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What is the New Old Home?

Work used to take place in the home. Then it traveled out into the world with the male breadwinner. Now work has come back home again… but obviously things are now much different than they were on the farm.

The New Old Home contains more breadwinners, and fewer children, than the Baby Boomer home. It hosts high levels of production, not just consumption.

How will knowledge workers adapt themselves and their spaces to this new milieu?

Pamela J. Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Post-COVID Homes:

The New �Old Home

The Radical�New Home

Intentional Groups,�Cyberpunk Houses,�High-end microapartments

The Precarious�Home

Housepoor Buyers,�Mobile Homes,

Public Housing

The Crash�Pad Home

AirBnB Nomads,�Chronic Subletters

ABOVE THE API

BELOW THE API

CONSERVATIVE

RADICAL

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a small caveat...

This goal of this deck is to imagine a "model home" that takes into account changing technologies, remote knowledge work, social/isolation needs, and care tasks.

Model homes are slightly-aspirational visions for the middle class: a backyard with a white picket fence in the suburbs, a fancy condo in the city. In reality, homes come in a variety of shapes and sizes that can fall quite short of our aspirations.

In particular, the future homes of the marginalized working class are not fully explored in this document.

Nevertheless, we hope that some of the ideas in this deck are relevant to everyone as we look forward towards the future of our living spaces.

“Lodgers in a Crowded Bayard Street Tenement—'Five Cents a Spot'”, from Jacob Riis photo collection of New York City (ca 1890)

Drew Schorno

Clown school graduate. Failed startup alumni. Designed this deck while caring for Grandma at home.

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Lenses on �the New Old Home

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The Home as Farcaster Mansion

In Dan Simmons’s 1989 science fiction classic, Hyperion, wealthy individuals such as the poet Martin Silenius own mansions constructed with “farcaster” technology, with different rooms or wings on different planets. Doorways between rooms are portals connecting worlds light years apart.

Farcaster mansions suggest an allegorical understanding of a home as a portal among a set of otherwise disconnected worlds, with a presence in each, and comprising liminal passages between worlds for inhabitants to pass through. Individuals change roles and personas to suit different worlds, as they pass from room to room.

Venkatesh Rao

Previously at Xerox

(Illustration by Ryan Hume)

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The Home as Farcaster Mansion

Farcaster mansions serve as an illuminating allegory for the postmodern, post-Covid home as a set of portals among four different human worlds:

The supply chain world
The waste stream world
The domestic production world
The public appearances world

These four universes can be arranged in an interesting 2x2, with inputs vs. outputs on the x-axis and high to low visibility on the y-axis. The farcaster mansion serves as an update and expansion of Thorstein Veblen’s conceptualization of the leisure class in terms of conspicuous consumption.

Venkatesh Rao

Previously at Xerox

(Illustration by Ryan Hume)

Domestic Production�World

Waste Stream�World

Supply Chain�World

Public Appearances�World

LOW VISIBILITY

HIGH VISIBILITY

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

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The Home as Farcaster Mansion

Venkatesh Rao

Previously at Xerox

(Illustration by Ryan Hume)

What can be made at home in the most from-scratch way in a world where supplies can be uncertain and self-sufficiency is a higher imperative?

What is the last-mile interface to the supply chain, and what are its physical and biological security characteristics in a world of delivery-based consumption and viral threats?

What does the waste stream look like in a world of climate action and disruption of long-distance remote waste handling?

What does “keeping up with the Joneses” look like when the Joneses mostly keep up with you on social media rather than visiting your home?

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How Homes Work

Most obviously, “home” serves as storage space and simply somewhere to be by default.

But homes also provide the means to establish and reflect personal identity. People choose, arrange, and decorate their homes in a way that reflects their current identities (or nudges them towards aspirational identities).

Homes also give their occupants a stable, structured way to regulate their emotions. By moving through curated spaces, home users increase predictability and control over notoriously-fickle moods.

(For my pre-COVID statement on this topic, see this post)

Pamela J. Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Personal Identity

Display achievements - awards
Showcase loyalties - sports teams, countries/cities
Keep hobbies front and center - cooking stuff

Emotional Regulation

Sparse & calm areas
Decorated for homey-ness
Separate spaces for different functions (e.g. home office)

Inspired by Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You (Sam Gosling)

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How Homes Work

Pamela J. Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Function	Pre-Pandemic	Mid- and Post-Pandemic
Personal Identity: Others	People have bifurcated into those who host guests and those who do not: Entertainers take more care to display what they wish for others to see Non-entertainers maintain “crash pad”-type homes, not geared towards the consumption of others.	With home entertaining off the table for now, the other-facing function of home recedes.��If entertaining at home resurges (as a safe alternative to gathering in groups in public), then projecting identity via one’s home will become more important than it was before.
Personal Identity: Self	For those who used to work many hours away from home, it became less necessary to identify via home space.	If you’re spending nearly all your time at home, it almost necessarily becomes a primary source of identity.
Mood Regulation	Can outsource some mood functions to gyms, cafes, coworking spaces, etc.	Heightened need to repatriate functions to the home via home gym, comfortable seating, dedicated home office area, etc.

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How Homes Work: the Post-COVID world

Like most changes, the post-COVID home offers benefits and challenges distributed unevenly.

Widespread uncertainty, fear, and financial pressure due to COVID-19 are already threatening the mental health of millions of people around the world. Indicators suggest that the number of Americans struggling with anxiety and/or depression in May 2020 has doubled compared to a 2014 baseline.

Stressed-out people, many whose jobs and plans have been upset by COVID-19, will want and need to marshall their homes for identity & mood regulation purposes.

Pamela J. Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Challenges	Opportunities
Increased pain in inhabiting a home that’s inappropriate, because you have to stay there more of the time. (too small, noisy area, misconfigured)� It costs money to make homes fulfill the identity & mood functions well. (decorations, furniture, electronics)� Moving homes is harder/riskier during lockdown and periods of pandemic uncertainty.	A big nudge to finally make one’s home nice (for those who had neglected this before)� More disposable income may become available due to other reductions in discretionary spending (fewer restaurant meals, trips, and other outings)� Extraordinary times provide a good excuse for those who were already curious to experiment with alternate ways of life.

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How Homes Work: a Note on Space

There’s nothing new about making trade-offs between a home’s location and the amount of personal space it offers.

COVID-19 makes this situation suddenly more stark: during a pandemic the public/shared spaces that usually make small urban apartments work within the context of urban dwellers’ lives have become unavailable: gyms, coworking spaces, and even some parks.

The tradeoff towards more private space, then, has coincidentally paid off much higher than usual. As the pandemic drags on, people with options may “temporarily” trade to larger less-urban spaces and like them, fixing new preferences for a generation or more.

Pamela J. Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

City Apartment

Identity function: If you can work from anywhere and don’t leave home, city-based identity loses its essence.
Mood function: Cumbersome to regulate mood without discrete zone; multi-use spaces are not ideal for any purpose.

Suburban/Rural House

Identity function: Nondescript physical surroundings don’t imply milquetoast identity when socializing happens online
Mood function: Space offers many possibilities for reliable mood regulation, (especially via physical activity & other recreation/hobbies, and for kids)

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Colonialising the Home

Colonialism is fundamentally about creating a division, declaring one side ‘better’—the holy vs. the mundane^[1]—and using that division as the basis for oppression, manipulation, and extraction.

Colonialism has manifested itself in many ways during the 20th and 21st centuries, including right within our homes.

The New Old Home cancels this bullshit—opening up the possibility of healing the rift.

^[1]another such division

Previously: PwC, Capita, Adviser to Mayor in a London Borough

Indie status: 11 years

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Colonialising the Home: the Bullshit

The sanctified roving male, the ‘breadwinner’ versus �the domesticated docile wife
The high prestige, highly paid ‘intellectual’ work, versus�The low prestige, low-paid work of child rearing and care, food production, and cleaning
The separation of ‘holiday’—temporary potential for role reversal and wholism—from life
The alienation of self—from shared aesthetics, from wholeness, and therefore from self-creation—into ownership and consumption
...and the passing on of this through the procurement and consumption of these services from outside the home

Mad Men: Don Draper’s proposal to offer men "Executive Private Accounts" that are hidden from their wives and families

Previously: PwC, Capita, Adviser to Mayor in a London Borough

Indie status: 11 years

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Colonialising the Home: the Cancellation

Lockdown has imposed a number of new or returned realities:

Families forced together—with no nannies, no cleaners, and no business trips nor holidays
Households forced into self-sufficiency and self-reliance
The revealing of what’s really work—what’s ‘essential’ and what is mere onanistic status massage
The backlash—through gendered division of labour and bids for status via the medium of sourdough—only serves to either expose or heal the divide, not obfuscate

Previously: PwC, Capita, Adviser to Mayor in a London Borough

Indie status: 11 years

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Colonialising the Home: the Healing

Mid-Pandemic, we now observe:

A bringing down of the alienated Gods of work
A reconsideration of the measures of value
That the whole cannot be healed until the self is healed, and vice versa
The bread, the gardening, the new social games

But is this the New Old Home, or simply a carnevale of temporary reversal?

Previously: PwC, Capita, Adviser to Mayor in a London Borough

Indie status: 11 years

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Imperceptible Units

Scott Garlinger

Groupmuse: Director of Business Dev.

Dynasty: A.I. Operator

Being social creatures, humans show up in the world not strictly as individuals but as members of actual or aspirational “Units” (sometimes, not always, biological/genetic families). These "Units" also shape our approach to constructing our homes and our environment. The Units become sticky, because experimenting with them is costly—financially, emotionally, and culturally.

In the wake of the looming threat of nuclear war, Nuclear Units arose and led to ambitious experiments in suburban housing. Now, in the COVID-19 world, a new storm of COVID-19 Units is brewing, waiting to foment in a series of new experiments for living.

These environmental Units can either ossify into Prediction Units, projecting a moment’s particular anxieties into the future and optimizing for the lowest common denominators; or ascend into Imperceptible Units, teeming with untimely signals that show a new path forward.

The Chicago Projects: These projects were originally imagined as low-rise housing for the middle class in the wake of the depression (“Depression Units”). Budgetary constraints and explicit racism caused the plans to be weaponized against the poor, mostly-black community.

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Imperceptible Units

Scott Garlinger

Groupmuse: Director of Business Dev.

Dynasty: A.I. Operator

Nuclear Units: Mom, Dad, and 2.5 kids in the suburbs. Watching Cronkite for Russian updates. Take harsh spatial divisions and a constant spectre of nuclear apocalypse for granted. They tell time via their spatial program.

COVID-19 Units: Everyone forced back into one home. Ordering in. Looking at Twitter to see Trump cancel WHO. Take the collapse of spatial divisions for granted, cannot differentiate temporality, and collapse all data into the logics of ‘the curve.’

Prediction Units: project a moment’s anxieties into the future and optimize for the lowest common denominators. This is the Nuclear Family in 2015: it lives on in name/on paper, but not in spirit.

Imperceptible Units: arise after unprecedented experiments: untimely, unconditioned, and teeming with signals. Imperceptible units push social frontiers, even without social legibility.

COVID-19 �Units

Imperceptible �Units

Prediction �Units

Nuclear �Units

ACTIVE

REACTIVE

DETERMINISTIC

OPEN-ENDED

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Places & Spaces

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Domestic Cozy to Hard Cozy

Before Covid19: Domestic Cozy

The current retreat to domesticity represents an acceleration of a trend that had already been underway for over a year when Covid19 hit : domestic cozy. I flagged and named the trend in early 2019. The concept was just beginning to gain memetic momentum in early 2020 when the pandemic knocked it to a whole new level of intensity.

Domestic cozy represents a reversal of a previous decade-long trend that emphasized public appearances: premium mediocrity. Domestic cozy homes are low-profile: they underpromise and overdeliver. In contrast, premium mediocre homes overpromise and underdeliver.

Venkatesh Rao

Previously: Xerox

Indie Status: 9+ years

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Domestic Cozy to Hard Cozy

After Covid19: Hard Cozy

We can expect a rapid hardening and long-term persistence of core tendencies already present in domestic cozy. What might otherwise have been a short-lived fad might well turn into a generational posture for Gen Z as they grow older and establish households.

The core traits of domestic cozy, all expressed through patterns of risk-averse domesticity, can be understood as a set of four retreats from archetypal spaces that are not cozy:

Retreat from discomfort—airport-like spaces
Retreat from ceremony—mansion-like spaces
Retreat from deprivation—desert-like spaces
Retreat from danger—minefield-like spaces

Venkatesh Rao

Previously: Xerox

Indie Status: 9+ years

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Housing Affordability: Prosperous, Shrinking Cities

The wealthiest regions continue to lose population, and particularly young people, due to high cost of housing.

About 6 million residents left CA since 2007, a net loss of 1 million.
NYC loses ~38,000 young people each year (see chart).

COVID-19 will accelerate this trend as labor markets soften but rental and homebuying markets do not:

Lack of new construction keep supply low; and
Mortgage forbearance options lessen sell pressure.

Result: Housing as a labor sorting mechanism. High- productivity employees will live near HQs. Remote work in lower-cost cities will be viable, but with lower career ceiling.

Benton Heimsath

LA YIMBY

Annual Net Migration of Residents ages 25–34, 2012–2017

“Old people are holding in place, but we are losing the younger generation. It is a slow-moving train wreck here.”

– USC Professor Dowell Myers

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Housing Affordability: A Tale of Two Cities

In high cost of living cities, people trade off commute time, safety, neighborhood amenities, and having children with housing costs.
In lower cost of living cities, the trade-offs might instead include job opportunities and walkability.

Compare Houston and Los Angeles: with similar median incomes, LA’s high cost of housing leaves many households floundering.

Although COVID-19 won’t end cities (no pandemic has before), it does change the tradeoffs for now. Remote work, family-based childcare, and a privately-owned car seem more attractive than ever, at the same time as a “good school district” matters less.

Benton Heimsath

LA YIMBY

Los Angeles, CA	Houston, TX
Median Home Price (2019) $817,000 Median Rent $3,500 per month Median Income $51,000	Median Home Price (2019) $251,000 Median Rent $1,400 per month Median Income $47,000

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⅓ Space

The ideal of a “third space” has served as a north star for the design of modern office and urban living spaces, which are defined by their proximity to and inclusion of these spaces: nearby coffee shops, open rooftop lounges, etc.

Recent events have forced the idea of “digital third spaces” to mature at a rapid rate. As Zoom fatigue sets in, other existing tools and game engines are being hacked: with graduation ceremonies and concerts in Minecraft, a “wfh town” built in the collaborative design tool Figma, and office meetings around a campfire in Red Dead Redemption 2. It remains to be seen how viable these spaces truly are: there’s only so much Animal Crossing a person can stand.

In the meantime, as our home and work lives collapse into one space, how can we incorporate the positive qualities of a third space into our homes?

Third Space

A third space is a place to go that is separate from the two usual environments of home ("the first space") and the workplace ("the second space"): Churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, bookstores or parks.

Places where you want to be, rather than places that you have to be.

Drew Schorno

Clown school graduate. Failed startup alumni. Designed this deck while caring for Grandma at home.

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⅓ Space

What do physical third spaces offer at their best?

Lucky encounters with loose acquaintances, old friends, and the public: a sense of community.
Light-hearted and humorous conversation
An opportunity to temporarily forget about obligations
Freedom to come and go as you please
A sense of commonality and level hierarchy
Accommodating, accessible, and non-judgemental
A playful mood

Drew Schorno

Clown school graduate. Failed startup alumni. Designed this deck while caring for Grandma at home.

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Travel as Ritual

The homes of people who can afford it are increasingly atomized: the number of functions for each room is lowered until you get ultra-specific rooms like “the meditation nook” in real estate listings—presumably for the sole purpose of meditating. The reason why this is desirable is that different physical spaces give your body a signal to prepare for different contexts of activities.

The act of traveling between areas within a single home, or from your house to a separate office space, can serve as a ritual that puts you into “working mode”, “sleeping mode”, “exercise mode”, etc.

Perhaps it is possible to design new habits and rituals that make the idea of a unified space more bearable: the manual handling of a previously invisible and automatic experience.

I wish I had a meditation nook...

Drew Schorno

Clown school graduate. Failed startup alumni. Designed this deck while caring for Grandma at home.

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A New Old Pattern Language

Christopher Wolfgang Alexander is a design theorist whose cult-classic, A Pattern Language, revolutionized design thinking not only in architecture, but in software engineering as well as UI/UX design.

A Pattern Language, as it stands, is a holistic design system adapted to life before Covid-19. As such, there is an emphasis on the socially-intimate village of, at times, 7000 people. This was appropriate then but serious foundational changes have to be considered now; for example, to a newfound cultural memory and impulses for/against social-distancing.

By adapting Alexander’s existing scheme to the new challenges of a Post-Covid World, we can build A New Old Pattern Language.

Developing and deploying a first-principles-driven, uniform language will allow multiple agents to rapidly scale their rebuilds in self-consistent and harmonizing manners.

Shreeda Segan

shreedasegan.com

Design Thinker & Writer

Pattern 127: Intimacy Gradient

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A New Old Pattern Language

Shreeda Segan

shreedasegan.com

Design Thinker & Writer

Consideration	Effect
Radical uncertainty in real estate market & geographic distribution of people	Inevitable reactionary movement among urbanites: “No subway, no bars, no coworking spaces - no city. Dead to us.” — Pamela Hobart First-, second-, and third-order economic effects
Remote-first work	Merging of office & domestic spaces
Greater domestic social exposure among inhabitants vs. Deprivation of social nutrients delivered by public interaction	Increased demand for privacy
Decreased trust in existing structures → Increased impulse for self-sufficiency	A New Old Home has new responsibilities (gardening, dedicated workshop for mechanical upgrades & maintenance)

The New Old Home is some combination of:

🏠 home

🏢 office

🏋️ gym

☕ cafe

🏫 school

🚜 farm

📦 warehouse

🛠️ workshop

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A New Old Pattern Language: a Case Study

The Zen Work Pod and HAVEN are two presently-evolving attempts at meeting the new domestic demands incurred by Covid-19.

Shreeda Segan

shreedasegan.com

Design Thinker & Writer

Zen Work Pod by Autonomous

“Atomized” solution

Only works as an add-on to current “single-family” home/property
Modular design �

Affords a boundary between work and home

Reifies a stark distinction
By granting the home office its own structure, work is upheld as analogous to dwelling itself

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HAVEN by The Jetters�

“Condensed” solution

Integration between multiple families and their resources

Decentralized governance

Rules governed by leaders of HAVEN
Private economy

Opportunity for profit

New direction for rentals

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The Home as a Curative Environment

Throughout history, pandemics have spurred architectural change. Most notably, early-20th-century modernism stemmed partly from the idea that sunlight and fresh air were the best cures for tuberculosis. That led to sanatorium-inspired houses with big windows, open spaces, outdoor areas, easily cleaned surfaces like tiles, and a white, sterile aesthetic.

Until the coronavirus pandemic, the most pressing, world-altering issues for today’s top architects were climate change and income disparity. They focused on how to design sustainable homes that offer protection in the case of natural disasters like wildfires, floods and hurricanes, as well as methods to house people more affordably.

With the external threat of the virus now creating the need for separation, architects report a new focus on the theory of prospect and refuge, in which a house design includes areas that allow occupants to both feel secure and to have the ability to observe the outside.

Michael Colin

Founder, CEO - MVMNT

Supply Chain; Logistics; Freight Tech

Twitter

A house is not just a machine for living in but also a “convenient place for meditation and healing”

– Le Corbusier

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The Home as a Curative Environment

Then: Tuberculosis and Architectural Modernism

As germ theory became better understood, medical professionals knew that isolation was key to prevent the spread of tuberculosis. A person’s best hope for recovery was to live somewhere with plenty of fresh air, sunlight, rest, and nourishing food. The resulting design of sanatoria influenced Modernist architecture.

Architectural elements like flat roofs, terraces and balconies, and white-painted rooms spread across Europe. Not unlike the sanatorium, the new architecture was intended to cure the perceived physical, nervous, and moral ailments brought on by crowded cities.

Interior spaces, furniture, and fixtures were also intended to assist the healing process. Custom sinks minimized noise (so as not to disturb the patient’s roommate) and splash, (to keep germs from spreading). Sanatorium-style chairs, angled to ease the patient’s breathing, became fashionable for domestic use in the middle class.

Michael Colin

Founder, CEO - MVMNT

Supply Chain; Logistics; Freight Tech

Twitter

The Secessionist-style Purkersdorf Sanatorium near Vienna: sketch by architect Josef Hoffmann, 1903. Purkersdorf treated nervous complaints, but like sanatoria for TB, its design emphasized light, air, and hygiene. Its walls were painted bright white. (PHOTO: Imagno/Getty Images)

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The Home as a Curative Environment

Now: Coronavirus and the Home

Designers are rethinking the configurations of their own houses for a post-pandemic world. With the external threat of the virus now creating the need for separation, architects are focusing on the theory of prospect and refuge, in which a house design includes areas that allow occupants to both feel secure and to observe the outside. Specific forthcoming trends include:

Entry vestibule as a hygiene station: Including separate bins for gloves, masks, shoes and other gear worn outside, a place for hand washing and sanitation wipes, and places to put shopping bags, recycling, and mail. More upscale homes may be equipped with a UV lamp that can can kill some pathogens.
Facilitating no-contact delivery: Installation of no-contact appliances at homes, near the front door, for deliveries of all food or packages.
Heightened purification: Where water and air quality were previously more taken for granted, people harbor new worries about where viruses may lurk. “Smart homes” can go a step further, controlling both temperature and cleanliness of cirulating air.

Michael Colin

Founder, CEO - MVMNT

Supply Chain; Logistics; Freight Tech

Twitter

The utility sink for washing will also enjoy a second life as a hand-wash station, perhaps with motion sensor plumbing fixtures for touchless use. (PHOTO: Sterling Plumbing)

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Running �the New �Old Home

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Home Economics

The home is a site of production, where wealth, goods and services, and adult humans are created.

How have these dynamics changed, and what’s in store for the coming decades?

Prior to Industrial Revolution:

Family businesses the main source of wealth.
Goods and services often produced inside the home.
Except for wealthy, education was informal and insourced

19th + 20th Centuries:

Industry moves from home to factories and offices
Mass migration to single-family homes, engineered by cooperation of financial industry and the state
Decoupling of education and home: movement towards formal and eventually compulsory out-of-home education

21st Century:

What comes next?

Toby Shorin

Other Internet

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Home Economics: Old vs New

Previously Immovable Object��Three forces conspire to sustain the 20th century home:

Public education system – a relic of state military needs
Single-family homeownership – a relic of Fordist-Taylorist factory models and state-sponsored mortgage stimulation
Dual-career culture - a product of increasing competition for quality public education via well-districted homes, plus increasing education and professional aspirations for women

Now-Unstoppable Force��Incoming disruption and migration patterns conspire to change it:

Specialized knowledge + education markets
Work-from-home normalization
Smaller cities luring tech worker migration
Coronavirus and climate threats��

Toby Shorin

Other Internet

— vs —

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Home Economics: Education Markets

Education markets change everything.

Proliferation of new homeschooling + online education companies mean many millennial parents will choose an education subculture to participate and raise their kids in (Primer, Motherly, AltSchool, Outschool, Knewton…)

Not needing to live in a “good school district” liberates families from the increasingly-oppressive financial and geographic limitations that help make modern parenting miserable.

Toby Shorin

Other Internet

Opportunities in the coming value chain:

Education methodologies
Education technology services
Support services for families�(nannying, tutoring)
Local teaching spaces
Educator training
Testing and certification

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Home Economics: A Return to Home Production

Toby Shorin

Other Internet

Theme	Short-Term Changes	Long-Term Effects
Public vs Private Education	Proliferation of private education services, homeschooling + tutoring networks	Negative feedback cycle of diminished funding + worsening outcomes for public education
Education and Space	Families make group decisions / group buys of specific education methodologies-services	Reconfiguration of physical space to support niche internet-grown education ideologies (e.g. suburban charter K-8 schools)
Family Values	Culture war surrounding domestic labor, womens’ labor, and masculinity	Value shifts toward acceptability of both “traditional” labor split and male homemakers
Family Businesses	Work-from-home becomes a weak default	Normalization of children’s participation in parents’ labor

These changes conspire to bring production of goods, services, and education back inside the home space.

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Do Home Technologies Save Labor?

What Happened to the Time Savings?

It seems like labor-saving technologies should, well, save labor. But the story is much more complicated than it seems at first.

On the old home, the farm, everyone pitched in—men, women, and even young children. A few tasks were gendered by necessity (i.e. strength) or convention (e.g. cooking) but everyone busted their butt from sunrise to sunset.

At the new home, devices and gadgetry alleviated some of these burdens—but only unevenly. Children no longer have to beat rugs, men no longer have to dry the dishes.

But someone’s still left holding the vacuum cleaner bag—usually either the mom/wife. In single-occupant households, plenty is left to do.

c.f. More Work for Mother (Rose Schwartz Cowan)

Pamela Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Vacuum cleaners

Clothes washers & dryers

Cleaning products

Dishwashers

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Do Home Technologies Save Labor?

Case Study: A Closer Look at the Kitchen

Food work continues to be a timesink, despite the introduction of many appliances and conveniences. Why?

Food Got Complicated

Parkinson’s Law: Tasks expand to fill time. Appliances and gadgets may not save time so much as transform the nature of time spent.
Increases in food standards have swamped time savings. Managing taste, variety, and nutrition is a complex endeavor. Individual- and family-specific preferences mean that even ordering pre-made food takes a significant amount of planning and care.
Food practices have moved up Maslow’s hierarchy towards identity for many people, so comparing them to those of the past is apples & oranges anyways.

Pamela Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Why does food work resist efficiency?

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Do Home Technologies Save Labor?

Home Delivery: It’s Not Lazy, It’s Traditional

When landscapes were remade to accommodate the personal automobile, women began having to travel to supermarkets and department stores to retrieve purchases (whereas previously many things were delivered).

Although the variety of things for purchase skyrocketed and their relative prices plummeted, this cost household managers (i.e. women) the one nonrenewable resource: time.

Having food and other consumer goods delivered to one’s home is, then, not a new invention of lazy startup yuppies. Instead, it is yet another return to former practices in the New Old Home.

Pamela Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

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Pamela Hobart

Philosopher, Mother of 3

The Life Coach for Smart People

Chores at the Old Farm Home	Chores at the New Post-War Home	Chores at the New Old Home
Who does chores?: Everyone pitches in	Housework is the “job” of non-breadwinner. Children make token contributions, as to earn allowance.
Gender: Minimal relevance.	Household labor assigned mostly to women.	Abandonment of the failed standard that men and women should split 50/50. Idiosyncratic divisions based on amount & nature of other responsibilities.
Outsourcing: Minimal & sporadic help from outside the household.	Some outsourcing by upper-class women to lower-class women
Technologies: Simple tools that make farm work possible to do at all (plows, stoves)	Appliances save some manual labor, but running and maintaining homes filled with them still takes many hours per week.	Although chores are less physically exhausting, the juggling of so many moving parts remains cognitively demanding. ��Personal knowledge management & productivity practices become applicable to the home.
Time: inherent rhythm of day/season/year	Time is strongly bifurcated between work/home, and across gender lines.	Time poverty for everyone, unless carefully guarded against via household-level trial and error.

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Making Our Own Fun

In Corona-Time, we rule our routines

The uncertainty of the new world leaves consumers yearning for order.

Order used to come from the external demands imposed by institutions. In corona-time, the power to control our calendars has been given back to the people.

For those without the anchors of children or “essential jobs,” the old structure of the day has melted away. Now we get order from our own internal motivation.

Instead of a daily commute we take a morning walk. Instead of going to the gym, we work out at home. Instead of lunch with our parents, it’s a weekend Zoom call.

We impose routine on our days. Consumers, previously creatures of habit travelling well-worn paths, now plan their days more fully, forging their habits anew.

Successful brands will help consumers remake these habits. Unsuccessful ones will ignore them, clinging to a status quo which no longer exists.

Thomas Hollands

Writing and Strategy

Previously: Barclays & UCL; Currently: L.E.K. Consulting

blog / twitter / LinkedIn

When the world is uncertain, we seek order for our days.

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Making Our Own Fun

Individuals, not institutions, are creating rituals to order their days

Thomas Hollands

Writing and Strategy

Previously: Barclays & UCL; Currently: L.E.K. Consulting

blog / twitter / LinkedIn

Then: institutions imposing external demands	Now: Self-imposed internal demands
Old habit: Daily commute�Old losers: coffee shops, billboard ads, books & radio� Old habit: The school run and extracurriculars�Old losers: kids clubs, churches, sports leagues� Old habit: Exercising before or after work�Old losers: gyms, fitness centres, sports leagues� Old habit: Hanging out downtown with friends�Old losers: cinemas, pub quizzes, and restaurants	New habit: Morning walk or run�New winners: delivery & coffee machines, podcasts, and audiobooks� New habit: Afternoon games with the kids�New winners: structured online activities, video games� New habit: Youtube yoga and at-home workouts�New winners: fitness apps, influencers, and exercise retailers New habit: Watch-parties, virtual quizzes, Zoom bake-offs�New winners: quizzing apps, streaming services, and virtual “game” companies

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Making Our Own Fun

People want both order and “minimum viable novelty”

While consumers crave reliable, predictable routine, they don’t want every day to be the same.

Stuck at home, people are tired of doing the same things with the same people 24/7.

Mere routine is not enough. To delight customers, brands must offer “minimum viable novelty”—inject a little randomness into people’s days.

The most memorable times are when you break from routine. On the commute you sometimes have to give a tourist directions, or bump into an old friend.

What are the at-home equivalents for IRL serendipity?

Thomas Hollands

Writing and Strategy

Previously: Barclays & UCL; Currently: L.E.K. Consulting

blog / twitter / LinkedIn

Case Study: Peloton

Peloton provides order: regular spin classes with the same instructor at the same time and place each day

Peloton provide novelty: consistently release new playlists, tracking metrics, and different classes

So it’s growing fast: Yearly sales CAGR of 91%, and a Net Promoter Score of 91, higher than both Apple and Netflix.

Trend alert: New Yorkers’ “Peloton nooks”

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Working from the New Old Home

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From Oikos to Polis and Back

Ancient Greek city-states adopted the form of the self-governing polis to solve the problems of collective decision-making. This also changed the role of of oikos—the “household”—and moved the most important decisions from domestic spaces to the collective ones.

The modern company is also organized to solve for collective decision-making. Like the polis, companies designate decision-makers (then, heads-of-household; now, senior executives) vs. decision-takers (formerly women and slaves; now, middle managers and rank-and-file employees). Like the polis, company collectivities increase interdependency, security, and expected outcomes.

Now that “polis” workers are working from “oikos” spaces, how will their needs and capabilities change?

David McDougall

Director of Product, Arabesque S-Ray

Founder, Lusiad Innovation

The Oikos Principle:

“When economic production moves back to the home, household management (oikonomia, “economics”) takes precedence over group decision-making (politeia, “politics”)”

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From Oikos to Polis and Back

The Corporate Polis

Over the last ~300 years, companies evolved to take on many of the organizational and structural forms of the polis.

Larger decisions are made by people who wield responsibility for larger units, while smaller decisions are left to the levels below.

“Open plan” offices mimic agora (public square/marketplace) designs to encourage the free-flow of ideas, objectives, and people.

The workplace plays the role of public sphere—whereas a household is something to which one returns.

Home life must be outsourced (to domestic laborers, or stay-at-home partners), or remains an after-hours burden.

David McDougall

Director of Product, Arabesque S-Ray

Founder, Lusiad Innovation

via @davidhuber_ on Twitter

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From Oikos to Polis and Back

The “New Oikos”

Thanks to a global pandemic and widespread internet connection, the “workplace” lives entirely inside the private sphere (at least for now). A household isn’t something you return to, it once again serves as the primary place of everyone’s economic production.

This new oikos is “unevenly distributed” of course—who gets to work from home? Freelancers and stay-at-home-parents find themselves way ahead of the curve.

Focus falls, once again, on the links between work and life, rather than on their separation.

In 2020, the question is: How many of these changes are permanent?

David McDougall

Director of Product, Arabesque S-Ray

Founder, Lusiad Innovation

via @EvagorouM on Twitter

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From Oikos to Polis and Back

The shift is happening, the struggle is real

David McDougall

Director of Product, Arabesque S-Ray

Founder, Lusiad Innovation

“I think that it’s possible that over the next five to 10 years — maybe closer to 10 than five, but somewhere in that range — I think we could get to about half of the company working remotely permanently.”�

– Mark Zuckerberg (May 2020)

“‘Working from home with two toddlers’ reality: Participating in a project meeting while feeding and entertaining kids. So please be patient with me if I am not accepting invitations to review papers or I am not good on meeting deadlines. I am multitasking to my limits!”

– Maria Evagorou (May 2020)

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From Oikos to Polis and Back

Oikos, Polis, and “New Oikos” Cultures of Work

David McDougall

Director of Product, Arabesque S-Ray

Founder, Lusiad Innovation

	Oikos culture	Corporate “Polis” culture	New Oikos culture
Work and life	De facto work-life integration	Work-life balance: Work and life separated in time and place	Work-life harmonization: Constant juggling of “work” and “life”
Childcare	Childcare happens alongside domestic labor	Childcare is outsourced, or stay-at-home parenting becomes one’s “job”	Childcare happens alongside exogenous work
Autonomy and scope of work	Autonomous household management	Dependent work for larger goals: set timelines, set working locations	Autonomous work for larger goals: Fluid timelines, fluid working locations
Collaboration	Immediate, hyperlocal, analog	Scheduled, local, analog	Immediate, global, fluid
Time	Cadence-driven schedules: seasons, daily meals	Regular schedules, work fits into time-shaped boxes	Fluid schedules, work fits around other work

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The Nuclear Family is Anomalous

Throughout history, people have lived in small clusters, often family-based—but also including servants, retainers, apprentices, tutors, nursemaids, and other non-family members.

Groups of people have almost always lived together; the late 20th and early 21st century idea of only two adults and their children in one house is new. (Census data from pre-WWII almost always has multiple surnames per household)

The nuclear household suits capitalism—more households buy more goods and services.

This doesn’t mean “one house”—a cluster of houses nearby works too, and the North European ‘hamlet’ style and African village settlements are the norm through 95% of human history.

Drew Shiel

Independent Domestic Historian

Moderator at AskHistorians

Look for historical family portraits, pre-WWII. �How many have only two adults?

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The Nuclear Family is Anomalous

The Nuclear Family is weak in a Crisis - like a Pandemic

Small numbers in a household:�

Lack of carers when one or two adults are ill�
More exposures for grocery trips and other essentials�
Essential tasks all fall on one or two people�
No support if both nuclear-family parents work from home�
Cabin fever

Drew Shiel

Independent Domestic Historian

Moderator at AskHistorians

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The Nuclear Family is Anomalous

Larger Households are a Historic Fallback

Larger Households�

(Multi-generational, co-housing, cooperatives, kibbutzim, medieval Great Household, etc)�
Share out tasks�
Minimise infection vectors or risky trips�
Support (cooking, child-minding) for people WFH or in gig economy�
More people to talk to

Drew Shiel

Independent Domestic Historian

Moderator at AskHistorians

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Visible Knowledge Work

Knowledge work in the context of the home and family life has largely been invisible—the worker “goes to work” (an office/co-working space/coffee shop) holding a phone and a coffee and returns at the end of the day without the coffee.

The days of briefcases, printed documents, signage, and tools are all evaporating from family life.

This invisible knowledge work provides zero visibility into what the knowledge work looks or feels like for partners and kids.

The unit of work across all knowledge work—the meeting—lives on a digital calendar, often not shared or only shared opaquely with the family unit.

Tom Critchlow

Indie Status: 5+ years

Home

Office

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Visible Knowledge Work

Case Study: Roxanne (4), Knowledge Worker in Training

Kids learn & process the world through imitation—and most of this happens in the home (or at school).

However, the pandemic has made knowledge work more visible and my own daughter has taken to imitating zoom calls, typing emails, taking conference calls and more.

What effect will this have on the long term embedded mental model of “work” and “work cultures” for kids who suddenly get a peek into what knowledge work looks, feels and sounds like.

Tom Critchlow

Indie Status: 5+ years

“at work”, typing on her “laptop” next to me in my office

“taking a conference call”

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Visible Knowledge Work

In the new era of digital by default (i.e. remote work & home offices) the home space becomes a place for knowledge work.

This brings a visibility and tangibility to previously invisible knowledge work. Some examples:

The home calendar and work calendars now require syncing
Zoom calls for work with children on your knee
Shared meal times and shared diets (homes don’t have micro-kitchens)
Ambient awareness of meetings, projects, calls, across the home via over-hearing
Printed reports sitting next to printed kids art projects

Tom Critchlow

Indie Status: 5+ years

Home

Office

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Visible Knowledge Work

As we enter an age of projection, machine vision and e-ink—every surface is going to become a display. What by-products will come from an increasingly visible culture of knowledge work?

Tom Critchlow