Households: The (un)ruly book
Voices of Experience x Raising the Roof
An exploration into how we might live our older lives with a focus towards sharing, agency and autonomy. This is investigated through the following five scenes:
1 — Contributing and Stewarding 2 — Rooting and Interdependence 3 — Sharing and Making Space 4 — Testing Limits and Taking chances 5 — Taking Time and CareIntroductory Video
Households draws from personal reflections of living and ageing. It is inspired by Raising the Roof’s aspirations to construct an alternative to what is available in the current political landscape of housing, social care, and economics: Home, at Last (Archifringe 2019).
The (un)ruly book considers how we might better live together: towards sharing, agency and autonomy in the context of increasing age demographics, rising levels of loneliness and more paid work taking place at home - an already lived reality for many, particularly women and those with caring responsibilities.
We invite everyone to consider how we might collectively re-imagine our households and working lives in a way that embraces equity. Imagining more than assumptions of either working or retiring or the giving and receiving of care, as we adopt alternative value systems and enriched spaces for living.
Images created by Voices of Experience from their collection, with special thanks to and contributions from Raising the Roof.
Find out more on the Voices of Experience website.
Project Events
Join Raising the Roof x Voices of Experience, as they present and discuss this work on Friday 18 June 2021, 12:30-1:30pm
Image Gallery
Home, at last / Image by Voices of Experience
1
Contributing and Stewarding
We will be custodians of our homes and communities and establish our own Charter, Financial model, Constitution, and Covenant. We seek to foster decision-making strategies and economic models that are empowering, fair, and sustainable. With older - and younger - people dynamically contributing to their home and community, with agency and voice.
2
Rooting and Interdependence
Our homes and communities will be places that are supportive, where we can share and belong. They must be built to last, to adapt and endure the test of time. This can’t be done using only bricks and mortar. We must be visible, firmly rooted in our place, active participants, neighbourly in our behaviour and wholly inter-dependent.
3
Sharing and Making Space
We want to share spaces and values. To give and receive; across time, energy, eating, working, growing, retreating and travel. We will enjoy the liminal space between privacy and public interaction, indoors and outdoors, lifestyles and lifetimes.
4
Testing Limits and Taking chances
We will be open to new thinking about individual needs, activities, and the use of space. Particularly as we move into our older lives. We see that there is an opportunity to test the economics, finance, and spatial limits of the house - and to reassess ideas of risk and chance. Ideas that evolve over time and provide opportunities that are wide-ranging, risky, abundant, and unexpected.
5
Taking Time and Care
We want to spend time and take care maintaining our lives, our bodies, our homes, our minds, our experiences and knowledge, our communities, and our environment. We do not consider maintenance to be a cost and a burden, but rather an act of care, craft, and enriching attention. With our experience, time, and ability, we can look after ourselves, our neighbours, our homes, and our planet.
