Conserving Domesticity

Domesticity implicates notions of gender, sexuality, labour, class, ethnicity and taste. It draws upon the performative aspect of its occupants in space, and materialises ambitions for comfort, security, privacy and independence.

The conserved domestic space is unlike the conserved monument. It must be flexible to change, intensified occupation, unusual habits, and robust enough to accommodate use and decay. It is a space marked by the passing of time associated with occupancy ? cycles of moving in, starting a family, growing old and dying. It is also, no matter how temporary, a space one calls ?home,’ and thus includes physical, geographical and mental registers related to this idea.

What does it mean to conserve a house? Can conservation’s motives and domesticity’s purpose converge in the house’s interior? This volume explores such questions by reflecting on the afterlife of several conserved domestic spaces.

Lilian Chee is a writer, theorist and designer. Trained at the Bartlett and the National University of Singapore, where she is currently Assistant Professor, her publications include ?An Architecture of Twenty Words’, in Negotiating Domesticity (2005); 'A Web in the Garden', in Pattern, Haecceity Papers (2007), ?Living with Freud’, in AD Atmosphere (2008), ?Performing Domesticity: Ma Qingyun’s Father’s House’, in Home and Space, Haecceity Papers (2009), ?Under the Billiard Table’ in the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography (2011), 'Materializing the Tiger in the Archive' in Feminist Practices (2011), and ?The Domestic Residue’ in Gender Place Culture (2012). She also serves as Regional Editor for the Journal of Architecture. Lilian is working on a project which explores domesticity in the Singapore public housing context.


Erwin Viray studied at the University of the Philippines for his Bachelor of Science in Architecture (cum laude), his Master’s at Kyoto Institute of Technology, his Doctorate in Architecture at the University of Tokyo. His research is on architectural pedagogy, the phenomenological effects of materials, museology, exhibitions and museums, and monographic studies of architects such as Herzog and de Meuron, Peter Zumthor, SANAA, et al. From 2002, he served as Assistant Professor in the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore, since 2011 a Professor at Kyoto Institute of Technology and Head of the Graduate School of Architecture Design. Since 1996, he has been co-editor of a+u (Architecture and Urbanism). He has written: ?The Beauty of Materials: When Surfaces Start to Move.” He is one of the ten critics for the 10x10-2 from Phaidon Press, a member of the International Advisory Council of the Barcelona Institute of Architecture, an Award Ambassador for Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction, Expert of the Zumtobel Award for Sustainable Humanity, and a board member of the Planning and Management of TOTO Gallery MA.

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