The Heterogeneous Home (2007)




Sketchbook, example spread
Sketchbook, overview
Sketchbook, cover

We believe that the home is becoming a more homogeneous place. The environment is increasingly filled with “any time”, “anywhere” portable devices such as cellular phones, laptops, and MP3 players that blur the traditional boundary of the home that helps individuals to define themselves in relation to the world. These technological changes are compounded by cultural changes towards a 24-hour, always connected lifestyle and structural changes towards more homogenous “cookie cutter” domestic spaces. We assembled an interdisciplinary research team, including members with experience in interaction design, computer science, and anthropology, to study the increasing homogeneity of domestic space and to generate a series of design proposals for creating more heterogeneous environments. Our proposals present a range of theoretical arguments, drawn from concepts in environmental psychology, as well as provocative design sketches which led to interactive prototypes. Together, these artifacts create a vision for a domestic environment that promotes more nurturing and sustainable relationships between people, their space, and their technology.

A fundamental outcome of the project was a design sketchbook which created a framework for subsequent prototypes and more applied research. The design sketchbook has seven sections: House versus Home, Hybrid Homemaking, Device Tourism, The Temporal Home, Augmented Outside, Physical Space for Virtual Communities, and The Fractal Home.

Download Heterogeneous Home design sketchbook (PDF, 5 MB)

This project is a collaboration with Ryan Aipperspach and Allison Woodruff.