The Heterogeneous Home
Ryan Aipperspach

GoodGuide.com | [e-mail]

Ben Hooker

Art Center College of Design | [e-mail]

Allison Woodruff

Intel Research Berkeley | [e-mail]

 

In the course of conducting research on domestic life [ 1], we have visited and conducted observations in a number of U.S. homes. Within these homes, we have often observed a certain homogeneity, a tendency toward similarity in place and experience. Our sense of a sometimes uniform and undifferentiated domestic environment resonates with observations made by others as well. For example, the modern housing landscape has been critiqued as offering limited variation in internal form and structure compared with the diversity of household populations [ 2, 3]. Homes with uniform construction, ceiling height, and lighting are symptomatic of designs that deal with economic constraints by being larger and undifferentiated, rather than smaller but more differentiated [ 4]. Additionally, fundamental domestic infrastructure, such as central heating and cooling systems that deliver a consistent climate throughout the home, reinforces the assumption that the domestic environment should be consistent and homogeneous.

Even in spatially complex
homes, pervasive technology
often provides access to the

same “virtual environment” throughout the home, creating a homogeneous environment as viewed through the screen. Televisions playing in multiple rooms can create similar landscapes throughout the home. Further, devices such as time-shifting television recorders can subtly homogenize the experience of time by reducing the salience of external temporal structures such as network television schedules [ 5]. “Anytime, anywhere” networks and devices such as cellular and smart phones can also blur boundaries between work and home, as well as boundaries within the home. Laptops and PDAs connected wirelessly to the office may be placed on a bedside table, providing access to work late at night, and for many people, the experience of truly “coming home from work” is a rare one.

Increased homogeneity in the domestic environment plainly offers attractions such as convenience. For example, uniform access to data and network services offers residents the handy ability to compute in any room in the home and to be near family members while they are working. However, this is a double-edged sword, resonating with

concerns of McDonaldization— the process by which modern society takes on the characteristics of a fast-food restaurant [ 6]. While standardized and uniform services are convenient and seductive, they are also often associated with limited variation and reduced quality. These issues resonate with our own intuition, based on our experience with design and observation, that homogeneity is often associated with a less fulfilling domestic experience.

Findings from environmental psychology and restorative environment theory also suggest potential disadvantages of homogeneous home environments [ 7]. Restorative environments are important for reducing mental fatigue resulting from stressful situations or intense thought, and inspection of the characteristics of restorative environments suggests that homogeneous domestic environments may not be sufficiently restorative. As Tabor writes, digital screens are “sleepless, fidgety, and demanding [ 8].” They “discourage that mental state of still coherence—achieved when we stare into a flame, gaze idly from a window or watch shadows lengthen—which rebuilds the self.”

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