Towards an Urban Domesticity. Contemporary Architecture and the Blurring Boundaries between the House and the City

ABSTRACT

The boundaries between domestic and urban environments are increasingly blurred. Until the contemporary era, the house acted as aquite autonomous microcosm and the city as its receptacle, but today this distinction is not so sharp. Various changes are transforming both domestic and urban life. Many activities, events and rituals usually associated with domestic space today take place often outside, scattering the home throughout the city. Meanwhile, domestic environment is increasingly accommodating some urban functions, changing its traditional meaning and giving rise to hybrid situations. Domestic and urban environments are merging in asymbiotic way; it is then necessary to rethink their spaces in order to respond to their contemporary and future evolutions. The paper aims at introducing the main facts about the contemporary blurring of the boundaries of domestic and urban space, explaining how this is currently affecting the architecture of both the house and the city.

KEYWORDS:

• Domesticity
• urban environment
• urban lifestyle
• gender
• home

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.