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SOCIAL PLANNING |
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These are not isolated examples or remarkable stories. What they have in common is a story of people’s deep attachment to housing and the importance of privacy, territory, display and what the environmental psychologists call “personalisation”. Dr Wendy Sarkissian is a colleague and student of renowned British housing theorist, Professor Clare Cooper Marcus. Together they wrote the much acclaimed book, Housing as if People Mattered (1986). Professor Marcus followed with her award-winning book, The House as Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meanings of Housing (1994). Drawing on her own experience, research and the principles in Cooper Marcus’ work, Dr Sarkissian can guide us to a deeper understanding of what housing can mean to people and how we can design to meet some of those deeper needs. |
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| Elsie When she was forcibly removed from her public housing estate, Elsie experienced all the stages of grief normally associated with the death of a close friend or family member. Initially she was in shock, then denial and later, much, much later, she accepted her situation and made a good home for herself in another housing estate. Some of her original neighbours became depressed and ill; one committed suicide because he could not face losing his garden or having to put down his pets. Peter When Peter retired at sixty, he found himself an unwelcome guest in his wife’s domain and was relegated to life in the shed. She’d had the place to herself for forty years and felt that he had invaded her territory. He was always underfoot. Peter felt that he’d worked hard to make a nice home for her and felt excluded and unwanted. The house became a territorial battleground. Not surprisingly, Peter became seriously ill and died before his 61st birthday. John Leaving the priesthood at 45, John moved into the first house he had lived in by himself. He was amused that he spent much of his first meager paycheques in decorations: pictures, new curtains, making the place “home”. But he found the silence and the privacy very difficult to manage. The display of his memorabilia on the mantelpiece comforted him during this transitional time. Kim For Kim, a small altar in an alcove in her small flat allowed her to venerate her ancestors and pray for solace in her new home during the lonely months she waited for news of her family so far away. She appreciated the fact that the kitchen was near the balcony so that she could continue her practice of barbecuing her evening meal, as she had done in her home country. |
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TOPICS AND THEMES 
