Housing and placelessness : an interpretive ethnography of women's experiences of multigenerational Korean family life in modern residential environments

This study explores multi-generational family life as influenced by the current design and production of apartment housing in contemporary urban Korea. The focus of the study is to interpret multi-generational families' spatial experience in modern apartment housing through the lived experience of female family members, family culture and tradition. This study is attempted for two reasons: (1) to redefine the altered Korean home given newly imported western modernization and the continuing influence of a traditional Korean family culture, and (2) to provide a basis for rethinking the meaning of place-making in the modern architecture of the home. Discussion centers on place-making which supports multi-generational family culture and helps establish a sense of home that unfolds meaningfully in the context of social change through modernization. An overview of the changing perceptions of women toward domestic spaces given physical modernization and the trend toward a new configuration of the Korean family is given. The research approach applied is a phenomenological perspective as embodied in Merleau-Ponty's commitment to looking at the problem through the perspective of the people involved within their lived world. Interpretive ethnographies of five multi-generational Korean families are presented. Data for analysis was compiled from open-ended interviews, observations of daily life, and women's housing histories. The major question discussed is: how can architects understand the rootedness from which to nurture a house that will blossom into a home, rather than the standardized, prototypical, blossomless stalk which is called today's house? The result of interpretive analysis of women's home experience is that architects can no longer ignore the complexity of family dynamics and individual sense of place. Consideration of architectural design given the issues of place-making, technology of architecture, time, and gender are highlighted. These issues will involve designers to rethink architectural design in Korea's modern housing industry and to develop alternative designs to accommodate new family cultures.