Design Impact: A Room of One's Own

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A Room of

01. Move-in Strangely enough for me, rooms in student housing in Finland are mostly unfurnished – sometimes even without a ceiling lamp. When I discovered this situation, I started panicking about arriving in Finland. How can one, exhausted after twenty-six hours of flying, still have the energy to find a bed and a lamp? Along with the quarantine requirements, this “first-day” situation was unimaginable for me.

“But, you may say, we asked you to speak about [the value of design] — what, has that got to do with a room of one’s own?”

According to my past experience, rooms in student “dormitories” are always equipped with at least beds, chairs, desks, wardrobes, and of course, lights. Notice that the words have to be plural – in boarding school, there are always people sharing the same room with you, sometimes one, sometimes seven. Why is there such a difference in planning the students’ residential space? A blog article written by an international student shared an interesting opinion:

00. By the doorstep

“...後來仔細一想,這就是芬蘭注重獨立性與個體性的一環, 每個人可以 依照自己的喜好, 自由地擺設個人空間。 ”

I will try to explain.

(廖曉佩, 2019)

Yet, a person, the protagonist of this journey, has to be introduced into this cubical container to connect all the tangible and intangible elements. In one’s own room, the individual has the autonomy to plan and organise the environment. With the traces of the room owner, the space represents a slice of design’s impact - the mutual influence between design actors and design. It starts from one’s residence within the interior space, expands to their will to explore and connect with the external world, and surprisingly the attempts to design will eventually “re-design” us, a collective of individuals (Colomina and Wigley, 2016). In this brief room tour on paper, we will adopt the capability framework to analyse such “re-design” of ourselves. Developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, capabilities denote an individual’s real freedom to achieve “valuable beings and doings” (Nussbaum, 2009). Through contemplating an individual’s opportunity and ability to design for their well-being, we may gradually identify the value of design beyond personal space.

(Liao, 2019)

I could not find any other resources to support this interpretation, yet it does reveal an inspiring dimension to viewing the unfurnished room. Implicitly, the freedom implies an expectation for a longer period of stay, for a residence with permanence and stability. Within the empty space, one is allowed and trusted to develop their capabilities through their own design decisions. © 2020 Lù Chén

Lù / 陸,“A Room of One’s Own“ / “自己的房間”

To analyse design’s impact on the surrounding world, it may be easier for us to break down each element into its basic unit. A room is the basic unit of dwelling space. While a tool – an instrument made to adapt the existing conditions for our own needs – is the basic unit of cultural resources that reflects our actions and thoughts for life (Medhi & Dilip, 2017). A room envelops the tools and artefacts inside, containing a segment of economic, cultural, and environmental resources.

(“...Later on, I realised that the unfurnished room reflects the significance of individual independence in Finnish culture. Everyone is thus given the freedom to arrange their own living environment based on their personal values.”)

One’s own


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Design Impact: A Room of One's Own by Lu Chen - Issuu