Image Credits: Rebecca Chong Shu Wen, 'Takeaway, Toilet Breaks and One Very Persistent Cat' in Domestic Capital: An Experimental Studio (2022)
14 Lessons: Foundations for Home-Based Work
HIGHLIGHTS
Yue, Audrey, Lilian Chee, Jane M. Jacobs, and Natalie Pang. 2023.
“Making Do: Young People and Mobilities at Home.”
Journal of Youth Studies, September, 1–18.
Work It Podcast: Is flexible work shaping the office of the future?
Associate Professor Lilian Chee from NUS and Associate Professor Ada Wong from SUSS share their research in this episode of the Work It Podcast
[CLOSED] Call for Papers: Architecture and Culture Special Issue
Domestic Capital: Accommodating Paid Work in the Space of the Home
Expected publication date: June 2025 (Architecture and Culture volume 13, issue 2)
INTERNATIONAL
CONFERENCE
November 29-30, 2023
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Hybrid (Online via Zoom &
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Seminar Room AS8 04-04)
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Asia Research Institute
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National University of Singapore
Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Comparative Perspective is a hybrid conference funded by the Cultural Research Centre, under Department of Communications and New Media and jointly held with the Asia Research Institute at NUS, as a culminative part of a research project entitled Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study (NUS-IRB-2021-799; Project No. A-0008463-01-00), funded by MOE SSRTG, under Principal Investigator Associate Professor Lilian Chee, and Co-Investigators Professor Jane M. Jacobs, Professor Audrey Yue, and Dr. Natalie Pang.
©Foundations for Home-Based Work
Along with the rest of the world, Singapore’s COVID-19 circuit breaker response required many to work-from-home, transforming conventional boundaries between work and home. Suddenly, societies world-wide were confronted with unforeseen challenges and unexpected silver linings of home-based work (HBW). Yet, the pandemic is only a catalyst for this phenomenon, as HBW has been around far beyond it, be it through traditional cottage industries and piecework, or telework spurred by the increased adoption of technology over the last few decades. In Singapore, HBW presents specific challenges particular to the high-density, high-rise environment that accounts for the majority of housing. Our city planning makes clear demarcations between spaces designed and zoned for work and those designed and zoned for living, where houses and housing estates have always been designed for unpaid home life, and not paid work.
Image Credits: Tan Wei Jie Eugene, 'Mapping Land' in Domestic Capital: An Experimental Studio (2022)
What, then, makes the home and neighbourhood operable for various forms of home-based work, be it teleworking, home-based businesses, or freelancing? How do home-based workers adapt to the demands of today’s labour market? How does a resident furnish, use and service their home and their routines to shape the domestic environment for labour? What kind of amenities, environments, or communities near the home are needed to support their work life?
Image Credits: Rebecca Chong Shu Wen (2022)
Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study (NUS-IRB-2021-799) is an inter-disciplinary project funded by MOE SSRTG, seeking to address these unanswered questions and to understand how home-based work is built into homes and neighbourhoods. The interdisciplinary team, comprising of researchers from the National University’s Department of Architecture, Department of Communications and New Media, and Yale-NUS College, meets this gap with an approach that bridges between the social sciences and design thinking.
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PROJECT METHODS & APPROACHES
Image Credits: Pennie Kwan Jia Wen, 'A Humid Home' in Domestic Capital: An Experimental Studio (2022)
OBJECTIVE 1: GEOGRAPHIES
CHART AND THEORISE THE SOCIAL GEOGRAPHIES OF HOME-BASED WORK, PAST AND PRESENT: TYPES, DISTRIBUTION, CONTEXTS
what types of home-based work does Singapore support?
who is involved in this work and what kind of living do they make?
why are home-based workers doing this work?
where are they doing their work - in which housing types and neighbourhoods?
how has participation in home-based work changed over time – what is the history of
home-based work?
what is the policy framework and public discourse around home-based work?
WORK PACKAGE 1
HOUSEHOLD SURVEY
An n=1000 survey of current and past (pre-COVID) home-based workers has completed fieldwork and is in analysis stage. The survey includes data on the types of home-based work, demographic data on who is involved in home-based work, including why they do it, data on housing typology and digital access (hardware and services), and data on how they network through social media and the physical neighbourhood.
WORK PACKAGE 2
ONLINE SENTIMENTS AND PLATFORM STUDIES
Reviews of the Terms of Service of freelance work platforms (e.g., Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr) have been conducted to better understand online freelance work. Interviews of freelance platform-using home-based workers are also being conducted. Social media analysis of mentions of home-based work is also in progress.
WORK PACKAGE 3
STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS AND POLICY REVIEW
Policy stakeholder interviews with government policy stakeholders and private providers (e.g., co-working space providers, work communication platform providers) have been conducted, to be complemented by a review of Singapore-based policy documents.
WORK PACKAGE 4
ARCHIVAL RESEARCH
Although home-based work has existed for decades in Singapore, it has received scant scholarly attention or historical documentation. Historical archival research is being conducted through review of newspapers, government reports, and oral history archives, complemented by a literature review on the economy of home-based work in Singapore’s history.
DOCUMENT AND THEORISE LOCAL ECOLOGIES OF RESILIENCE AND ADAPTABILITY IN HOME-BASED WORK: SPATIAL, SOCIAL, DIGITAL
OBJECTIVE 2: ECOLOGIES
at home: does the home-worker’s housing and home-based ICT infrastructure adequately support their work? How do workers adjust their home to accommodate their work?
in place: how does home-based work interact with the neighbourhood? Does it contribute positively to the neighbourhood, by adding social or cultural capital (character, services, networks, heritage), or generating shared social and economic responsibilities? How do home-based workers use virtual networks (e.g., platforms)?
WORK PACKAGE 5 & 6
HOME VISITS AND COMMUNITY MAPPING
Detailed home visit interviews are being conducted to understand how home-based workers have adapted their routines, social interactions, home spaces, and use of the neighbourhood due to home-based work. Outputs include elevation drawings of home workspaces, social maps, and neighbourhood maps. Observations have been conducted at areas where home-based workers may work (i.e., work pods, libraries, cafes), with intercept interviews in the works.
WORK PACKAGE 7
DOCUMENTARY FILM
A filmmaker group (Third Street Studio) was commissioned to capture the daily lives of four home-based workers, including their paid and unpaid routines, and how these routines interface with the architecture of the home and the wider neighbourhood. Filming of participants commenced in April 2023.The film is expected to be released in 2025.
OBJECTIVE 3: PATHWAYS
PROPOSE PATHWAYS FOR ACCOMMODATING HOME-BASED WORK: DESIGN, POLICY, COLLABORATION
WORK PACKAGE 8
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN RESEARCH
Four seminar-and-studio courses were conducted from 2021 - 2024 examining “Domestic Capital” and home-based work, where students investigated historical and contemporary situations and home-based work locally and globally.
WORK PACKAGE 9
STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOPS
Stakeholder workshops was organised to share findings of the study with government and other relevant stakeholders in January 2025.
WORK PACKAGE 10
CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION
A conference titled “Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Comparative Perspective” was held at NUS on 29-30 November 2023. A call for papers was issued, and some of the papers presented will be collated into a special issue on home-based work. An exhibition which features fieldwork from WP5&6 and speculative design work from WP8 accompanied the conference.
THE TEAM
LILIAN CHEE
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Lilian CHEE is Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Visual Cultures at the Department of Architecture in the National University of Singapore, where she co-leads the Research by Design Cluster, and serves as Assistant Dean at the College of Design and Engineering. Her work includes Architecture and Affect (2023), Art in Public Space (2022), and Remote Practices (2022); the documentary Objects for Thriving (2022) and the award-winning essay film 03-FLATS (2014). She leads the Social Sciences Research Council-funded Foundations for Home-based Work: A Singapore Study (2021-24). She writes on affect, architectural representation, domesticity, and works creatively across the intersections of architecture and visual cultures.
JANE M JACOBS
CO-INVESTIGATOR
Jane M. JACOBS is currently Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor with Monash Indonesia, Jakarta. She gained her PhD in human geography from University College London (1991) and has taught at The University of Melbourne (1991-2001), University of Edinburgh (2001-2011) and Yale-NUS College, Singapore (2012- 2023). Prof. Jacobs has published on postcolonial geographies, architecture and society, high-rise urbanism, and the politics of urban heritage. Her publications include Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996 Routledge), Cities of Difference (1998 University of Minnesota Press, edited with Ruth Fincher), Uncanny Australia (1998 University of Melbourne Press, co-authored with Ken Gelder), and Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture (2014 MIT Press, co-authored with Stephen Cairns).
NATALIE PANG
CO-INVESTIGATOR
Natalie PANG is Associate Professor at the Department of Communications and New Media and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, both at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD in Information Technology at Monash University and worked on the world poll and subjective well-being projects at The Gallup Organization prior to entering academia. Her teaching and research focuses on internet and new media studies, including social media and citizenship, digital humanities and digital inclusion/well-being. Her latest publication on digital vulnerabilities amongst youths was awarded the 2020 Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award by the Association for Library and Information Science Education.
AUDREY YUE
CO-INVESTIGATOR
Audrey YUE is Professor and Head of Department of Communications and New Media, and Deputy Director of the NUS Centre for Trusted Internet and Community at the National University of Singapore. She researches in transnational Chinese media cultures; cultural policy and development, and; queer Asian studies. She has published 8 scholarly books and more than 100 refereed journal articles, book chapters and commissioned reports. She is Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Communication; Television and New Media; Sexualities and Feminist Media Studies. She has received more than SGD$6m in international competitive research grants from the Australian, Hong Kong and Canada Research Councils.
Collaborators
Erik L’Heureux FAIA
Dean’s Chair Associate Professor
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Ong-Ker Shing
Associate Professor
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Principal of Lekker Architects
Hong Renyi
Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore
Student Associates
Anna Lim Qian Hui, Bella Fong, Claire Low Qian Ling, Eunice Loh Ying Ying, Gina Junhan Fu, Joong Eo, Edward Liau Yee Seng, Marcus Loh Men Tong, Mohammed Zuhair Bin Yusof, Natalie Tan Hui Qi, Ng Sang Teng Sheena, Rebecca Chong Shu Wen, Serene Wee Shu Ning, Tan Mei Yee, Yang Kaiwen
Researchers
Lim Kun Yi James
Research Assistant
Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore
Liyana Doneva
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Phua Yi Xuan, Anthea
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Rebecca Chong Shu Wen
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Ruella Che Xinrui
Research Assistant
Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore
Sim Jing Xi, Rachel
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Tan Yi-Ern Samuel
Research Associate
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Line drawings © Foundations for Home-Based Work, National University of Singapore