Re-Signify the Domestic Space in Times of Confinement From the Application of Ethnographic Tools and Personal Centered Design

Abstract

The Covid-19 crisis has been described as the "greatest challenge that humankind has faced since the 2 nd World War," having an impact on health, society, and the global economy. Houses and domestic spaces are key sites through which COVID-19 is experienced, thus, an interdisciplinary approach is needed. The goal of this research project is to forge an analytical approach while experimenting with micro-ethnography and auto-ethnography tools to analyse how we inhabit the domestic spaces in complex situations of confinement imposition in order to arrive at an outward reflection from within. The project reflects on an innovative social experiment that opens up new paths of design provoking to help us rethink the domestic space. This paper has the objective to compile, compare and explain the processes and results around the characterization of the domestic space, centring on the person in times of confinement through an ethnographic approach.