Abstract:  Christopher Alexander and Serge Chermayeff co-authored Community and Privacy: Toward a New Architecture of Humanism in 1963. This seminal contribution has largely been forgotten. Today, a human-centred framework is rarely discussed by researchers and practitioners, neither from a theoretical nor a pragmatic perspective. Nonetheless, some fundamental principles defined in that book 60 years ago are pertinent today in our hyper-connected world, and they have been illustrated by the need for human-centred housing during the recent Covid-19 pandemic. This commentary explains the spatial organization of domestic architecture that can support and sustain choices about private and public life in a world of global networks, intrusions of social media, and increasing video surveillance that challenge our autonomy and privacy.

Keywords:  boundaries; global network society; housing design; private-public interfaces; transition spaces

Published:   24 August 2023

Issue:   Vol 8, No 3 (2023): Assessing the Complex Contributions of Christopher Alexander