Act 1.2 - Home Based Learning

by John G

For my final project, I had decided to do my drawings by hand, simply because I was not confident in putting something curvilinear together with my computer. As a consequence, I found myself hunching over my A1s laid the floor, cycling through different postures and muttering to myself that I should have just taken the time to learn Rhino or Illustrator. Upon completion, I would use CamScanner to scan the sheet in parts, stitching them together as best I could in Photoshop. Going by the trajectory of my actions, maybe I should have just dressed as a clown for my final presentation as well.

My posture cycle (do you think I could use this to claim for medical insurance)

Permanently damaged posture aside, I still felt lucky enough to have a clear and conducive enough space to do my drawings and models. I understood that I had peers who did not have this luxury. This begs the question: why isn’t the space they needed available to them? To begin answering this question, we must first consider the space we have for a home, and its availability across the board.

We are all familiar with housing as a commodity, with its exchange value manifesting in its “price-per-square-metre”. This already places ample housing space out of reach for many, not to mention the impact of the pandemic and the injustice of income inequality, which only exacerbate this issue. However, the unavailability of space does not stop at its cost. We must also know that access to housing and the space therein is an issue permeated by discrimination. Documented or not, there have been accounts and evidence of housing discrimination along the lines of race, ethnicity, religion, physical/mental health, sex/gender, and SOGIE [1], amongst others. These forms of systemic discrimination also affect folks in the domain of job application and income, hindering their ability to accumulate enough capital to even afford the home that they want.

Even with space “available”, it could be that only a certain amount of it is available for work, or that we need to share this space with family members or roommates. This could mean that an already limited space is subject to division, or the regular changing of hands.

Aside from the quantity of space, a further inequality is also present in the quality of it. I would say that the quality of a space encompasses the phenomena within, such as light, colour, sounds, as well as the more intangible “waves of forces” that flow through it. These phenomena are all part of and inextricable from the fabric of a space, contributing to what a space means to us and how we feel in it. For example, a space I could call “home” is informed by the phenomena within it, but if it is also infused with noise and shouting, its homeliness can quickly sour into an environment of alienation. These things are usually beyond our control, which goes to show that a reading of the inequality of space should also acknowledge the influence of such phenomena on spaces. Simply put, we should also be asking about access to “good” and “safe” spaces.

Some simple fields and forces in a room

I will conclude here to say that space is far from being “available to all”. Although humans have the beautiful capacity for adaptation (at least when it comes to space and its limitations), I believe that we should still be fighting for more equal access to space. In fact, we owe it to everyone; the very space we build and design in is produced by society. And considering the looming issues of land scarcity and housing a growing population, I say that we should be addressing this problem now, while we can still get a grip on it.

[1] sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression