Home is more than just a simple physical home for us to live in. A comfortable space that provides energy and inspiration for self-expression; At the same time, the home is also a carrier of personalized expression and self-expression, reflecting the personal preferences and life philosophy of the occupants, and influencing the mood and life of the people in it.
With the development of the Internet and technology, human activities are showing a trend of "contactless", and more and more individuals can complete all their work and life without leaving home. People's definitions and imaginations of home are also changing dramatically. In the past few years, people have been trapped in their homes for a long time, and they have constantly rethought the relationship between people and their homes, and between their homes and their homes. When we have better architecture, design, and technology, does that mean we can have a better home? In addition to being a space to spend the day, what does an ideal home need to contain?
On September 23, 2023, "Sanlian Life Weekly" and Chengdu SKP jointly held a conference titled "In the era of otaku, how many possibilities are there for home?" The theme salon. The event was chaired by the chief reporter of Sanlian Life Weekly, and invited architect and architectural critic Jin Qiuye, artist Hu Yinping, and sociologist Sun Zhelai to share their thoughts and practices. The four panelists broadened their understanding of the space and concept of "home" from different perspectives such as architecture, art, and sociology.
In the otaku era, how many possibilities are there for home? "Theme salon scene.
The comfort zone of the soul does not have to be a three-bedroom apartment, but may only be 3 square meters
Architect and architectural critic Jin Qiuye pays attention to the scale of human settlements. In recent years, when he was engaged in residential design projects, Jin Qiuye thought about the relationship between space and furniture, and began to face the living needs of ordinary people. The space of the Chinese family has changed dramatically in the past few decades, and Jin Qiuye started with this visible change to share his observations and thoughts on people's living space.
In the 1970s-80s, most families in the country were still relatively poor in material resources, and the space in the home was very small, and there was no concept of distinguishing rooms according to function. In a relatively complete small space, "large" furniture and appliances, such as TVs, refrigerators, large wardrobes, beds, etc., are often placed next to each other. "But because the people of that era had a certain spirit, the whole space would make people feel very alive and have a sense of scene. "In the 1990s, a new model emerged, that is, commercial houses that were divided into several bedrooms and one living room, accompanied by some specific styles, such as new Chinese style, Scandinavian style and so on. ”With more choices, people's lives gradually began to converge. "Life has become like a masked face, no longer with content and scenes. ”
Architect and architectural critic Jin Qiuye shared the scene.
In his view, there is a huge contradiction between people's growing demand for housing and the rigid type of housing provided, and the standardized few bedrooms and one living room forcibly merge people's diverse needs for living space. "Everyone thinks that a three-bedroom apartment must be better than a two-bedroom apartment, but in fact, many people have not seriously considered how the family wants to live. ”
In this regard, Jin Qiuye hopes to find an architectural language that keeps pace with the times, and make a little new deduction and imagination of today's living space. On every trip away from home, he pays special attention or goes out of his way to visit some of the residences. Among them, the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto's own house left a deep impression on Jin Qiuye, "It is very life-like, but there is something in it that transcends everyday life." The Aaltos didn't make the design particularly complicated, but they took great care in the details. ”
Jin Qiuye believed,Keeping your home natural and authentic is far more important than adding a pop of style or visual elements. "Everyday life is the most natural state for each of us, and we may not be in a particularly serious and deep reflection every moment, but it is precisely this state that makes everything seem very real. Because of this, we often feel very peaceful and secure in our own homes. ”
The home of Finnish architect Alvar Aalto.
How to face the increasingly monotonous living environment? Jin Qiuye carried out a series of practices. In 2021, Jin Qiuye completed "Dashan House: Ms. Zhang's Home" in Zhongguancun, Beijing. This 90-square-metre cottage with a yard is located in an old neighborhood in Beijing. The interior of the suite is the pattern of the Soviet-style expert building, the floor height is more than 3 meters, the room is bright and bright, and it has a sense of age belonging to the planned economy period.
Because three generations of six members of the family live here, Jin Qiuye has made a very complex treatment of this old house, ensuring that everyone has an independent space and creating a common area for everyone to communicate. He divided the house in two by using a load-bearing wall, creating a "mountain". The "mountain" divides the dwelling into two, and on the west side is the bedroom group, which belongs to the night; On the east side is the living room and function space, which belongs to the daytime. At the same time, the design takes advantage of the height of the cabin, blurring the boundary between space and furniture, so that some furniture not only has the original storage function, but also plays the role of separating space.
After the renovation of the cottage, there are finally 3 main elevations and 6 relatively independent areas in the house, which seem to be disconnected from each other and have a line of sight. People walk in the house, although there is no jump, but also up and down, zigzag, the living experience is constantly changing, hence the name "big mountain house". The heating is hidden out of sight, the house can be walked barefoot, and every little corner can be sat down to become a reading nook to choose from. The space not only meets the living needs of 6 people, but even has multiple party scenes that can accommodate 10 people.
Jin Qiuye completed the design of "Dashan House: Ms. Zhang's Home" in Zhongguancun, Beijing.
What we pursue is a state of simplicity and unpretentiousness, but the space is very flexible and colorful. Jin Qiuye concluded. In traditional Chinese art paintings, he observed a lot of wisdom in shaping and using space.
In a painting painted by my friend Wang Yonggang, you can see that the ancients could directly use a screen to enclose a space on three sides in any wilderness. By simply using a screen, one gets a place to sit north and face south, with a one-way opening, where one can talk and rest. It can be seen that the shaping of space is sometimes not so difficult. ”
Jin Qiuye said that the Qianlong Emperor put three famous calligraphy works in a small space of just over 3 square meters in the Forbidden City, and named this hut "Sanxi Hall". "You are the emperor, but the spiritual comfort he has built for himself is very small. Why? Because our human bodies are naturally repulsive to large-scale things. So perhaps, when we are building our own abode, in addition to longing for a large room and living room that is transparent from north to south, we can also think about how it relates to our spiritual life. ”
A space enclosed on three sides that is common in traditional Chinese art paintings.
Start by weaving a hat, open up the infinite imagination of life and idealism
Artist Hu Yinping practices art in her life. On the surface, her creations do not seem to have a strong direct connection with "home", but they are all closely related to real individuals and their surroundings. These voices from individuals eventually return to people's expectations and imaginations for their own living conditions and their homes.
Artist Hu Yinping shared the scene.
Since 2015, Hu Yinping has been working on the art project "Xiaofang". An experience of returning to her hometown made her see her mother, who had lived in a small town in Sichuan for a long time, weaving handmade woolen hats to pass the time, waiting for an outside company to buy them cheaply. "Mom knitted a bag of hats, and I began to think that this was wrong, and her time was harvested cheaply. ”
After returning to Beijing, Hu Yinping entrusted her classmates to pretend to be the Chinese CEO "Xiaofang" from a French company to buy her mother's hat. In order to make her mother less strenuous in this manual work, Hu Yinping chose "green", which is recognized as the color of the hat in her mother's order. Soon, in 2016 alone, the mother handed over more than 100 woven green hats.
Hu Yinping displayed these hats in the arrow factory space next to Wudaoying Hutong in Beijing, and everyone's positive feedback on the hats made Hu Yinping start to think that there are many ordinary aunts in the town who are weaving hats like their mothers to pass the time, and they see that their mothers, ordinary people, can knit hats for the "French company", and maybe they are willing to join in.
Hu Yinping shows off her mother's hat in the space of the Arrow Factory.
Soon, "Xiao Fang" began to organize the aunts in the town to knit hats together. In 2018, Hu Yinping brought her aunts' hats to Paris for an exhibition. "Just to tell them that the French company likes your hats very much, please keep knitting. Interestingly, the aunts have been worried that the meaning of "green hat" is not good and will affect sales. So Hu Yinping tried to bring the green hat to Ireland to participate in St. Patrick's Day, which is dominated by green. "The whisky brand James was our sponsor, and the aunts reversed the J on the custom cuckolds, but the hats made it to Ireland. ”
Hu Yinping sent the hats' ** in Ireland back to the aunts, and everyone was very happy. They saw that there are actually people in the world who like green hats, and it turns out that the meaning of green hats is different in different cultural backgrounds, which makes them feel new and excited. And the things they have made have arrived abroad, which also makes them more confident.
The aunts in the small town have achieved a creative explosion because of this job. Although Xiaofang couldn't give the aunts a lot of help materially, she provided them with a spiritual fulcrum. In Hu Yinping's eyes, her mother, who was originally at the end of the times, also learned modern communication methods such as surfing the Internet, WeChat, and online banking because of this job. When sending the parcel, the mother will no longer write the father's name, but will confidently fill in her own.
Hu Yinping brought the green hat to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day.
Photo courtesy of Hu Yinping.
In the second phase of the "Xiaofang" project, Hu Yinping began to encourage her aunts to knit bikinis. "At the beginning, I thought that these aunts all lived in the Sichuan Basin and had never seen the sea, and I hoped to take them to see them one day. Although I don't have the ability to do that now, I think it would be quite romantic for them to knit a woolen bikini for themselves and their families in the imagination of a sea. ”
Originally just to pass the time, weaving, with the ever-changing ordering needs of "Xiaofang", the retired home life of the aunts began to be full of imagination, and gradually jumped out of the limitations of physical space. In the third phase of the project, the concept of "home" became more prominent. At that time, Hu Yinping's studio in Beijing was demolished. "In Beijing, I know how to protect myself through knowledge and the law, but what kind of ways do aunts living in remote towns protect themselves and their families from harm when they encounter bad people? ”
Hu Yinping received a large number of "guns and shells" woven by her aunt
Photo courtesy of Hu Yinping.
At the beginning, Hu Yinping received a large number of "guns and shells" woven by her aunt. "But in China, there are no guns or shells in daily life, and the aunts may watch too much TV. felt that this way was wrong, so Hu Yinping asked Xiaofang to guide them: If the bad guys really come, what kind of ** do you use to protect yourself and your family from harm? For example, a bad guy can fall when he steps on a banana peel, and a roller shutter can keep a bad guy out.
This time, the aunts' minds opened, and Hu Yinping saw all kinds of woven roller shutter doors, watchdogs that can watch the home and nursing home, and even cacti can also be **. One of the aunts made a lot of lamps because she said that where there is light, it is not easy for bad people to hide. There was also an aunt who said that when the bad guy came, she would scold him away, so Hu Yinping encouraged her to weave these dirty words too.
The aunts weave all kinds of cacti as the ** of the home protection home.
Photo courtesy of Hu Yinping.
Continuing from this concept of protecting oneself and protecting one's own home, the aunts are now working on a series called "Standard Configuration". Hu Yinping found that more and more young people are gradually converging their expectations for an ideal life, with a house, a car, a partner, a child, and a dog or a cat. So, she was curious about the "standard configuration" in the hearts of the aunts.
One of the works has a lot of cars, I looked, this aunt is so greedy, she actually wants to match 10 cars, and then let Xiaofang ask, she said no, what the aunt wants is a parking lot, she can charge every day. There is also an aunt who has never worked, and she has made up three words on many of her works with strange shapes of houses, 'professional person', and the aunt is full of curiosity about going to work. There was also an aunt who made a department store, and when we asked later, we found out that she didn't want to own a building, but especially wanted to have a stall in the department store where she could sell her Northeast bread rice. ”
Through creation, the aunts expressed their expectations for life and home for the first time; And Hu Yinping used art to truly change the ordinary home life of the aunts. Through weaving, although the aunts are still in a small town in Sichuan, their spirit has been able to reach a more distant and rich world.
Aunties weave the "standard configuration" of their hearts
Photo courtesy of Hu Yinping.
From a haven to an assault boat, home is not the end, but the beginning
Sociologist Sun Zhe focuses on community and public life in cities. From a sociological point of view, he shared his imagination about the future of home under the topic of "From Haven to Assault Boat". An ideal home is far more than just a small space in the home, but also closely related to the community and the city.
Sun Zhe took three different directions of research as an example to illustrate the uncertainty of the concept of "home".
The first study was related to wanderers in Shanghai. Among the homeless people in Shanghai, many are "old Shanghainese". Why do old Shanghainese wander too? It turned out that they left Shanghai for various reasons to go to the countryside or went to a very remote place during the turbulent period of history, and then returned to Shanghai many years later but no longer had a household registration, which brought great changes to their lives.
The second study is related to the living conditions of urban youth in Shanghai in the 1990s. The study found that renters make better use of the living room and common space in their rooms than their landlords. The owner's life is inward, and once the tenant rents a house, he will want to use the house as soon as possible and hold various activities in it, which will make the home more sufficient.
The third study is related to owners' rights protection and owners' committees. The study found that even property owners who have a great deal of power in their living environment are more likely to fail to defend their rights in the face of greater power.
Sociological scholar Sun Zhe shared the scene.
For the concept of "home", contemporary people have many "identities" corresponding to it. The identity of household registration, the identity of property rights, and the identity of residence ......Society is constantly changing, and none of these identities can bring absolute stability.
In Sun Zhe's view, people's expectations of home under the tradition of smallholder economy are "safe havens". Home is everything, a home in the courtyard of the deep house. It is like a matrix, symbolizing stability and return. It's always there, and even if people venture out from time to time, he's going to go home and work to make this inner home better and better.
However, in today's era of information and constant change, change is the state that really affects people's lives. "Even at home, there is still a constant stream of information coming to us through our phones, and the boundaries between the inside and outside are blurring. "The Japanese film 'Thief Family' tells the story of a family that is not related by blood; Young people have become popular with the culture of "hitchhiking", and they will meet people who eat and watch movies together through the Internet; It is becoming more and more common to change cities and move to other countries......In such a situation, more and more abundant family forms are emerging, and people are constantly moving and changing, how should we deal with such changes? What new mechanisms are needed for the home of the future?
"The Japanese film 'Thief Family' tells the story of a family that is not related by blood;
Accordingly,Sun Zhe put forward another vision of home - the assault boat. "Cities can also create a lot of problems besides providing shelter to people, and the external environment and social identity cannot bring 100% stability. The real stability is the state of the assault boat that rides the wind and waves. ”Sun Zhe said, "For example, if an elderly person in a family suddenly falls ill, the whole family must be mobilized. Everyone has to work together to deal with the same thing and go on an adventure together. ”
In the traditional imagery of "safe haven", home means return. But Sun Zhe believes that the ideal home should be the starting point of a journey. "From the birth of a child, this is the beginning of an adventure for the whole family; A change in the health or life of an elder, or a new change in a family member, is another starting point in the adventure. Let's not be delusional about who can provide someone with an absolutely static, stable endpoint. ”
At the end of the sharing, Sun Zhe shared his thoughts on the imagination of the future in the sci-fi ** "The Wandering Earth". "In the ultimate future of mankind, the whole earth has become a starting point, all mankind has become a community, in a huge spaceship, regardless of whether they are related to each other or not, everyone is practicing for a common adventure and future, this is my imagination of the future home. ”