this, design approaches for reintroducing fluidity in the spatial logic of the home are proposed. Practice relevance The logic of the home supports or hinders inhabitants’ everyday life, which increasingly includes working from home. Inhabitants experience difficulties when integrating work in the spaces and functions of their homes: managing the physical, temporal and social boundaries between work and ‘life’. The development of housing throughout the 20th century reflects shifts in broader societal attitudes towards ‘work’ and ‘home’ and has spatialised the blurring of their boundaries. Functions in homes blend together fluidly and spatial separation is difficult to achieve. Key design approaches for supporting dwellers’ practices of boundary management include avoiding precise labelling of spaces, creating spaces and nooks of diverse sizes, ensuring versatile and adaptable connections between spaces and functions, and avoiding overlap of circulation space with other spaces. These approaches support working from home but also increase the adaptability and resilience of homes.