Working at home: tactics to reappropriate the home

1. INTRODUCTION

During industrialisation, paid productive work and home were ideologically and physically positioned in distinct spatial domains (Bauhardt 1997; Fraser 2016).¹ This division has shaped the way homes have ‘been conceived, designed, and inhabited in the last 150 years’ (Giudici 2018: 1204). Since then, the home has functioned as a private space for rest, recovery, leisure, intimacy, but not work (Hayden 1982; Weisman 1994). Homes today are designed for a homogeneous abstract society constituted by single nuclear families and have been mostly stripped off their work function (Giudici 2018; Lefebvre 1991). Giudici (2018: 1205) argues that ‘the very nature of these spaces remains unchallenged’.

Despite not being designed for work, homes never ceased to be important workspaces. There are approximately 260 million home-based workers globally, representing 8% of global employment (Bonnet et al. 2021). In the European Union, Finland had the second largest population of homeworkers in 2024, representing 22% of the country’s wage and salary earners (Eurostat 2025).² Thus, Finland represents an important context in which to study working at home. However, this phenomenon has received scant attention from architectural research, and how these homeworkers navigate the spatial constraints of their homes to accommodate their work remains uncharacterised.

Based on an in-depth qualitative multiple-case study comprised of 16 interviews and 13 home visits across Finland, this study investigates the home as a space of work in the Finnish context and examines the tactics homeworkers in Finland employ to appropriate home-spaces and create workspaces within them. As homes represent important spaces of work in Finland, understanding how workspaces are created within them can inform housing design approaches that better support homeworkers.

The paper is structured as follows. The next section presents existing research related to the home as a space of work followed by conceptualisations of (work)space, and the role of objects, bodies and embodied spatial practices in the creation of workspaces at home. The research methods are then presented. This is followed by the findings. Finally, implications for housing design are discussed.

2. WORKHOMES, BOUNDARIES AND SPATIAL TACTICS

In architectural research, homes where living/dwelling and paid productive work intertwine have been referred to as ‘workhomes’ (Holliss 2012). Much research into workhomes emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this time, studies focused on the spatial qualities of the makeshift homeworking spaces, such as lighting, thermal comfort, ergonomics and/or the spatial affordances of the home to enable work, such as social, spatial and digital connectivity, spaciousness, adaptability and flexibility of homes (Cuerdo-Vilches et al. 2021; Marco et al. 2022; McGee et al. 2023). Others sought to understand the social and physical infrastructures of the home and how these supported the ‘working body’ during pandemic lockdowns, such as infrastructures for heating/cooling, food preparation, food deliveries and care (Lewis et al. 2024). Some research looked at the time-spaces of the workhome, elucidating how individuals working at home managed the spaces when used by other household members and other activities unfolding simultaneously to paid productive work (Orman et al. 2023; Yue et al. 2025). Other studies focused on the way work at home blurred the boundaries between the public and private realms (Xu et al. 2023). Due to social distancing measures, however, all these studies were mediated by digital tools and spaces and focused solely on knowledge workers who would otherwise work in an office environment. In architectural research, only a few studies of workhomes have been based on site visits and on diverse types of work (Holliss 2012). Thus, the present study contributes to workhome research with empirical cases based on situated research.

Though workhomes have not received much attention from architectural scholarly work prior to the pandemic, some important research is noteworthy. For example, in the UK, Holliss (2015, 2017) has investigated workhomes as an architectural typology for more than a decade, developing important characterisations. Based on the dominant function, Holliss (2012) identifies three types of workhomes:

• ‘work-dominated’ are those in which the worker lives at their workplace

• ‘home-dominated’ are cases in which work takes place at the worker’s residence

• workhomes where living/dwelling and workplace elements of the buildings have direct access onto the street are dominated as ‘equal status’.

Furthermore, workhomes may present different degrees of separation between workspace and home-space (Holliss 2012). These include:

• ‘Live-nearby’, which represents cases in which working and dwelling each have their own space, own entrance and take place in different, yet closely located buildings.

• ‘Live-adjacent’ refers to situations whereby there is a larger separation between both functions, and while these functions take place within the same building, the domestic space and the workspace each have their own entrance.

• ‘Live-with’ refers to situations in which the domestic and the work function of the home ‘are carried out in a single built envelope with a single entrance onto the street’ (Holliss 2012: 16). During the pandemic, many homes became live-with types of workhomes overnight.

An important theme discussed especially in relation to live-with types of home-dominated workhomes is the creation of boundaries. Such research focuses on understanding the way homeworkers either fully integrate or separate their ‘work selves’ and their ‘home selves’ and the tactics employed to create either mental or physical boundaries to be able to separate between the domestic space and the workspaces (Felstead & Jewson 2002; Goodwin et al. 2023; Holliss 2012; Nippert-Eng 1996; Wapshott & Mallett 2012). By tactics, the present study refers to the different modes and innumerable practices of using, making and reappropriating ‘the space organised by techniques of socio-cultural production’ (de Certeau 1984: xiv; Tonkiss 2004). Examples of tactics to separate or integrate work and home were discussed by Nippert-Eng (1996), who in the 1990s observed how individuals created mental boundaries to fully separate ‘work’ and ‘home’ using distinct (analogue) paper calendars or key chains, one for work and another for home. Similarly, Felstead & Jewson (2002) observed how some homeworkers would have two different landline phones at home, using one exclusively for work and the other exclusively for non-work-related life. In more recent research, Goodwin et al. (2023) discuss how home/work boundaries are also transgressed when objects usually related to the domestic sphere (e.g. family photos) are positioned in the homeworking environment.

While boundaries are discussed in much research of the workhome, what constitutes a (bounded) workspace at home is a theme that has been poorly addressed in existing workhome research. The cases mentioned above foreground the importance of objects in creating mental boundaries. Little discussed are the role of objects in creating workspaces, the processual and performative dimensions of workhomes, and how the ‘working body’ (Lewis et al. 2024) and its actions are active agents in the (work)space-making process. Some of these dimensions are explored in organisational studies (Best & Hindmarsh 2019; Beyes & Steyaert 2012; Munro & Jordan 2013). The following section draws different strands of research together to discuss the role of objects and the body in the creation of (work)spaces.

3. WORKSPACES, OBJECTS AND BODIES

To understand how workspaces (at home) are created, it is important to understand space not as a mere container or solely as something material, but also as something that is socially produced, being simultaneously a social construct and the materialisation of the ‘social being’ (Lefebvre 1991: 102). The meaning of home is also more than a physical space and its characteristics, but has also emotional and socio-cultural connotations (Blunt 2005; Marco et al. 2022). Space and the home are, thus, also something ideological, full of meaning, relational, localised and historically mediated (Lefebvre 1991). Conceptualising space in this way allows an understanding of how the spaces of the home are—or can be—appropriated, repurposed and resignified to create workspaces.

Mobilising Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualisation of space and de Certeau’s (1984) concept of tactics, Munro & Jordan (2013) observed how street performers used props (objects) as a tactic to create performance workspaces in spaces otherwise not designed or built for performances, such as the street. Thus, one way in which workspaces are created is by using objects.

The role of objects in creating the construct of (domestic interior) space and endowing it with meaning can be understood as:

Work objects—things—play an important role in signifying what constitutes a workspace at home, e.g. the introduction of a desk, an office chair and electronic devices to replicate or mimic a traditional office workspace (Wapshott & Mallett 2012; Yue et al. 2025). Wapshott & Mallett (2012) refer to this tactic as mimesis. However, not all homeworkers conduct office types of work that require a desk, a chair and electronic devices, yet their work objects remain uncharacterised.

Munro & Jordan (2013) also observed that street performers temporarily transform streets into performance workspaces by performing in them and in interaction with their audience. By appropriating and using the street for their practices, street performers produce a new space with an endowed new meaning, and their audiences help create a bounded workspace. Similarly, studying how tour guides created workspaces in museums, Best & Hindmarsh (2019) also found that guides and their audiences ‘configure and reconfigure workspaces’ together; guides use their bodies to communicate to their audience where to position themselves to better observe the expositions, thereby creating spatial boundaries that configure the ‘dynamic and fundamentally interactional definition of the workspace’ (Best & Hindmarsh 2019: 252). Thus, another way in which workspaces are produced is through the working body.

Indeed, performing, guiding and working communicate action and are intrinsically embodied spatial practices (Best & Hindmarsh 2019; Munro & Jordan 2013). Beyes & Steyaert (2012: 47) argue that through these practices ‘space is choreographed into being’ and suggest that (work)space is thus ‘processual and performative, open-ended and multiple, practiced and of the everyday’ that is reactivated with our bodies.

4. METHODS

This study is based on a qualitative in-depth multiple case study (Yin 2003: 181). Drawing on prior research that housing should accommodate a diverse population of homeworkers (Nisonen et al. 2025), the research purposely sought to capture diverse individuals and household compositions, work practices, working modes, housing, and living contexts throughout Finland (Table 1).

Between April and October 2024, 13 home visits and 16 situated semi-structured interviews were conducted. Research participants were recruited through the authors’ networks, snowballing approach and by contacting different associations. Most participants were conducting paid productive work at home. Most research participants worked at home before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to the interviews, the research participants were informed about the implications of the interview and the use of photographic documentation. In accordance with research ethics procedures, informed consent was obtained from all research participants.

The semi-structured interviews had an approximate duration of two hours and focused on the following: (1) the individual and their work; (2) their home and their workspace; and (3) the neighbourhood and support services. Interviews were voice-recorded and documented with photographs and sketches, capturing the individuals in their workspaces, the spaces for work at home and the main work objects. Workspaces were measured and documented with architectural drawings.

Two researchers were present during the interview: researcher 1 asked most questions and took photographs of work artefacts/tools, the individuals and anything deemed important to document; researcher 2 drew sketches of the space, measured and photographed the spaces, and asked questions related to spatial qualities.

Interviews took place in the main homeworking space. Initially, the interview remained rather static, with researchers and participants sitting. However, when participants were asked about their work objects, it prompted them to move around the space, allowing the researchers to observe the interaction between the homeworker and their workspace and witness how individuals choreographed workspaces into being.

Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Although the interviews were analysed manually using Atlas.ti, the conceptual themes explored in this article emerged during the interviews, as researchers observed participants’ workspaces, listened to their stories, documented their work objects and witnessed how they transformed their home environment into workspaces. Transcriptions were analysed in parallel to the photographs and researchers’ notes. Some of the analytical themes build on the existing literature but are expanded introducing new insights from the present research.

5. FINDINGS

Homeworkers employed three main tactics to create workspaces at home: (1) positioning work in the home; (2) creating workspaces with objects; and (3) choreographing spaces into being with their body. These are unpacked below.

5.1 POSITIONING WORK AT HOME

In this study, the domestic and the work function of the home were closely intertwined. Thus, with exception of Sulo, whose workspace is detached from the home, all cases fall into the category of ‘live-with’ as defined by Holliss (2012). However, it was observed that even within live-with design strategies of separation, different degrees of separation were created depending on which spaces of the home individuals appropriated for work. From the interviews, four key tactics to position work at home were identified: separating, nesting, merging and integrating (Figure 1).

Figure 1

For example, Henna, Seela, Meri, Virpu and Daniel positioned their workspace in a separate dedicated room that was physically bounded and separated from other rooms of the home by walls and a door. Teresa and Olivia nested the workspace in a section of a room that has other functions (e.g. bedrooms). Here the workspace is not physically bounded yet remains mentally separated from the other function(s) of the room. Paula, Helene, Juuli, Uma, Miro, Tita and Roberta merge the workspace in a room with other functions, and both domestic and work activities are not spatially separated. However, the individuals make use of the same space and often use the same objects for work, but at different moments. In the case of Paju, the workspace is fully integrated, in one way or another, into the entire home.

While some positioned themselves in one space, most individuals used multiple spaces depending on work tasks, spatial features and affordances of the home, and personal preferences.

5.2 CREATING WORKSPACES WITH OBJECTS

Once positioned somewhere at home, participants created workspaces by using objects in different ways: mimicking traditional workspaces with a desk, introducing work artefacts other than a desk, using ordinary objects to alter physical space and by intermittently using ordinary objects for work. In the following subsections, each tactic is described illustrated with two vignettes accompanied by photographs or short quotations from the interviews.

5.2.1 Mimicking traditional workspaces with a desk

Often homeworkers mimic traditional workspaces at home by introducing desks, office chairs and electronic devices (computers, laptops, monitors). Particularly, participants having a separate dedicated space for work and nested workspaces mimicked this configuration.

Seela is one example. She works mostly from home, where her workspace is in a separate dedicated room at the back of the house. Upon entering the room, it is evident that this is a space for work (Figure 2). Here, Seela has a squared-shaped desk on which she has placed her work artefacts, including a monitor connected to a laptop, a printer, books and a lamp. In addition, Seela sits on an ergonomic stool elevating the atmosphere of a traditional office workspace.

Figure 2

Olivia’s workspace is nested in the bedroom, and it is only through work objects and mimesis that it is communicated that this is a workspace (Figure 3). As a photojournalist, part of her work implicates working outside the home, but the home functions as a base where she returns to complete and continue her work tasks. Even though there is a separate room that her husband often works from, Olivia has positioned her workspace on a corner in their bedroom. To create her workspace at home, she mimics a traditional workspace by introducing several desks on which stand notebooks, a monitor connected to a laptop, a keyboard, a mouse and a work agenda. However, she also introduces personal objects with sentimental value, including a desk that belonged to her grandfather, artistic postcards, and plants to personalise the space and create a space of her own. It is through these objects that Olivia created a non-physical mental spatial boundary between her space and the space she shares with, and is also used by, her husband.

Figure 3

5.2.2 Introducing work artefacts other than a desk

Although several of the research participants worked on desks and mimicked traditional workspaces, not all conducted ‘traditional work’ nor worked on desks. Therefore, their workspaces do not mimic traditional office spaces, making it harder to recognise the workspace at home. This difficulty was compounded by the fact that some participants often also used work objects for personal purposes and domestic tasks (or vice versa). It is only upon further observation and during the conversations that the work objects became visible and that researchers began to see these home-spaces as workspaces. In these cases, it was the introduction of work objects that created the workspaces, and these workspaces tended to be merged with other functions of different rooms of the home or even fully integrated in the home.

One example is Tita, a self-employed cook and caterer who runs her own business and prepares food at home and from her home kitchen, dining room and living room. She caters for events and runs a small food truck during the summer, but even then, she prepares some food at home. Tita likes to work at home; it is her ‘solace’, she mentions before showing researchers around the kitchen, which at first glance seems like a regular kitchen. It is then that the researchers begin to observe all sorts of work objects: pots and pans that hang from the walls or fill several kitchen cabinets; there are three different types of cooking stoves (wooden, electric and gas-powered). The kitchen appliances, she comments, are more powerful than would be used in regular households, where preparing food is not a source of income or professional endeavour (Figure 4). While walking through Tita’s kitchen, the researchers observe and step on an anti-slip carpet, placed there to follow safety regulations, a reason she also keeps cleaning supplies far from the cooking areas. She then walks the researchers into her living room, where large edible plants stand by the window, whose fruits or leaves she uses in her dishes and likes the smell-scape they create.

Figure 4

A special case was that of Paju, a woman in her mid-50s who runs a daycare business from her single-family house in a small town in Finland. As a childminder, Paju’s work is integrated into the entire home, from the dining table to the bedroom. During the day, Paju’s dining table is where the children will be fed; Paju’s bedroom is where the children will take naps; the children’s playroom is where Paju works out during the evening; Paju’s front yard is where the children will play on the swings and in the sandbox. Not only do all these spaces have dual use but also some of the work objects. For example, Paju’s refrigerator will be where her and the children’s food will be kept cool; her dishwasher is where she will wash her and the children’s dishes, etc. One of the few objects only used by the children are toys. Comically, these toys communicate that this home is a workspace (Figure 5).

Figure 5

5.2.3 Altering physical space with ordinary objects

Depending on the work task or the spatial or material conditions of the home, sometimes homeworkers must modify the physical arrangement of the home to be able to work. Often, these modifications are temporary, small and done utilising ordinary objects which would otherwise probably not be used for work.

How space is physically altered using ordinary objects was represented well in Varpu and Daniel’s workspaces. They are a couple living together in a rental apartment working predominantly from home and sharing a workspace positioned in a separate dedicated room for work at home. This is the smallest room in the apartment and where both spend most of their working hours. Their workspace mimics a traditional office space: there are two white desks, both height-adjustable, multiple screens—a large curved one on Daniel’s desk, two flat ones on Varpu’s—dock stations are used to connect their laptops to the monitors, and all sorts of work paraphernalia (pencils, pens, notebooks). Daniel is an operations technology and information technology (IT) integrator and Varpu a service desk specialist, which she explained ‘is like an IT helpdesk’. Though they are both highly digital remote workers, they are nonetheless both bound to their workspace for different reasons. Daniel prefers and requires working with a large monitor connected to his laptop as he must have multiple screens and digital applications open at the same time. Varpu needs multiple monitors but is mostly bound to her workspace to be immediately available to respond to phone calls, emails and chat queries. It is Varpu’s phone calls that makes it challenging to work in the same space as her partner, because Varpu handles confidential information, such as passwords and/or personal data. The lack of a sound barrier is the biggest challenge of their workspace. However, drawing on her own creativity, Varpu created a makeshift dividing wall and (sort of) sound barrier using a cloth rack covered with textiles: one side (hers) is colourful and the other (Daniel’s) is white (Figure 6). It is through this tactic that Varpu divides and transforms their workspace to accommodate her and her partner’s work needs.

Figure 6

A more ephemeral way of physically altering space with objects was represented by Miro, a freelance television actor and doctoral researcher in his mid-20s. Although some parts of Miro’s work take place in recording studios, he works predominantly from home. However, nothing about his home mimics a traditional workspace and the work objects are not immediately apparent either. His workspace is merged with the dining and living rooms, which are only transformed into workspaces when work objects are in use. In a way, a workspace is activated through these objects, but, as in other cases, work objects can very well be artefacts used in their domestic, private life too, such as a television and a mobile phone. One work object unique to Miro is his scripts, and as a freelance television actor, one of his work tasks includes creating a casting ‘self-tape’. He describes this activity as ‘an interesting thing to do in your home’ because he does not have a recording studio there or elsewhere. To record a self-tape, Miro explains:

I would move this table there [closer to a wall] to pile up this chair there [pointing at the table] and then put my mobile phone camera, so I get it on my eye level and then move stuff out from the wall over there, then make like to get a clear canvas from the wall.

Miro is creating a makeshift recording studio at home by taking ordinary objects found in different rooms, such as the table and the chair, and anything else he might need to obtain the necessary height to record. In this way, the home-space is physically altered and transformed with ordinary objects into a workspace: a temporary recording studio.

5.2.4 Intermittently using ordinary objects for work

Not only are ordinary objects utilised to physically alter space, but also ordinary objects might intermittently be used as work objects. A common example are dining tables temporarily becoming desks, then dining tables again—a process happening multiple times a day.

This is the case of Helene, a freelance artist who does her artwork at home. She does not have a dedicated room for her work and will work in different parts of her home depending on the work task. She does her to-do list, journaling and ideating work from the living room; she takes online meetings from her bedroom, where she and her partner have a desk; painting takes place in her kitchen. Inasmuch, her workspaces are merged with other functions of the spaces of the home (kitchen and living room) and nested in the bedroom. Helene likes painting in her kitchen. First because it is a space that has a door, which she can shut if she needs to feel privacy. Second, because it has a ‘very pleasant’ natural light to work with. The kitchen has a large wooden table covered by a red–white striped tablecloth and which is transformed into a drawing table during worktime by removing the tablecloth, then into a dining table at lunchtime by replacing the tablecloth, then again into a drawing table until it is time to conclude work and the table will be a dining table once again. When Helene must work on larger canvases, she will use one of the kitchen walls as an easel and a drinks-serving trolley will become the table on which she will place her tools and materials. There is a painting on the wall which will be removed to place the painting canvas and the flower vase on the trolley will be temporarily substituted with her work tools. In this way, the kitchen will be transformed into an ephemeral workspace, and ordinary objects are transformed into work objects intermittently (Figure 7).

Figure 7

This study found that the boundaries of the workhome are porous and work can transgress the domestic space and make use of ordinary objects outside it. This is well represented by Juuli, a woman in her mid-40s who works in a non-governmental organisation (NGO) while also finishing her master’s degree. Juuli has a disability and uses a wheelchair. Though she sometimes must travel, Juuli works predominantly from home. One of her workspaces is merged in her bedroom and the other in her living–dining space (Figure 8). However, sometimes to deal with the isolation of working at home, Juuli leaves home to work in the yard of the neighbouring school and uses its ping pong table as a desk, because it has the right height to fit her wheelchair. On the ping pong table, she will set her laptop and spread her books, also transforming it into a work object intermittently.

Figure 8

The above cases illustrate how individuals use objects in different and creative ways as a tactic to create workspaces at home. Some stories reveal that the home, while physically isolated by its walls, is not fully bounded by them. Other stories, however, also depict something performative in the workspace-making process. Though researchers could not visually document Juuli moving from home to the school yard, placing her wheelchair under the ping pong table, setting up her work items and working on it, her narration illustrates this performativity. Miro’s setting up his makeshift recording studio is very performative; so is Helene’s setting of the tablecloth. These exemplify moments in which participants’ bodies are foregrounded as they choreographed workspaces into being, as discussed in more depth below.

5.3 CHOREOGRAPHING WORKSPACES INTO BEING WITH THE BODY

This section explores two moments in which workspaces were choreographed into being: the moment individuals physically modified space and the moment of working in a space. Building on Beyes & Steyaert (2012), these will be described in ‘slow motion’ to highlight their processual character.

5.3.1 The moment individuals physically modify space

The following example illustrates how the human body moves and moves objects to transform the home-space into a workspace.

Teresa is a doctoral researcher who works from home. One of her workspaces is nested in her bedroom located on the second floor of her home, and it mimics a traditional workspace. The other is merged in her dining room. Most of the interview was held in her bedroom workspace, which Teresa does not like because it has not yet been renovated to her taste. In addition, because the only window is positioned on the slanted roof, it is often covered with snow during the winter, darkening the room, and being on the roof, it does not allow her eyes to ‘just go wander […] when I look left, there’s no life whatsoever’. For this reason, she prefers working in her dining room, where there is a window that allows her to ‘gaze the street and see people passing by’. Once the interview ends, the researchers follow Teresa back downstairs so that she can show her preferred workspace. While the researchers stand by an ordinary dining table, Teresa goes to grab her laptop, mouse and eyeglasses, all of which are on her backpack hanging in the hallway. She returns and places them on the dining table. Standing, she turns to the right, leans down and grabs a computer screen and places it on the dining table, connects cables to the laptop, and connects the laptop and monitor to the electricity source; suddenly, this dining room has become a workspace (Figure 9). Not only was Teresa creating an ephemeral workspace with objects, but also she was choreographing a workspace into being with her body. In this process, Teresa’s body was brought to the fore, becoming visible and an important element in the making of space—the body as a user of space and also its producer.

Figure 9

5.3.2 The moment individuals work in (and move through) a space

Homeworkers create a workspace the moment they are working in a space. The meaning of workspace was further expanded by Miro, the television actor, who explains that at some point in his acting career, he learned that his body is his workspace, too. Seeing the human body in this way also has methodological implications; it implies to ‘see’ even more subtle events of spacing and thinking differently about what counts as a (work)space.

As an actor, one of Miro’s work tasks consists of memorising his scripts and practising, something he often does while walking from one place to another or at home. As he is explaining this, he stands up, starts to say some lines as quickly as possible, ‘kaikki on kahvissa itsensä näköistä’, with his mobile phone on one hand taking time while the other hand moves at the pace of his words (Figure 10). Through this performance, which could have happened anywhere, but was happening in the free space between the dining table and the sofa in the living room, a workspace was being choreographed into being.

Figure 10

While researchers could witness this moment, other moments of spacing were not visible during the interview. When asking Seela about managing between work and household tasks, she mentions that if she is in the process of writing, she often needs to take a break from the screen to be able to think. Sometimes, the break entails stepping out of the dedicated workspace, walking around the house, moving towards the laundry room located downstairs, putting in some laundry in the washing machine and continue her walk through the house, all the while thinking about the writing issue.

Thinking while moving creates an intersection between worker, work and space, whereby thinking is the work in progress and the space through which the body moves is temporarily activated as a workspace. However, the work that happens in the mind cannot be contained in the home. Olivia, for example, takes her dog for an hour-long walk where there are trees and lakes. This time is also used to think and brainstorm new project ideas, and the space through which she walks and thinks becomes a workspace, even if unbound and extremely transient.

Other participants also reported doing some work activities outdoors, such as taking online and face-to-face meetings while walking in the forest or conducting some physical activity outdoors to get into the work-mood or to unwind after work.

6. DISCUSSION

This study delved into the homes of individuals working at home in Finland to investigate the ways they appropriated the spaces of the home and created workspaces. It mobilised the concept of tactics to highlight that the multiple ways in which homeworkers appropriate the home and create workspaces within and drew on Lefebvre’s (1991) conceptualisation of space to understand how workspaces are created with objects and bodies. The study found that these homeworkers employed three main tactics. First, they positioned the workspace somewhere at home, either in a separate dedicated room for work, nested in a room with other functions, merged with the functions of a room, or fully integrated work in the home (Figure 1). Some appropriate different home-spaces for different work tasks. When nested, merged and fully integrated, workspaces were often difficult to recognise and define; it was only through objects and the working body that space was transformed, indeed activated, into a workspace. Related, the second tactic was creating workspaces with objects. While some homeworkers introduced a desk into a room to mimic a traditional office workspace, others introduced work objects and paraphernalia into the home, while others intermittently used ordinary objects for work. Some homeworkers also used ordinary objects to physically alter the space and make it function for work. During the interviewing process, the researchers witnessed serendipitous moments in which homeworkers transformed the home-space into a workspace with their bodies. Choreographing spaces into being was then the third tactic employed, happening the moment in which they physically modified space and the moment they worked and moved through space. These tactics illustrate that both objects and individuals are active agents in the space- and meaning-making processes of space.

A key limitation of this study relates to the small number of participants included in the research and the diversity of work types and/or home typologies within this group. This diversity does not allow the research to distinguish similarities or differences in the tactics employed between participants conducting the same type of work or living in similar housing conditions. Future research could delve deeper into the tactics employed only by one type of worker (e.g. cooks or remote office workers) or only homeworkers living in one type of housing (e.g. apartments). However, including a diverse group of participants allowed the research to develop a broader understanding of what constitutes a workspace at home beyond the home-office typology and to understand the diverse spatial needs of a diverse group of homeworkers.

Another limitation relates to conducting research in people’s homes, which is always a privilege and must be performed respectfully. Often, the research visit was restricted to the homeworking environment, without accessibility to other spaces of the home to fully grasp the relationship between the workspace and other spaces. Future research could map these spatial relationships.

7. CONCLUSIONS

Based on in-depth qualitative research, this study investigated the tactics homeworkers employ to create workspaces at home in the Finnish context. Findings illustrated that homeworkers create workspaces by positioning work somewhere at home through the intense and diverse use of objects, and by choreographing workspaces into being with the body.

This study builds on and contributes to existing research of workhomes and workspaces in the following ways. First, it contributes with empirical and diverse cases to in-depth situated studies of the spatial dimension of workhomes. Second, it expands existing characterisations of workhomes, particularly of home-dominated live-with types. It illustrated that even within the interior of the home, different degrees of separation between work and home are created depending on where at home workspaces are positioned. Third, it contributes to understanding how homeworkers create boundaries to separate/integrate work and home through objects, and that these boundaries are often created but also transgressed by the working body. Fourth, it contributes to ongoing conceptualisations of (work)space and the role of both objects and bodies in this process. This research offers an expanded reading of (work)space as something material/physical but also processual, dynamic and performative—something socially created and activated through the (working) body and the meaning and uses of (work) objects. This also contributes to emerging theorisations about the role of ‘things’ conceptually constructing the domestic interior and theories of inhabited space.

The study demonstrated that workspaces at home are not always evident nor static but are performative and processual and usually activated through work objects and the working body. In contrast to what Giudici (2018) stated, the nature of the spaces of the home are constantly challenged by its users, who employ diverse tactics to navigate the spatial constraints of contemporary homes. Despite homes not being designed for work, the cases in this study demonstrated that, nonetheless, work takes place in and shapes the spaces of the home. Careful housing design that acknowledges that work takes place at home will create better workhomes and homeworking environments that support a diversity of work and workers.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS

D.M.B.: As the main author of the article, made a substantial contribution to the conception and design of the research, and the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data for the work. S.P.: made a substantial contribution to the conception and design of the research and contributed to the drafting of the manuscript. E.N.: made a substantial contribution to the acquisition, analysis and interpretation of the data for the study, and contributed to the drafting of the manuscript. J.V.: made a substantial contribution to the design of data acquisition and contributed to the interpretation of the data for the study as well as drafting of the manuscript.

COMPETING INTERESTS

The authors have no competing interests to declare. S.P. is a member of the Buildings & Cities editorial board, but had no role in, and no influence on, the review and editorial decision processes.

DATA ACCESSIBILITY

Due to privacy data protection, the data are currently not available.

ETHICAL APPROVAL

By the principles of ethical assessment by the Tutkimuseettinen neuvottelukunta (TENK), this study did not require ethical review or approval (https://tenk.fi/en/ethical-review). The research participants were given a pseudonym. Additional permission from the participants was sought to use photographs where the individual was present, but their faces were blurred to uphold anonymity.