Body Office Experiment

This project is driven by self experimental research and engagement with public.

Concept Formulation : working from home - Why I can't study in my room?

Do you agree with working from home post-pandemic? 



-Room plan_main image- contents below.

-Analysis based on a relationship between furniture, space and dweller.



Now we faced the Pandemic, Covid-19, in sudden. People are looking forward Untact age. People are facing the situation of working from their own home and requiring them to stay at home for a long time. From this situation, we are facing the need for changing the working system and rethinking of place and time. We are experiencing the positive effects and negative effects of these working from home experiences.


This will be affected by the post-pandemic age to have a new normal. For the new normal life, we need a new design for supporting our life. And this is because we cannot expect to be back to normal life exactly the same way we have been lived. The traditional working place within the working pattern and working time will be flexible. According to a survey of CBS, 70 percentages of people among working from home workers are having mental stress and burnout symptom. However, a survey in May 2020 in the US showed that 20.3 percentages workers are answering they do not want to go back to the office post-pandemic, 55.5 percentages of workers want to flexible working pattern with hybrid office systems. Which are going to offices for 2 or 3 days in a week, and 2 or 3 days is allowed for working from anywhere. 



As a result of this survey, there is a demand for working from home, and also demand office for work. Similarly, people are answering that WFH is efficient completely is occupied 33.4 percentages and 30.7 percentages of people are answering they cannot do their job at home. The survey result is below. 


I am the one who cannot study at home, similarly working from home is hard for me as well. I found our these reasons are coming from a diverse way. For personal reasons, my habits, and need for time or action for the mindset to work affects me. For the environmental reason, the interior and furnishings of my room, architectural elements of my residential space. 

 

This situation makes the various layers of roles of home. However, we are living in the same place without physical change and mind change. And the impacts of blurred work-home boundaries bring some negative effects on mental stress such as fatigue, and anxiety. I found that there is difficulty on 'on and off' time for working and rest. Whenever I was working I feel too comfortable, in contrast, I feel anxiety when I take a rest. This is related to the psychological issue of mentality and this is from how space designated with furniture.





We shape our space with furniture, 

afterwards the furniture structure space and our behaviour.


Spatial experience is a vital part of considering dwellers live in a building. I think furniture has a great impact on space and residents' spatial experience. 


"We shape our building, and afterwards, our building shapes us." Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill


I think his words can be adapted to residential space. We shape our space with furniture, afterwards the furniture structure space our behaviour. As an example, I analysis my room as a residential space, how it shapes my behaviour in a certain way. 




Most of the activity is placed at a desk.

Bed is located right behind of Desk 

Room designated  to have direction of body movement.

2 windows are Front side from the door

1window is right side from the door



 This room space is designated by the deployment of furniture such as bed, desk and closet. This placement makes this small space to be a narrower space like a corridor. And this restricts dweller's movement in a straight direction of the pathway. This pathway is originally an empty space, however, it is physically made by how each furniture is set in place and how it occupies the space(Arnheim, 1977). When the dweller enters the room, she can perceive this room with those two pathways which are the front and the right.


The furniture on the front side of the door functions to connect the dweller's body while supporting one to study, eat, and draw on the desk or to lie down and sleep on the bed. In contrast, the furniture, on the right side of the door, is designed for storing stuff- a static property. Therefore these environmental factors and deployment of furnishings support dweller’s movement and also restrict their movement in a certain way. I was led to have more time in the front side space from the door. 


However, this spatial structure created mental health problems during studying from home in this pandemic. The desk and bed have symbolic meaning to my object spatial practices, which is study and rest. I noticed that the desk was a place to study. However, I  also found that I did many different activities there. The desk already is a place that is constantly influenced by two contrasting activities. Additionally, the bed has a completely symbolic meaning of getting from my spatial experience such as sleeping, watching videos, and texting. As the bed is located right behind the desk only a footstep away, it attracts the dweller to take a rest from other activities. From one's bodily experience, one has already perceived the bed as a meaning of rest. This interior design disturbs you to work and take a rest as well. 


 Also, a narrow interspace is an important matter. The perceptual psychologist, Rudolph Arnheim said about ‘interspace’- the relationship between two buildings - in his book called, The Dynamics of Architectural Form (1977).

Interspace is the distance between the buildings, it also influences the degree of their mutual dependence or independence. If interspace were entirely eliminated, the two buildings would tend to coalesce into one, with the small one looking like a mere appendage if the large one. At the other extreme, a great distance would extinguish most relations between the buildings. p18

This analysis of interspace which is a relationship between two buildings could be implemented into the placement analysis of furniture in a room as well. In this sense, The size of the interspace between bed and desk is small, and even though it is connected by the chair. This extreme, close space made the dweller feel that those objects connect. In this situation, working and rest space is perceived as one object. 


I think this environmental effect has a vital part in shaping a safe and healthy life in the future. So that the furniture has a more vital part of our life. And this requires an emerging role in architecture and furnishing design.  



*Reference

Bloom, N. (2020). How working from home works out | SIEPR. [online] siepr.stanford.edu. Available at: https://siepr.stanford.edu/research/publications/how-working-home-works-out.


Arnheim, R. (2009). The dynamics of architectural form : based on the 1975 Mary Duke Biddle lectures at the Cooper Union. Berkeley, California ; Los Angeles, California ; London England: University Of California Press