Home-modification : a search for the American home amid a structure of conventionality

Abstract

Since its origin in the postwar period the image and spatial structure surrounding the suburban house has perpetuated a singular notion of what house and family are. This postwar concept of what the average family and house are do not correspond to the multiple social groupings and life-styles prevalent today. As it is currently produced, the suburban house is intended in form, program and policy for a single-family structure, and any attempt to alter these aspects produces a disjuncture between the structure and the household it must support. While some, such as Dolores Hayden, have suggested alternative housing designs for those families that do not match the postwar notion of the average family, these families remain marginalized by the form, policy, and space afforded them in available housing. Given the multiplicity of household organizations present today, several examples of domestic architecture provide insight into potential spatial characteristics that allow flexibility in response to alterations in the constructs surrounding family organization and use. In formulating a new sense of spatial organization, qualities of place extracted from existing models provide an understanding of the spatial characteristics necessary to make the house function as a place for both collective activity and private, individual habitation. Aspects of these precedents -- contextual relationships, transition space, threshold, and access -- serve to support necessary distinctions between public and private realms of the house, while simultaneously allowing for the flexibility necessary to accommodate changing social structures. The implementation of a new structure for the suburban house that is based in a spatial rather than programmatic distinction of place is intrinsic to the meaning of the house in its current social context. Such a framework for thinking about the house can provide a basis for a lasting structure in the suburbs, while allowing for alterations in the specific aspects required of the dwelling that will inevitably change with the passage of time. In response to the need for a change in the nature of the suburban house, a series of diagrams are proposed as a means of reconciling the discrepancies found between the suburban house and the current exigencies of American families. Through the application of a series of spatial arrangements derived from existing models, these diagrams are intended as an operative framework for rethinking the design of the suburban house. By employing the spatial characteristics found in the precedents and overlaying needs, family structures, and use patterns, the diagrams are able to provide a flexible structure for the suburban house -- one that is able to turn the house, an object of repetitive production, into a home that can accommodate a multiplicity of households.