Strayed Homes: Cultural Histories of the Domestic in Public

Strayed Homes explores the blurring of public and private space. But whereas most writing about the public/private focusses on urban space, Strayed Homes focusses on the domestic – exploring those overlooked, everyday places where private and intimate activities take place in public.

With four chapters set in four small, liminal spaces: the launderette, the greasy spoon, the fire escape, and the sleeper train - the book is part architectural history, part cultural history. It follows a series of allusions and impressions, to explore how films, adverts, books and anecdotes shape experiences of everyday architecture. Making a case for the poetic interpretation of space, the book can be used as a sourcebook for architects and designers as well as for theorists. It invites the reader – by embracing the notion of the 'strayed home' – to think again about concepts that are commonly invoked in the fields of architecture and urbanism, such as 'private', 'public' and 'home', and to rethink the emotional state of leaving home, intimacy in public, and lonely dreaming.