Design Impact: A Room of One's Own

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

Now, take a glance across your room. What can you see and feel? While examining all these objects, here is a list of questions that we can consider:

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How did you obtain the object, through purchasing, gifting, or making it on your own? Even more, before arriving at you, where is the object or raw material from?

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Why do you keep it? Necessity, culture, religion, or some reason you can’t exactly articulate but you feel that you need it to complete your identity or support your “artistic interior” (Huxtable, 2014)?

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Let’s zoom out a little bit and look around – where do you place these items? Other than your free will, did the spatial structure constrain your range of choices?

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If so, how did you adapt to such limitations? What did you compromise in this process?

© 2022 Lù Chén

02.

A glance across the room

Walking in Paimio Sanatorium, I was surprised by the variety of communal spaces. The architecture offered individual patients control over their relationship with the wider community outside their wards. With the opportunity to enhance social affiliation, patients in sanatorium could still strengthen their capabilities as individuals with freedom and potential instead of merely illness.

03.

Step out of the domestic space

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

When examining our relationship with household items, the investigation seems to inevitably involve external society. The room constructs a boundary between the private and the public domain, yet the materiality of the room constantly reminds us of the influence of the bigger world on our domestic life and personal development.

exit / entrance / border /

During the lockdown, one’s own room has become the only terrain for many to explore. With one’s autonomy, the isolation may motivate one to create and maintain their capabilities. However, owning a personal space may appear to be a luxury for many. In 2020, the pandemic revealed how part of the population’s capabilities had been constrained by everyday material and spatial experience. In Singapore, the cramped and filthy dormitories made social distancing impossible for migrant workers; meanwhile, the lockdown significantly increased the chance of labour exploitation for domestic helpers living in employers’ households.

After two years, while many countries are preparing for the “postpandemic era,” the experience of makeshift hospitals in China seems to cast more adverse effects on the quarantined individuals’ wellbeing and dignity instead of promoting healing. Why do these spaces, designed to support economic growth and public health, eventually result in social injustice?

shelter

Why do these spaces, designed to support economic growth and public health, eventually result in social injustice?

Here, a room of one’s own is a metaphor for the importance of the individual in social design. In a time of global uncertainty, we witness the urgency to address ethics and justice issues and thus aspire to design for social innovation. Notwithstanding, the solidarity in a community cannot happen without acknowledging the significance of individuals.

To empower individuals’ participation in social innovation, The design process should be capability sensitive.

When Virginia Woolf talked about a room of one’s own in 1929, women could not freely control their bodily integrity and financial resources. With the constraints on activity and resources, they could hardly pursue knowledge and creativity independently. After almost a hundred years, I, as a womxn student in design, fortunate enough to be sitting in my own small room, with both worries and hopes, envision our future in solidarity through capability sensitive design.