Disrupting the Architectural Line: Wandering Domestic Objects in Public Spaces

With a particular focus on the construction and occupation of space, we will engage and trouble habitual distinctions between the interior as a site of private domestic occupation and the street as a public domain. Drawing from philosophical and cultural discourses about nomadism, mobility and everyday life that prioritise the dissolution of boundary conditions, the article will develop a feminist lens through which to interrogate three architectural practices and projects by the essay authors. Notably, each of the three case projects - Fence Parasite, Streetlife, and Public Beds - involve the placing of domestic objects and actions in different public or non-residential urban settings, thereby unsettling their usual associations with the home and thus the boundaries between the inside-outside and, by extension, private-public space. From the dynamic overspill of domestic labours and artefacts into the urban streets through to the deliberate breaching and co-option of footpath boundaries, these projects support a wider conception of both the location of the home and its political agency, particularly in considering what is urban and architectural within design practice.