Examining The Home Experience To Student Housing - Understanding What Makes A Place Feel Like Home

Identity and Home

Discuss About The Examining Home Experience To Student Housing.

In recent decades, Australia’s student number is continuing to increase steadily. This is mainly attributed to the number of international students choosing to study in Australia is continuing an upward trend, due to the nation’s high education reputation and advanced educational systems (Australian Trade and Investment Commission, 2018). There were1.3 million enrolments generated by 0.36million of international students studying in Australia in 2015. This is 27.7 per cent of the student population is temporarily migrated and considered as ‘new arrivals’ when they first come into Australia.

Due to the massive acceleration of international students’ arrival in Australia, Australian Trade and Investment Commission (2018) forecast the number of international student enrolments to grow from 0.65 million today to 0.94 million by 2025.This equates to a compounding annual growth rate of 3.8 per cent in the next 7 years in Australia. Therefore, the question arises is how to management students’ needs of transition and adaption in new environment and what is appropriate home environment for these impermanent resident within the local community.

Everyone needs a place, which they can call home; regardless it is for one night, a term time, or for entire life. When students moving to a new place away from their parental home, they face difficulties in adapting new environment and feeling same at home. Many academic literatures have defined the meaning of home in different perspectives. Home is like identity, physical suitability, connectedness and haven to a person (2002, 238), it is something that goes beyond its physical structure. People are attached to their home through demographic, cultural and psychological prospective and it becomes one of the parts of their identity.(Clapham, 2005; Gifford, 2002). Therefore, the meaning of home for a person isinfluenced by his or her societal changes, such as different life courses to people’s housing pathway and different social and cultural circumstances (Clapham, 2005). Home is characterised as a place where people can enjoy and a symbol of status. Identity of a person is constructed through personal, cultural and social prospects considering the facts like lifestyles, activities, contacts in the society and appearance (2000). Therefore, identity plays a critical role in establishing a connection between the user and the space.

Environment of home in a situation that is temporary is characterised to emphasize personal control of the space, to enable them to feel comfortable to search friendship and new experiences (Cameron, 2012). The degree of personal control, autonomy and individuality in personalising spaces and to indicate their personal belongings and create a sense of familiarity, were important process for students moving from the parental home in identifying with their new living environment. Therefore, this study is seeking to explore the identity through institutional student housings, examining the use of place, the community development, and the strategies to customize the established students’ self-identities and social-identity to others.

Idea Regarding Home

The idea regarding home is a theory that describes the emotional connections of people socially constructedfrom the spaces where they inhabit. Home environment are designed for living which should inspire a person to feel comfortable and a sense of well-being. Home is a space with physical places, social and cultural practices, and psychology meanings for youth and plans related to moving away from parental home provoke such aspects. (2003, 377).““The transition into student accommodation is therefore constructed in relation to that of the parental home It means the prospective student will have to negotiate their pre-existing identities, routines and behaviours within an often-shared environment”(Lahelmaand Gordon, 2003).

Therefore, the notion of ‘home’ is a social and psychological construct, the physical demonstrations of characteristics that people perceive in their residential environment attributed to the sense of home. “Emotional attachment to particular places provides a canvas to the notion of residing in home and affect the way in which people adapt and establish their self-identity in the new environment” (Marcus, 1995). These perceptions have affirmative impact on people, hence, they build positive mental attachment, open their minds to adopt new circumstances, and encourage them to come back to the place (Tester, 2011).

By incorporating the theory of idea regarding home, the aim of this study is to design places that could attract the mind of the people positively. “Mental attachments with a space inspire individuals to return to the space with a positive mentality in order to accept new environment and change the way of thinking regarding the place. Thus, it is important to” provide positive notion of belonging to the space to facilitate and encourage a different way of thinking regarding another culture and for occurrence of interaction.”

This study includes following precedents that need to be analysed with the aspects of architecture of student housing that could influence satisfaction level of the student regarding residential place and provide feeling of home and community:

1. Vickery House at Bentley, Perth

Vickery House is 42 single-story flats with 6 and 8 bedrooms, communal gardens, proximity to amenities and public transport (Vickery House 2015). The particular concept of space is very basic, but also effective. With the share of cooking, eating and living room facility within a single-house, encourage of the residence to be able to interact with each other by cooking and communication. However, this building form could limit the privacy in the dwelling and the feeling of personal control.

2. TreStykker at Trondheim

TreStykker is a small-scale experimental project with the flexibility provided to courage to the user in order to create and re-create their personal place of living. This could help to form an attachment to this temporary residence. This dwelling is lack of privacy in the living space, which could causeissues in a long term. However, the communal space of this housing form has highly value on space particularly with supported social interaction. In addition, the particular design and the high quality of the project seemed to develop the degree of individuals and personal control, which attribute to the personal identification of students living in this temporary home.

• The Tietgenkollegiet at Copenhagen, Denmark

Precedents

“The design of the ground level of the building provokes the visual with a clear, cohesive, circular shape that symbolize the idea of community of the public and the university hall”(Tietgen Dormitory, 2014). The motive is to provide uniform and equal condition to all residence and to ensure the level of optimisation of transparency and accessibility in order to achieve a clear and picturesque visual for easily recognisable environment for the public. (Tietgen Dormitory 2014). The picture and the architecture of the housing are seemed to provide identity in the society, in which the students are living. The community space of this form provides equal and unified condition to all residents, by ensuring the public community space is transparent, accessible, open, and easy recognisable to all people, where provides sense of community to the architecture.

4. Sliding Transformer House, in Madrid

This small customizable space creates flexible and adaptable solutions for people with different uses. It provides experience to the inhabitant that is alike parental home. The conception regarding the design is to create a sense of belongings in the space, which isbasedon personal identity can be read through from the way individual operate their private space (PKMN Architecture, 2014). The wooden craftsmanship is “suspended, mobile and transformable containers” to allow users to create and reconfiguration of a small space to accommodate individual needs, where provide personal connections with the space (PKMN Architecture, 2014).

This research asks how social, mental and architectural aspects of student living environment away from their parental home create a sense of home and to enable students transform the new environment into home. In order to inquire about this question, this research will undertake a methodology, which is qualitative in nature, based on human behaviour in the role of built environment, and conduct the theory of sense of place and belonging to give better understanding of the students’ perceptions in their social and physical contexts. Following methods are used for the project:

1. Literature Review

Through the review of literatures on following aspects, constitutes the framework (as figure 1 above) to inform home experience for student housing:

• Home is such a place to which individuals are attached in order to identify themselves in the society;
• Home giving inhabitants a sense of belonging, emotional connections, where should inspire the user to feel comfortable and a sense of well-being;
• By providing a sense of home to the space, the user is encouraged to adapt the new living environment.

2. Precedents Study

Analyse the design methods presented in the local and international precedents and reinterpret in to the project to develop design principles. It is also used to explore variations and design strategies to similar problem statements, which provide information to support or oppose research related to the topic.

3. Design Approach

Testing the concepts through diagrams, sketches, drawings and prototypes to and variations, explore the design in different options and variations.

• Illustrates design in three-dimensional programme
• Examine and repeat the process of testing the variationsuntil coming up the best solutions

The principle of design, which is generated through this research, states the priority of design that can satisfy the mental, physical and social needs of the students in the residential environment. For further research in this field, the generalizing ideas of this study can be proved useful to further research the opportunities of developing other types temporary living environments, such as healthcare institutional housing, housing for elderly, service apartments and hotels. The final product following this study with a test of design processes that could contribute to develop a model for the design and planning of residential environments, that can create a positive notion about home and a feeling of prosperity.

The expected outcome of this study is to provide design principles for housing suitable for students to increase opportunities for positive connections and social interaction and make student housing current and competitive. Establishing the relationship between the building and the user is a significant step towards “better architecture, planning in an effective manner, and insight into the progressive society for the users.”

References

Cameron, Parsell. 2012. “Home is where the house is: the meaning of home for people sleeping rough.” 27(2): 159 – 173. DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2012.632621

Clapham, David. 2005. The Meaning of Housing: A Pathways Approach. Bristol: The Policy Press.

Gifford, Robert. 2002. Environmental Psychology. 3^rd ed. Victoria: Optimal Books.

“Growth and Opportunity in Australian International Education”. 2018. Australian Trade and Investment Commission.https://www.austrade.gov.au/Australian/Education/Services/Australian-International-Education-2025/growth-and-opportunity

Lahelma, Elina, and Tuula Gordon. 2003. Home as a Physical, Social and Mental Space: Young People’s Reflections on Leaving Home. Journal of Youth Studies, 6(4), 377-390.

Marcus, Clare Cooper. 1995. House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the deeper meaning of home. Berkeley: Conari Press.

Miles, Steven. 2000. Youth Lifestyles in a Changing World. Buckingham: Open University Press.

“PKMN Architectures: Creates Sliding Transformer House in Madrid”. 2014. Archidaily. https://www.archdaily.com/566605/pkmn-architectures-builds-transformer-house-studio-inmadrid

Tester, Griff, Erin Ruel, Angela Anderson, Donald C. Reitzes, and Deirdre Oakley. 2011. "Sense of Place Among Atlanta Public Housing Residents". Journal of Urban Health 88 (3): 436-453. doi:10.1007/s11524-011-9579-0.

“Tietgen Dormitory: Lundgaard and Tranberg Architects”. 2014. Archidaily. https://www.archdaily.com/474237/tietgen-dormitory-lundgaard-and-tranberg-architects

“Vickery House, Bentley Campus”. 2015. Curtin University. https://life.curtin.edu.au/housing-and-childcare/Vickey_house.htm