Tactical Acts from Lockdown Homes

The Covid19 lockdown brought work home. As design researchers our interest has been in the socio-material changes which the pandemic lockdown, as a top down strategy has brought to the domestic realm. Using an online response gathering tool we undertook an inquiry with thirty-one different households from around the world. Analyzing this data, we present seven inter-connected activity categories performed by people as they merged and separated their professional work and domestic living within their homes. From within these categories we note particular activities let people overcome the pressures of merging professional work and domestic living. We see these activities to be tactically emerging from specific characteristics of the domestic realm. Targeting innovation specialists, product designers, architects and service designers we seek the potential for amplifying such tactical characteristics when designing for working from home futures.


INTRODUCTION
As a design research inquiry, our point of departure is the home under the Covid19 pandemic lockdown, and the socio-material changes occurring in the domestic realm. Approaching 'home' as one of the fundamental units of our contemporary society, we view the pandemic as a force that situated professional work to be carried out with domestic living for varying periods of time. It is within this context, of work getting displaced and situated within the confines of the domestic realm we began our inquiry by asking what socio-material changes could be occurring to the domestic environment? Schools, colleges, offices, factories and much of our contemporary workplaces hollowed out human presence during the lockdown and families were mandated into their homes by diktat. As the pandemic began spreading in the first quarter of 2020, home was where everyone was. Large numbers continue to be, carrying out their school lessons, giving exams, organizing online meetings, workshops while at the same time cooking, doing yoga, teaching and playing with children. The actions and performances within the domestic realm under a lockdown were in itself teleological.
Over past decades as organizations have introduced more flexwork and telecommuting programs (Siha & Monroe, 2006) and with home based businesses becoming popular (Vorley & Rodgers, 2014), the boundaries between home and work have blurred. But with the Covid19 pandemic and the force of its ensuing lockdown, families have needed to work from home globally. This historic large scale push where the home suddenly became a site for work and professional labour (Blunt & Dowling, 2006;Cieraad, 1999) in the 21 st century provisioned intrigue for a design research inquiry for discerning changes occurring to the .. Tactical Acts from Lockdown Homes. Strategic Design Research Journal. Volume 14, number 01, January -April 2021. 312-326. DOI: 10.4013/sdrj.2021.141.26 domestic realm. Methodically, we view the pandemic as a form of crisis, accident and breakdown (Latour, 2005). Using the crisis as an exposure, our aim was to inquire constructively and interpret facets and aspects of the changes within the domestic realm.
Nations employed forceful measures leading to widely varying situations, like enforcing social distancing, restricted movement of people and closure of business and services. Such forceful measures we see as a 'strategy' being employed from top down (De Certeau & Rendall, 2011). While entities such as governments and work organizations deployed this strategy, it can also be seen as emerging from roles of responsibilities of professional, citizenry and familial identities, to protect themselves and their communities from the onslaught of the pandemic. The strategic push as a lockdown meant that conventional space and time that were earlier neatly categorized as work, entertainment and family life were all suddenly amalgamated into a single place -the home. Thus as a conceptual construct for an inquiry on the domestic realm, we treat the lockdown strategy as a force from atop exerting pressure on the home (Figure 1). With this framing, our primary lens views the coming together of professional work and domestic life and the ensuing socio-material changes within the home. In coming up with procedures to formulate our inquiry we build on and contribute to practices theory (Schatzki, 2012), and ask what does it mean to design for social innovation (Manzini, 2019) in the domestic realm when billions work from their homes? With such a process we present seven interconnected categories with supportive rich details, for innovation specialists, service designers and architects to consider and leverage for designing transitional futures that could enrich the potential of bringing together professional work and domestic living within the home.

GATHERING SOCIO-MATERIAL CHANGES WITHIN HOMES UNDER LOCKDOWN
To begin our inquiry into the situation that forced professional work and domestic living, we customized an online survey platform Typeform into a more open-ended response gathering tool. The decision to take an online inquiry was straightforward, as venturing into the field with physical presence became restrictive, remote inquiry presented a viable option. Considering the nature of our inquiry and with potential respondents working within their homes, we deliberated that this mode would result in rich reflective slices of experiences as research input. We designed the response tool with twenty-six queries. These were built in such a way that it allowed people to reflect and detail out where possible, of how their everyday practices, materially and spatially were changing while they undertook their professional duties from their homes. Of these, three queries had five, four and four subquestions within them. Of the total number of queries, thirteen were set as mandatory and rest optional. There were four questions that had the option of sending in photographs with textual responses.
With this data-gathering tool we selectively reached out to people from within our networks and personally requested participation. We got a total of thirty-five responses of which we consider thirty-one in our dataset (see Table 1). A majority of the people (24/31) who contributed with their responses included architects, designers, design researchers and innovation specialists. Targeting the query onto a selective disciplinary domain was purposeful; but it is not to allude that design professionals cope with the lockdown differently than people with other backgrounds. Our reason was methodical. Firstly, our larger interest as design research, which goes beyond this article is in building collaborative potential domestic futures, that could be, rather than, 'what is' or a 'before and after' socioscientific comparative analysis. Then as mentioned, the target audience of our research findings is the design community who could leverage from it and apply it to the design of domestic futures. Our tool was designed to gather responses in the form of succinct textual details through multiple open-ended questions and visual details from photographs from within homes. Considering the responses would be delivered through online means we aimed for rich and granular data that could be interpreted in design-based terms. For this we felt it would be useful for respondents to interpret design terminology and the emphasis on capturing and communicating design related details of the changes around their homes. With such a framing we wished to access an interpretive and emic-able (Rowsell, 2011) perspective on the micro-changes occurring within homes from and for design expert backgrounds than as diffused design (Manzini, 2015). With such a framing, our contribution for design is a thematized exposition of seven categories of activities, that have emerged from homes under the forces of the lockdown strategy. Then from a Practices Theory position, we interpret these categories to hold activities, which we discuss in the following section. By framing these categories, that hold domestic activities from the Covid19 lockdown period, our aim is to present 'Working from Home' as a 'Social Practice' for Practices Theory, coming as a contribution from a Design Research inquiry.

CATEGORIZING ACTIVITIES OF THE LOCKDOWN HOME
We began by analyzing the gathered textual and photographic data with a grounded theoretical approach using the Nvivo tool and through free form colour coding on textual responses and photographs. Our analysis generated fourteen categories. After distillation we settled on seven main categories. As results we present these categories, with granular details and supportive photographs. These categories are not exclusive to each other as separate entities but like every day domestic activities and materiality, are inherently and deeply interconnected. Schatzki, (2012) discussing ways to conduct research on everyday practices says that to consider the notion of a 'bundle' of 'practices' and 'material arrangements' is fundamental to analysing human life (Schatzki, 2012:16-17). A bundle being temporal in character forms when everyday practices are performed upon material arrangements. He writes that 'activities' are one of the components that compose everyday social practices, and activities are essentially bound with material entities. He qualifies activities to be events, which means, that they happen, and activity events can be distinguished from mere occurrences by virtue of being intentional and voluntary (Schatzki, 2012:18). With such a framing from Schatzki, (2012:16-17), we have considered the home under the lockdown as a 'material arrangement' within which intentional activities are undertaken to merge and separate professional work and domestic life ( Figure 2). Considering such a position on activities from Practices Theory, the seven categories that will be discussed, have been interpreted from a grounded analysis of reported events and happenings (from respondents) from within homes during the lockdown. We approach the event descriptions as comprising of materially supported intentions undertaken to carry out professional work duties from peoples' homes under the lockdown. Thus, from a Practices Theory position we qualify the categories as comprising of 'activities' performed within the 'material arrangement' of homes during the pandemic.

Figure 2. Home under Lockdown as a Material Arrangement
Before proceeding, we would also like the reader to note below, the ordering of the 'activities' categories. As a matter of presentation, the thematized categories are conceptualized in a sequence to generate an imaginative pattern ( Figure 3). With that we present seven interconnected activities categories within the material arrangement of homes under a lockdown.    Table   "This is my main table and working desk (…) during the day I can switch from one chair to another depending if I work or eat. I like to work on the left side and eat on the right side, but sometimes I switch sides or work and eat on the same side..." (R3) People experience a sense separation by moving the body from one place to another and therefore actively creating a boundary between work and non-work. For e.g. R2 from Finland, mentions "I don't like it, how work invades my home and the only thing I can do is to take a long walk to get away from it." Then, the movement of the body is also be used as a way of creating separation between the work practices of other family members, R30 mentions "sharing the same workspace is problematic when both of us have virtual meetings simultaneously. In this case, I move to the dining room and take meetings on my laptop." As seen the moving body is actively used to distinguish both, professional work and the domestic living and also between co-dwellers professional space and time.

Displacing Things and Spaces
From the moving body we proceed to displacing things and spaces next. With more family members spending time at home, there are more displacement of things. Our respondents mention of moving objects, reusing existing furniture to changing rooms to get by their everyday professional selves. 14 out of the 31 participants wrote that that they had made spatial/furniture/things (non-IT) changes because of working and spending more time at home due to the lockdown. For example, R1 notes the changes that she has done to make do as her working space:

Managing Roles, Responsibilities and Relations
The force of the lockdown also indicates traces of new domestic living-related responsibilities emerging for household members. For instance, R22 from India when asked if there any completely new activities he has discovered or come up, responds with: "Help in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning utensils, which I never did before." Then R17, notes a reflection about the pre-Covid period regarding which member of the family is responsible for certain domestic tasks by saying "Establishing routines that were taken for granted pre- In such a context, there is an emphasis and reliance on technology to mediate and maintain work and personal relations, which brings us to the next category of the use of ICT within the homes during the lockdown.

Figure 7. R12's Make-shift Work Space in the Bedroom
While R21, a student who lives by herself in a single bedroom apartment away from her family in a foreign country, when asked about new activities discovered during the lockdown period, mentions, "Playing…Online games with family members and staying connected." As an example of a child being introduced to the relationship of the screen to work, R17 mentions that she's been letting her son listen in during her online meetings, "Playing out 'workspeak' on speakers for child to hear what work sounds like. Proving that computer time is not idle time to child therefore screentime has different purposes." Then there are expressions of concern with regards to technology as well. A common complaint relates to problems with connectivity and network speeds when working from home. As noted by R12 and R19 here, "It's the overload on the internet speeds at times." and "At times the slow server connection has annoyed and affected my temper." Then there are issues expressed about the uneasy relationship of the use of the screen as a medium in itself. For example, as R22 and R1 express their concern and frustration with the screen time and the screen as a mediator, "TV or movie watching stopped completely as we have to restrict screen time for our toddler." "It's just SO MUCH SCREEN TIME! I don't want to see friends and family mediated by the same apparatuses that exclusively mediate my work-life." As evident, ICT and the screen actively mediate work, familial relations, new learning and entertainment, and is deeply lodged within the home under the lockdown. Despite frustrations and concerns the provisioning of work from home in its current context cannot be imagined without these technologies.

Dealing with Mixed Soundscapes
As work entered home through the remote technological route during the lockdown, we see evidence from our respondents that it encounters a particular unrestraint voice of openness  (Blunt & Dowling, 2006), the sounds of the home. As the pressure of the lockdown forced the increasing of work practices within the home, we find our respondents mentioning of a 'disturbance' to work.
For R2 one of the difficulties of carrying out her professional work from home was, "Keeping the noise and voices from kids quiet during online meetings/classes." And R12, mentioning about how their home has changed says, "learning to have more patience with the kids and their noise levels." Then for R25, sounds from domestic appliances make it difficult to carry out work, "Mixer sound from kitchen is disturbing during calls. Also, TV sound". It is not only the sounds of the domestic realm that are an issue, but also when different work voices mix there is a problem, as R30 mentions, "Sharing the same workspace is problematic when both of us have virtual meetings simultaneously. In this case, I move to the dining room and take meetings on my laptop." The above instances provide insights regarding the issues people face from noise and sounds when working from homes during the lockdown. We see it as being indicative that domestic soundscapes are different from the sounds of the office and there is a contest and clash of two different aural natures, each with their own decorum and background. With that we move to the next bundle, relating to the flexibility of working from home. With the imposition of the lockdown and being restricted within the confines of their homes, the response from our participants indicates that the restrictions results in them trying out new activities. This is not to colour the overall responses in an overtly positive way, but to say that at the time of gathering responses with the selected members, based on the nature of our query, there is an indication that the pressure of the lockdown home also brings inventiveness and experimentality. We do not discuss the nature, cause or result of such an experimentality here, but we indicate that the home under a lockdown becomes a nucleus of new trials and experiments embedding into everyday activities. Experimenting with new practices took the form of, for example, new workouts and physical exercises for R1, "I started doing youtube ballet classes" while she was also trialing with gardening and cooking, "I also started growing a levain and some greens" and R31 mentions "Homemade chocolate".

Being with Flexible Patterns
Then R2 and R22 mention of artistic and other projects-"taken on playing bass as a new hobby"; "we picked up watercolor where we all enjoy painting and sketching, fun way to indulge ourselves and be more creative instead of addictive screen time." In this way, not only was the home able to take on the multiple practices that the lockdown strategy imposed on it, but it was also able to accommodate additional new practices that the people took on. With this we culminate the presentation of the seven categories holding multiple activities undertaken by our respondents. Having approached the home under lockdown as a 'material arrangement' within which activities were undertaken, we have now presented seven interconnected categories, holding varied activities from thirty-one homes from around the world under the Covid19 lockdown.
Prior to that in the introduction we discussed how we saw the lockdown as a top-down strategy exerting a force on the home. To further the conceptual construct of our inquiry, we propose to view the two theoretical constructs in a combination as a conceptual gestalt of our contribution. This means, as the forces of the top down strategy of the lockdown were subject onto the material arrangement of the home, it resulted in the output of varied activities which we presented within seven interconnected practice activities. The top down forces of the lockdown onto the domestic realm results in household members to undertake activities related to both, their professional work responsibilities and ones related to domestic living causing a 'densification' of activities ( Figure 11). To overcome such a push, particular activities can be seen to hold 'tactical' characteristics in varying measures.

TACTICAL ACTS WITHIN THE LOCKDOWN HOME
We note above how the lockdown as a top down strategy necessitates a 'densification' of activities at home. We also mention the presented categories to hold a 'tactical' characteristic. De Certeau (De Certeau & Rendall, 2011) writes tactics are performed by less powerful actors. It can be understood as an adaptation to the environment, which has been created by the strategies of the powerful. For him, a tactic depends on time -it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized "on the wing." Whatever it wins, it does not keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into "opportunities." Thus, if the lockdown as force is a strategy imposed from top down, then particular activities can be seen as being performed tactically to overcome the forcing of professional work and domestic living in the pandemic home. Faced with the increased densification within the home, people feel the need to create separation between professional work and domestic living. Each of the seven activities discussed provision different potentials and concerns for separating professional work and domestic living. As the descriptions indicate the categories of, 'Moving Body', 'Displacing of Things and Spaces', 'Being with Flexible Patterns' and 'Demanding IT and Screen' provision tactical opportunities to separate, while 'Managing Roles, Responsibilities and Relations' and 'Dealing with Mixed Soundscapes' can be seen as a deterrence for separation. 'Experimenting Anew' we consider as a category of its own, emerging as agency between the dwellers adapting to the domestic realm subject to the lockdown. We see each of these categories holding potential and opportunity when considering 'Working from Home' as a 'Social Practice'.

CONCLUSION
We have now presented our analysis of data gathered from homes during the Covid19 pandemic. We interpret the lockdown as a top down strategy whose forces result in various activities within the home. Using a Practices Theory framework, we framed these activities within the home as a material arrangement. We then presented the activities within seven different categories using textual description and photographs. Then following De Certeau, we indicated that some activities work tactically better for separating professional work and domestic living. We see all activities emerging from specific characteristics of the domestic realm that are closely interconnected with categories we presented. With such a presentation of the categories we call on innovation specialists, product designers, architects and service designers to amplify potential tactical emergence or address its concerns when designing for working from home futures.