Make yourself at home
A hypothetical store that challenges the concept of living space
Overview
MYAH challenges nowaday’s conception of living space that it is limited to our own apartment flat and physical context. In the modern, compact cities, people adapt and negotiate to their microenvironment in order to make high-density work. The outcome of this project is a speculative model, a hypothetical space, that reflects the issue of dwelling in a small living space in a crowded urban environment.
This hypothetical store sells personal spaces and privacy services in the public sector. For example, if you pay more money to the restaurant, you do not have to share a table with a complete stranger. The store hopes to allow people to enjoy some privacy in a fast pace, crowded environment. Therefore, it is called Make Yourself At Home in a busy city, symbolizing how urban dwellers can create their personal space anywhere. The concept of "selling personal spaces" is to show how valuable personal spaces are in compact cities, so to reflect on the development of the city's impact on wellbeing.
MYAH
MYAH’s branding and model are inspired by IKEA, which they use visual and spatial organisations to tell stories of their services. MYAH explores personal spaces in different public sectors.
Model - making
Research on living space
The research of this project focuses on sub-divided flat residents and the history of housing in Hong Kong, such as the Kowloon City. The research makes me realize the blurred boundaries between personal and public from their way of living.
A layout plan of a subdivided flat interviewee
Based on my key literature research, I found out residents can create their personal space anywhere. A social experiment is conducted in London to test this standpoint, which a person has to focus on a particular task in the busiest street of London with the help of a headphone to censor out external distractions.
