Shelf Life: A New Domestic Landscape

Abstract

Shelf Life is a study of the domestic landscape, an investigation of domesticity -- a field that is universally relatable. It is the study of everyday life, in the most personal place to all of us: our homes.

Recorded here is a new domestic object -- an object that falls in the gray zone between furniture and architecture, a chameleon that performs both functions, an object for living with, and simultaneously an object for living in, an object that I needed, but did not have, and could not buy.

A catalogue of domestic objects and architecture provides a commentary for the role of design within the domestic landscape, a sample of designs for the domestic realm, selected for their characteristics of flexibility, utility, and the quality of joy they provide.

Shelf Life offers observations of the contemporary domestic landscape and the sociocultural climate surrounding the production of objects and architecture for living with, and living in.

Shelf Life outlines a manifesto illustrating the possibilities and intentions for inhabiting Shelf Life’s new domestic landscape. Referring to the Museum of Modern Art’s 1972 exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, the manifesto uses design as a commentary on current and future domestic daily rituals.