Billboard for Domesticity
3 January 2006

We read how homes have changed throughout the years. History caters to the elite and powerful, but we are not that. We are concerned with the vernacular traditions as well as the avant garde.

We find that if home is one thing, it is always a place of shelter. In most cases, the home is more than that: home is a billboard proclaiming the lifestyle of its residents.

It is no surprise to the reader that urban home ownership has increased during the past decade. What may be of interest is who these new urbanites are. In most West Coast American cities, we are seeing urban revitalization spurred by young professionals and older, wealthy people, whose children have grown. There has been a steady decline of urban youth in these cities, as evidenced by the number of primary schools which are under-enrolled.

Before an assumption is made that this trend is universal, we should examine Vancouver’s new urban growth. Apparently, the number of children living in downtown Vancouver has doubled over the past decade and a half. New urban growth in this city placed an emphasis on a kind of social engineering. During a recent phase of major urban development, a guarantee was made to set aside 20% of all new housing to low-income residents, and another 25% for family housing. Before this strategic move, Vancouver was following the aforementioned trend of other West North American cities—and sought to reverse it.

Whether or not this type of planning is beneficial in the long run, the commitment to uphold some semblance of social responsibility is admirable. One idea that should definitely by ripped off and reused as much as possible is this approach to low income housing. In these new developments in Vancouver, affordable housing is sited alongside market rate family housing. Best of all, there is no exterior distinction between affordable and market rate housing. Thus, the façade continues to serve as a billboard that speaks of lifestyle, not status.

Ray Eames: ‘Modern architecture—not a style. A philosophy of life.’

Indeed, a modern façade does not make a house modern, it doesn’t make the inhabitants modern. When you want to redefine the home, you are redefining domesticity. Likewise, to redefine domesticity, you must redefine the form of the home. And it is true that domesticity has changed yet has not found its new form reflected in most built architecture. Style isn’t important, but approach is. A new approach to housing design is being undertaken throughout the world; we are trying to find the form that expresses the philosophy of our new urban lifestyle. Not lifestyle, life-approach.

Bruce Mau: 'Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.'

Sustainable Building Materials