Place:

The place we call home is ‘ours’ for only a short time.

We live our life there.

We invest in it emotionally and financially.

But at some point we will move on and it will pass to someone else.

Once other people occupy that same space it is like we never existed. 

We share our homes with the ghosts of the people before us, and the people who come after us.

In a parallel universe they live lives that are just as full – and just as mundane.

With an older house it is easy to imagine past inhabitants.

We see them wearing period clothes, huddled around a range, or open fire, or the radio. They live in ‘our home’ – but without electricity, bathroom, internet, TV or central heating.

Every day these former occupants would look out that same window onto that street. They climbed these stairs and entered these rooms.

In the bedroom their bed is likely to be placed in the same position.

Today, it is a different bed, new occupants, contemporary décor and a very different way of living.

Houses only survive if they are lived in and looked after.

With each occupant the interior will change: new layout, paint, new wallpaper, new doors, the removal of fireplaces, new bannisters, new bathroom.

The loft may become a bedroom, kitchen extended and garden landscaped.

The exterior may be re-painted, re-clad, re-windowed and re-roofed to suit both our personal tastes and statutory energy requirements.

We may be drawn to live in a Victorian/Edwardian home for what we see as its style: high ceilings, doors, ceiling rose, fireplaces and location.

But we want a Victorian/Edwardian home suited to a modern lifestyle. That is: not with smokey fires, gas light, an outside lavatory and scullery kitchen.

Interior design trends come and go.

We outgrow our own ‘tastes’.

Sometimes we just want something different. 

We also want what other people have, and to move with the times.

Our home is a backdrop to all the events of our lives.

From the significant events that are memorable, to the mundane events forgotten in the daily routine.

Getting up every morning, showering, doing homework….

Washing windows, making bread, listening to the radio, doing laundry, cooking, putting on makeup. Drinking tea, putting groceries away, watching TV.

Whenever we occupy the same place for a long time we share it with the ghost of our younger self.

That is: before arthritic knees and the stairs became too much. When the children were young, with loved ones who have passed, grown up or moved away. 

But we also remember those curtains, that carpet, that colour and pattern.

These elements of decor can become triggers for an era from our own past but also for a collective, shared memory.

Because that is what everybody did – and had – based on the choices that were available.

What might seem like a personal design choice reflects a style that defines an era.

Memory is a powerful thing.

In research that deeper memory of place and space is often used within dementia studies.

Everyday objects that we used in the past and ‘a look’, a ‘style’ of living can re-connect people to a time when they were younger. The environment triggers behaviour and experiences from a time before, when they were fit and well. 

Dwelling is a dynamic, intimate and powerful part of our lived experience. When we move house we leave ‘something’ behind.

Letters addressed to us, or to “The Occupant”, may continue to arrive long after we have left, evidence that this was once our home too. That we lived here.

We may imagine that longstanding neighbours would still remember us. But, perhaps only as a sequence of different people who also lived there. Now, all gone.

Through dwelling we give life to a space and establish a lasting connection and deep-rooted memories.

When we move on, this is what we take with us.

Nuala Rooney

I am designer, educator and researcher developing creative and holistic human-centred insights within the social/spatial sphere.

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