They Asked Me to Design a House, I Asked Them to Design a Home Beyond the Architectural House. Reflections and Exercises on Domestic Life.
A book on architecture through the lens of lived use.
Let's pause... and consider home as more than just architecture.
This collaborative exploration invites us to pause and reconsider what truly shapes the spaces we inhabit. Rooted in the belief that domesticity is not a static setting for everyday life but a living and evolving experience, the book expands from the scope of the architectural lens. By reintroducing home as something felt, remembered, imagined, and continuously made, this publication tackles the issues of dwelling, belonging and shared living with architects, interior architects, educators, designers, and practitioners whose work touches on care, intimacy, and everyday rituals.
Divided into two correlated parts-Reflections and Exercises-the book brings together twenty-one contributes including essays, conversations, and interactive exercises. While Reflections invites you on a journey through alternating perceptions and experiences of domestic life, Exercises opens a space to explore home yourself: not just as a concept, but as a personal, unfolding experience.
Inherently tied to space. Closely connected to the decorative. A reminder of the presence of hospitality. A shared exercise in practicing domesticity.
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Compiled and introduced by Ilaria Palmieri and Georgina Pantazopoulou (Common Ground) with contributing authors Noemi Biasetton, Ramón Jiménez Cárdenas, Cecilia Casabona, Panos Dragonas, Edit Collective, Davide Tommaso Ferrando, Ines Glowania, Platon Issaias, Nicholas Korody, La-Di-Da, Kevin S.F. Lai, Rising Lai, Setareh Noorani, Ilaria Palmieri, Georgina Pantazopoulou, Sophia Pekowsky, Michele Rinaldi, Valentina Rizzi, Vida Rucli, Lara Schrijver, Susanna Tomassini, Feven Gebeyehu Zeru.
Illustrations by Georgina Pantazopoulou
