The Circularity Of Living
CIRCLES AND CIRCULARITY SHAPE OUR HOMES AND HOW WE LIVE IN THEM. IT IS AT HOME THAT WE EXPERIENCE THE CYCLES OF BIRTH, LIFE, AND DEATH OF BOTH OUR LOVED ONES AND OURSELVES – UNIVERSAL CONDITIONS PERFORMED WITHIN THE PRIVACY OF DOMESTIC SPACE.
Their inevitability reminds us of how the home needs to accommodate the bigger cycles of our lives and of those who came before and after us, as well as the day-to-night cycles of everyday living. A growing number of architects are seeking to accommodate life’s multiple stages and generations in our homes today. Here the circle is a useful trope, a metaphor for open, flexible, and equitably experienced spaces, whatever shape they actually take. See Peris + Toral Arquitectes’ 85 Social Dwellings social housing development in Barcelona (2022). Epitomising a wave of economic, environmental and well-designed Spanish housing, the timber structure consists of six floors built around a central courtyard. Each floor is a grid, divided into tatami-mat-sized rooms that can be grouped into different living configurations depending on inhabitants’ needs.
This feedback loop between residents and the community is also found in Levitt Bernstein’s Melfield Gardens (2025), a Passivhaus development in London accommodating both students and elderly residents.
Rituals are fundamental to the cycles of living, be they religious, secular, seasonal or commercial. At home we celebrate such events through temporary decorations, celebrations and meals to bring friends and family together. Different but arguably as important are the domestic rituals we undertake each day, such as making a morning coffee, settling into a favourite chair, or laying the table for dinner. Such acts show how domestic living is a daily performance, as we simultaneously make the home and mark the passing of each day.
While rituals’ importance have been overlooked in modern Western cultures, there are designers who celebrate their significance. Ettore Sottsass’ Yantra di Terracotta (1969) ceramics are an early example of this. Inspired by his visits to California’s counterculture and his journeys on the south east Asian hippie trail, Sottsass created a series of small, totem-like monochrome sculptures in geometric forms designed to imbue spiritual reflection in what he saw as an overly commodified domestic realm. More recently, Mexican designer Liliana Ovalle has talked of her wish to make small domestic altars, as seen in her foldable photo-etched brass Altar in a Corner from 2006, which enable users to “honour memories, hopes, and bonds” in the home.
Sottsass and Ovalle’s works speak of different approaches to cross-cultural design, bringing together different aesthetics and practices that express the rich connectivity of our spherical planet’s cultures and the importance of freedom of movement between people and places. There are no borders or boundaries within circles or spheres, but there is a bounded edge which reminds us of our collective and interdependent existence.
Raised in a family of beekeepers, French designer Marlène Huissoud recognises just this: From Insects (2014) is a vase made from blown propolis, a natural mixture of saliva and beeswax, that is designed to hold flowers, which in turn produce the pollen that bees then pollinate. Having such objects in our homes reminds us of the ecological and seasonal cycles on which we are all dependent. Similarly, Fernando Laposse works with farmers in the south of his native Mexico to create designs from a range of plant fibres – including sisal, loofah and avocado – that show the connectivity of the ground which materials come from to the furniture that then fills our homes.
La circolarità, quindi, è una qualità che plasma gran parte delle nostre vite, sia dentro che fuori la casa. Ci ricorda i limiti dell’abitare domestico e la sorprendente libertà che tale contenimento offre; come luogo in cui costruiamo e comunichiamo le nostre identità, la casa è il luogo in cui riuniamo identità molteplici, sia le nostre che quelle degli altri. In definitiva, è proprio nella casa che possiamo far convivere oggetti, rituali e modi di vivere provenienti dalle molteplici culture, epoche e relazioni che compongono le nostre vite, qualunque forma esse assumano.
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