Home Revolution
Honey, I’m homeschooled!
Edit was invited to create a learning activity for parents and children stuck at home as part of Open City’s Architecture at Home series in May 2020. Architecture at Home, in collaboration with Celebrating Architecture, was set up during the COVID 19 lockdown to create learning materials for parents, teachers and children.
As home became school, Home Revolution asked children to engage with their new learning environments and think about how the rooms and things surrounding them shape the way they live. The activity asks students to reimagine these spaces and objects through making drawings, collages, models and one-to-one prototypes; and to share how the tweaks they made could change the way they use these objects and interact as a family or even neighbourhood around them.
"What if we shared communal utilities such as water, electricity and gas, and they were all stored in the same place, along with the appliances they connect to? Sharing the cost of these things would certainly be helpful. How would sharing these things change our relationship with our neighbours? Maybe we would clean, cook, garden, even do laundry together. If we are sharing all of these appliances and chores, what else might we decide to start sharing? Would chores still feel like chores?"
"We are taught to use different rooms within our house for specific actions: we sleep in the bedroom, we eat in the kitchen, we clean ourselves in the bathroom. What would happen if these actions were mixed by misplacing the furniture that supports them? What if taking a bath could be as exciting as being at the beach, if the bathtub was maybe in the living room?"
"Could you imagine a new dinner table where everyone eats together on a giant plate or drinks together with a long garland of glasses? It could result in lots of options of food and drinks, shared equally by the entire family. Could washing up become a fun collective activity to do all together after pudding?"
