Introduction

Humans. We live in homes. And making a physical residence into a nest that evokes the feelings of home is an innate desire among our species. Positive sentiments resulting from nest-building include a sense of achievement, identity, community, cleanliness, and functionality. A clean home separates one from the harshness of nature, prevents disease, and unwanted pests. People may induce these home elements through practicing interior design philosophies, furnishing with meaningful objects, or experimenting with their space until such elements are achieved. Societally, I believe a home meeting its function as a shelter, and a way to distinguish oneself, is important. It is a reflection of our identity as an individual and as a member of a community. One’s relationship with their living space is shaped by their culture, family and experiences, and their space can evoke themes of social mobility, individualism, security, safety, and positive self-esteem.

When someone enters the nest-building stage of one’s life, they may be leaving their family’s home and enter a journey of needing to build their own nest. For some this is a daunting and difficult task, for others the difficulty is apparent but avoidable, and some may find the process seamlessly easy. As a designer, I asked myself what makes someone good at this task.

For this project, I investigated the process of building your own sanctuary, nest building, and the emotional elements that go into it. I believe one’s well-being is connected to the state of and emotions evoked in their primary residence; and the barriers and mindsets around this process is worth being researched.

Research Context 

As a observant person, I have always noticed the variations in ability to curate a living space to have optimal functionality and aesthetics. On the surface, it looked like a matter of choice and effort but of course it was more complicated. I wanted to find out: What made people choose to invest time, money, and mental energy in their living space. What different mindsets existed around the topic and what were their goals and motivations?

Desk Research

For the desk research portion of my project, I read literature around the topic of home customisation, D.I.Y. home projects, interior design philosophy, and the relationship we have with home. I watched quite a few confession style videos with amateur designers’ reflection on their nest-building process which demonstrated the natural talent some people have in this field. I was lucky to find a book on ethnographic research of people’s relationships with their home and the objects within them. Objects in our home, our sanctuary, influence the relationship between the inhabitant, the objects, and the rooms, and the social dynamic between the inhabitants. I also found some themes in pop culture of young adults struggling with nest-building and comedians framing their low effort style of living into comedic material.

My Field Notes

I had numerous experiences and memories observing the living styles and attitudes of others. I grew up in a large architected house that was decorated with intent. My extended family’s residences also had similar carefully orchestrated layouts that stimulated the eye and carried function well. When I got older and began seeing the homes of people outside my family, I saw a wide variety of styles and approaches to nest-building. Some individuals struggled heavily with maintaining function and cleanliness. Others excelled and would continuously work on making their home reflect their identity. And some simply didn’t care; the effort and time required to tailor their space deterred them from personalising it. Function was key. The wide range of behaviors showed individuals’ relationship with their home and what they required from it. Through these encounters and memories, I noticed several themes: Achievement, Individualism, Attitude, Effort, Function, Knowledge, and Interest, which I then used to create my interview questions for my participants.

Primary Research

For my research I conducted a series of semi-structured interviews with individuals. I often provided images to help aid with questions and I also had a few image led discussions during these interviews. In addition to formal interviews, I also asked singular questions to acquaintances and groups just to gauge the universality of experiences and gain nuggets of information. I asked them about what inspired and fueled their initial thoughts and practices on home furnishings, and I asked others about what they did to make their space feel more personalized.

Values of a Nest and the Process of Building It – Research Findings

• • Home is about function, especially if it’s a temporary home.
  • home decor is a form of investment, mentally, financially, and time wise.
  • Home represents emotional security, financial security, community.
  • Home is affects one’s quality of life through its cleanliness. One can become ill from a poorly built or maintained dwelling.
  • Home caries a lot of uses: Domesticity, Working, and socialisation, and sets the setting for our relationship with objects which affect one’s social dynamics.
  • Items in a home have sentimental value.
  • Home making is a rewarding past-time.
  • Home is a reflection of one’s achievements and a store of financial, mental, and time investments.
  • People like their homes to be functional and work for them everyday.

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What specific psychographic emerged as the target psychographic?

My research kept circling around how nest-building is more difficult for beginners in the field, which usually translates to those who are leaving their parent(s)’s home for the first time. In western cultures, this tends to be young adults that are starting their careers. It may also be people who haven’t had the responsibility of nest-building placed upon them before, so they are also beginners. I set beginners in nest-building as my target psychographic because it seems like beginners are having the most difficulty with setting up their living space and making it exude the positive elements of home, as mentioned previously.

Archetypes

I formed four archetypes, different mindsets of nest-builders, from my research. The individuals had a spectrum of interior design skill, position of power to change their space, level of pickiness. These facets reflect one’s nest building ability. I also represented them as different types cookies to form an analogy.

Co-Design

For my co-design sessions, I conducted hour long sessions with four individuals across the spectrum of these archetypes. I knew all of these individuals before the project, and had a rough estimate of where they fell among the set of archetypes. My co-design sessions consisted of:

1. Went to a Furniture Store
2. Filled out a fill in the blank story about a prospective home → got them thinking about the home making process
3. Asked questions about difficulties when making this a reality
4. Went through store and furniture magazines to aid with answers
5. Answers led to follow up questions

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With Archetype 4

Greatest Difficulties when Nest Building

• Time
• Sourcing Items
• Finding the right handymen or contractors

Most Important Values

• Personalisation
• Unique, maybe even custom-made, items

With Archetype 3

Greatest Difficulties when Nest Building

• Having an initial vision before shopping and trying to find items that fit that vision

Most Important Aspects

• Comfort
• Quality & Material
• Place evokes desires emotions in different areas of the home
• Place reflects personality, has functionality, and works for the inhabitants

For the session with an Archetype 2/3   (they were somewhat in the middle of changing their values, transitioning them from 2’s values to 3’s values)

Greatest Difficulties when Nest Building

• Utilizing Space
• Making the space fulfill its required functions
• The time it takes to craft a space

Most Important Aspects

• Function
• Pleasing to the eye
• The items fit with the space
• Lower prices on home items

With Archetype 1

Greatest Difficulties when Nest Building

• Achieving an aesthetic they like (He has a lot of interests that are difficult to put together into a cohesive design)
• Was not aware or knowledgeable about home set up practices when first moving away from home, but overtime they learned and are still learning

Most Important Aspects

• Function
• Decorative items having a sentimental story of origin
• Desire Minimal effort

Service Design Proposal

My Service Design Proposal consisted of an online program that provided interior design and customised shopping services. It catered to the needs and challenges of Archetypes 1, 2, and 3. I named it Keiko (Kay-Ko) from an anagram of the misspelling of cookie, kookie.

How does this design proposal address the topics of achievement, identity, community, and function in relation to nest building?

In terms of the service addressing the feelings of home that aid in it meeting its function as a sanctuary and extension of one’s identity, it meets those needs indirectly. Keiko gives the user better access to shopping for objects they like for their home. It gives recommendations stemming from well-established interior design philosophies to try and meet customer’s individualised functional and cleanliness needs. The customer will naturally gravitate towards items they like/have positive feelings about, and their relationship with these objects fuels the inclusion of achievement, identity, and community in their space. I.E. they choose objects with that evoke these positive feelings automatically. Perhaps it could include a preferences quiz to find out which items they associate with those, but I’m not sure how a design can directly access these subconscious feelings with a useful amount of accuracy. I focused on creating a service that could help the customer where they struggle in nest-building so they can more easily obtain these innate feelings of function, cleanliness, achievement, identity, and community.