A House Made to Be a Home
In recent years, society has focused more and more attention on the period between active working age and old age (or the “Third Age”). This book reports the results of an experiential home research project in which inhabitant-based information on housing experiences was gathered in order to help housing designers and planners make their products feel “homier”. What is the relationship between housing and experiences of home? What makes housing feel “homey”? What things are necessary in an apartment to make it a real home?
The data consist of group discussions which took place in South Ostrobothnia, Finland. The most crucial factors in homey housing proved to be human relationships and the sense of independence in life management. Home functionality, aesthetics, the role of building, movables and culture, as well as the influence of nature and the environment, are also shown to be key elements of homeyness.
The concluding chapter differentiates four discourses of housing and ageing. Home is understood as building and possessions, but it can also have emotional content: it is about memories and feelings. Furthermore, it is seen as interaction between the self and surroundings and as a complicated concept of multiple homes varying in time and space.
Sulevi Riukulehto (Doctor of Philosophy) works at the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute as Research Director in Regional History and Cultural Heritage, and as Adjunct Professor of Economic History at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. In the Ruralia Institute, he leads the research group “Regions, History and Culture”, which focuses on the origin and development processes of regions and structures, regional history and cultural phenomena in the rural context. His position is part of the multidisciplinary research network Epanet, in Seinäjoki. His most recent publications deal with questions of rural housing, the experiential theory of home, the history of economic thought, and the history of forestry. He is a member of the editorial board of the Finnish Journal of Rural Research and Policy: Maaseudun Uusi Aika, and New Contree: a Journal of Historical and Human Sciences for Southern Africa, and is the editor of Between Time and Space (2015).
Katja Rinne-Koski (MSc Admin) works as a Project Researcher in the research group “Regions, History and Culture” at the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute. She has been recently working with the themes of homey landscapes and experiences of home in two research projects, which are part of a larger academic research entity on the experiential theory of home. Her recent publications focus on the changing styles of second housing and the modernisation of the rural environment, and the individual and social construction of home.
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