Fifteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Homelessness is an important social concept in art and design practice, it examines the way space is treated in relation to the body, public and private space. This paper investigates spatial design as a form of ‘interrogative design’, applied to the issue of homelessness in London. In this paper, I discuss how the ghettoising of the homeless has consequences for how private domestic activities take place within full public view. As a spatial designer, concerned with domestic space, as a work in progress the research conducts an anonymised inventory of these private domestic rituals ⎼ necessarily carried out in public ⎼ through drawings, maps, and photographs of traces of inhabitation. Interrogative design responds to the high level of ethical alertness that it creates. It is understanding the urgency of an issue as an everyday ethical condition and with this in mind, I invite the public to shift their perception of homelessness and the area between public and private spaces. Finally, this paper discusses the role of a spatial designer or artist in highlighting such a complex issue, it further offers a critical and conceptual perspective of the vulnerability of the homeless to the coronavirus pandemic.