Tactical Acts from Lockdown Homes

Abstract

The COVID 19 lockdown brought work home. As design researchers our interest has been in the socio-material changes which the pandemic lockdown, as a top down strategy has brought to the domestic realm. Using an online response gathering tool we undertook an inquiry with 31 different households from around the world. Analyzing this data, we present 7 inter-connected activity categories performed by people as they merged and separated their professional work and domestic living within their homes. From within these categories we note particular activities let people overcome the pressures of merging professional work and domestic living. We see these activities to be tactically emerging from specific characteristics of the domestic realm. Targeting innovation specialists, product designers, architects and service designers we seek the potential for amplifying such tactical characteristics when designing for working from home futures.