Housing for Single People: Narratives, New Perspectives, and Methodological Challenges.

In many countries across the globe, mainly but not exclusively in the Global North, the number of one-person households has increased since the 1960s (Cohen 2021). Despite this trend, there is a mismatch between the existing housing stock and demographic realities, as well as a significant blind spot in contemporary and past housing imaginaries. Between the late 19th century and the aftermath of the Second World War, the nuclear family model became the dominant paradigm in housing design across many Western and colonised regions, thereby marginalising other household formations and housing types. Historically, however, one-person households have been an integral part of societies, especially urban ones (De Groot, Devos, and Schmidt 2015). Today, housing for singles remains largely understudied within architectural and urban history even though it could inform our understanding of urbanisation and socio-demographic patterns.

This online research seminar seeks to gather doctoral researchers and early career scholars investigating housing for singles and other non-normative households. The thematic focus is on exploring singlehood through the lenses of architecture, interior design, and urbanism, with the goal of critically examining the ambivalent position of single-person households in history, capturing both their precarious realities and their potential for emancipation. On this topic, we aim to enhance the understanding of the state of the art, build a transnational network of researchers, and engage in existing debates within housing history.

We particularly encourage interdisciplinary approaches drawing on, for example, methods of oral history, microhistory, and ethnography, or perspectives from social history, gender, and queer studies, thereby challenging conventional narratives surrounding housing and singlehood. We are also interested in contributions that engage with diverse geographies, especially non-Western contexts. Finally, we aim to deepen our understanding of how various actors—such as governmental bodies, reformers, investors, urban planners, inhabitants and architects, as well as trade and popular media—have constructed narratives about singlehood and contributed to the production of housing.

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words and a brief bio (maximum 100 words) via email to hsp.researchseminargmail.com.

For further information please visit: https://hspresearchseminar.wordpress.com/

Organizing Committee
Michele Rinaldi (Politecnico di Torino, KU Leuven)
Beatriz Van Houtte Alonso (UGent)
Professor Gaia Caramellino (Politenico di Milano)
Professor Fredie Floré (KU Leuven)
Professor Anne Kockelkorn (UGent)

For any questions concerning the conference, please send an email to hsp.researchseminargmail.com