Homeness: Furniture and the role of interior designers in ending homelessness
To those experiencing long-term homelessness, Housing First programs offer what other solutions don’t: a normal apartment with no strings attached. However, as a decisive and effective method for getting people off the streets, Housing First provides housing, not homes. Turning an apartment into a home is a personal process, and for people that have not had a home for a long time, it can be an immense challenge, filled with loneliness and fear.
With an ethnographic approach, furniture designer Jakob Tangen engaged with Housing First tenants through the process of designing and making objects for their homes, based on their preferences. Three pieces of furniture were made: a chair, a lamp and a table, all of which now furnish their respective homes in Gothenburg.
The project contemplates the right to adequate housing in relationship to a personal sense of home. In consideration of the impact of interior design and furnishings on wellbeing, security and dignity, it proposes a role for designers within the Housing First model in which they could support tenants in the development of their sense of home.
@jakobtangen
Jakob.tangen@gmail.com
