Handbook

This course explores the historical context of Australian domestic design from the gunyah and wattle-and-daub hut to the contemporary highrise apartment, via the Victorian terrace and the suburban subdivision, providing you the opportunity to contextualise your own practices within a history of domestic place-making informed by the current challenge to develop sustainable ways of living. Investigating how design has both reflected and constructed notions of home , literally and metaphorically, we will encounter many different lived experiences, including those of indigenous peoples, women, children and migrants. Dreams of Home explores these experiences through the lenses of urban, architectural and interior design history, analysing domestic artefacts such as ceramics, textiles, furniture and lighting, examining domestic spaces such as the parlour, patio, garden and courtyard, and considering domestic activities from the garage sale to the backyard barbie and the TV dinner. In the classroom you will read and discuss key texts, and in the field you will carry out site and artefact analysis. Crucially, you will encounter domestic experience through the voices of those who have lived them: in addition to reading historical accounts, you will be introduced to the practice of oral history, making recordings and analysing the accounts of the lived experience of the Australian home.