Post Domestic Commons

During “pre Covid-19” era, we inhabited a constellation of spaces; then, the home absorbed our intimacy and sociality. This moment marked a turning point in re-thinking the domestic landscape that despite the social, family and gender changes in process, it still seems fixed to a traditional typology and conception that dates back to after World War II. This paper focuses on an ethnographic reading of some attitudes that emerged during the phases of forced closure and that characterized the European cities context, and precisely those places where the exchange between inside and outside takes place: balconies, windows, courtyards, common spaces of the house. Taking the interpretation made by Hall in the 1960s, the paper tried to translate the four distances of proxemics (intimate, personal, social and, public) with four spatial thresholds related to different types of scales: the window represents the more “intimate” scale, the balcony the “personal” scale and, internal courtyards refer to a “social” scale. This experimental reading allows us to reinterpret some of the in-between spaces of the home that have often received little consideration in design process to re-affirm their value, particularly from the perspective of future ways of envisioning the home.