Why Home+less ?

Reflecting on this initiative and the purposes of this blog, I ended up deeming it essential to clarify the reasons that led me to choose the name and explain a little more about the project. A subject that always caught my attention, from the beginning of my academic life at the architecture university, was the design solution for small spaces, and the challenges of making these spaces functional. How to design functional and efficient when we have no space.

It is worth mentioning that, even though this was a topic that always held my attention, I never had any urge that led me to think that this topic could be relevant to research, and this subject would generate so much passion, leading me to really important changes in several aspects of my life, not just professionally.

Taking a master's degree has always been something that was in my plans, and more than enjoying academic life, something that motivated me was to have the obligation to continue studying and living in this world where studying is not a hobby but a necessity. Having this objective to attend a master's degree, and the willingness to do so, I ended up joining not only once, but twice in a master's program, and both times I ended up not completing the dissertation and not receiving the title. This may seem like a story of frustration and failure and, in fact, I have faced this issue for a long time. However, today I see this very differently, and here comes the curiosity of how the theme of minimum housing, where I begin this text, comes to sew the whole story.

Not long ago, during the first lockdown due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and as a result of it, I found myself stuck in my apartment and with a huge amount of spare time that I hadn't had before since school, where studying was my only commitment. During that time, I explored several things to keep myself busy and many of them didn't hold my attention for long, except for one idea that I had to create new routines to have a healthier life, both physically and mentally. I started by incorporating reading into my daily life and interestingly I ended up reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, which was left by a neighbor in the building's lobby for anyone who might be interested in reading it.

One of the habits I wanted to introduce into my life was writing, a skill in which I always had a lot of difficulties, and which, in large part, was one of the reasons that led me to not complete the master's degrees I started. I say in large part because now I see that this was more a fear, an excuse, than the reality. The real reason why I never finished the master's degrees, was because I never found a topic that I was interested in, that would generate passion and meaning for my life. The fact that I started the habit of writing in my daily routine was decisive in finding this topic.

Following the guidelines given by the book, I decided that I would start writing every day and I would associate this new habit with another one that I´ve already had, seeking to associate it with something that generated pleasure. So I decided that I would dedicate at least half an hour in the mornings having my first coffee, one of the most enjoyable moments of my day, and where I have time to connect with myself.

As nothing in life is simple, I soon began to face difficulties about what to write off and decided that it would be a good opportunity to resume my frustrated plan to pursue a master's degree, but this time, with robust research already produced. Through all these texts that I will produce before, I would have my dissertation assembled, needing only to adapt all this material to the final format and according to the guidelines of my tutor. Obviously, it was a frustrating idea because, once again, I was willing to do it, but I lacked the main thing: motivation. I quickly gave up and started writing about random everyday things, which was the way I found to get words out of my head and put them on paper.

At that time, I was living in London and I started to go for walks in the surroundings where I use to live, which was one of the few things that we were allowed to do due to the pandemic. On these walks, and motivated by the beauty of the city, a had a moment where I could think about life and the things that got my attention. One of them was a YouTube channel that I started watching, where several projects of Tiny Houses on wheels were presented, also information about the whole Tiny House movement and the profiles of people who were adopting this lifestyle.

This subject made me reconnect with all the previous repertoire of projects on minimum housing that I had studied since university, and opened my eyes to the topic in a different way, making me understand the great interest that this subject has in me. I started researching the topic on the internet and found a lot of different material: it all started making sense, it seemed like everything was always there, in front of me, and for some strange reason I couldn't see it. This subject quickly invaded both my morning texts and my thoughts during my walks, and it took my life bringing more relevant subjects that were all related somehow.

The main one was The Minimalism, which for me was just an architectural style, and I've discovered that it is a whole life philosophy that talks about decluttering your belongings to just the essential, which also involves the space. Therefore, the minimum housing comes as an alternative that fully matches this philosophy.

And here came the name of the project - HOME less - two words that mean:

HOME, noun [countable, uncountable] the house or flat that you live in, especially with your family

LESS, determiner, pronoun used with uncountable nouns to mean ‘a smaller amount of’

And with the name also came a problem. The term homeless is used for people that live on streets, without resources and the ability to produce them, in extreme poverty and no space to live in, without any belongings, and living forced minimalism. However, I still saw potential in the name, understanding that this pejorative charge of the expression is something instilled in our head, a perception that should be changed, after all, nobody chooses to be homeless. This is a sad condition that should make us reflect on how we can contribute, as citizens, to change this reality. Discussing alternative forms of housing, such as mobile shelters and minimal housing, is a way to contribute to solving this problem.

In order to remove the negative charge of the expression, and charge the logo with a more architectural perspective, I decided to separate the word - HOME - in capital letters, since it is the main objective of my research, and put the word - less - in lower case, as an adjective - a smaller amount of. I separated the two words using the plus sign (+) since the reduction of the inhabited space represented by the word “less”, is something conscious, desired. The plus sign also brings a positive character to the logo. For the word HOME I decided to use a very common font present in any computer - the Arial Narrow, and for the word less, a very relaxed handwritten font, bringing the air of informality that the theme addresses in many ways, dealing with spaces out of standards and functionality, according to most of the people.

The texts and the research result in the creation of this blog, which aims to discuss minimum housing, bring existents reference projects, and address the lifestyles of users who are consciously looking for new housing alternatives.

I will try to share with you my process and a little bit about my life, whenever I feel necessary, and when think that this could bring value to the discussion.

I hope to be able to contribute to the theme and leave this channel open to all those who, like me, want to participate in this discussion.

Thanks,

Giulliano