Problem

Inhibition of adult life in small houses

Nature:
Most houses are built without consideration for the fact that adults and children need access to each other, need to be able to be together, but also need to be able to spend time separately. For example, in many houses all the bedrooms are clustered together and there are often thin dividing walls, so that privacy and intimacy are inhibited. The presence of children in a family often destroys the closeness and the special privacy which a man and wife need together, especially in small households where there is little room and no servants to help look after small children. Adults often have to pass children's bedrooms to get to the bathroom. Children are also able to run anywhere in the house, and therefore tend to dominate all of it. In such households, parents do not have the heart - or the energy - to keep children out of special areas; so finally the whole house has the character of a children's room, with children's clothes, drawings, boots and shoes, tricycles, toy trucks and disarray. There is a need for houses to be designed to take into account the adult need for privacy to be a couple, not just parents. In such houses, a couple's realm exists where they can sit and talk privately, perhaps with its own entrance to the outdoors or to a balcony. It is, or has, a sitting room, and is a place for privacy and projects. The bed is part of it, and so if possible is a separate bathroom, and it should have some kind of double door, or ante-room, to protect its privacy.
Values:
Life
Inhibition
Subject(s):
Life Life
Society Adults
Amenities Housing, tenants
Related UN Sustainable Development Goals:
GOAL 3: Good Health and Well-beingGOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and CommunitiesGOAL 15: Life on Land
Problem Type:
F: Fuzzy exceptional problems
Date of last update
01.01.2000 – 00:00 CET