Understanding the emotional quotient of a home

livemint.com:

Thinking Architecture (1998), that when he considers architecture, some of the images that come to his mind are from his childhood, from a time when he “experienced architecture without thinking about it". Many people when they are probed about the subject of home, will be able to recollect some element of a place or an experience that brought them joy. The problem, though, is that most of us don’t sit down to harness that feeling when we’re making a home for ourselves.

Whether you’re renting, single, married, living with a partner, owning, the circumstance doesn’t matter. Of course, look at the practical considerations of homemaking: finding the right location, affordable price points, facilities, etc. Such things are essential, but there’s more to creating a nurturing space than the sum of its practicalities.

“I think one needs to critically think about spaces that they truly enjoy and feel content in," says Thomas. “Look at spaces beyond surface treatments and look at them through your value systems. If humility, honesty, stability, etc., are values you embrace then can your objects and spaces you surround yourself be a reflection of that." Such considerations mean our choices indicate deeper meanings that go far beyond “taste", which I am guilty of using as a reductive way of sometimes explaining choices that people make, but it doesn’t track even for myself.

I grew up in the Middle East where it was common to move homes every few years. When I think back to the spaces I occupied as a child, I am not nostalgic about any of them. They felt transient and transitional and that’s what they were.