INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Comparative Perspective is a hybrid conference is funded by the Cultural Research Centre, under Department of Communications and New Media and jointly held with the Asia Research Institute at NUS, as a culminative part of a research project entitled Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study (NUS-IRB-2021-799; Project No. A-0008463-01-00), funded by MOE SSRTG, under Principal Investigator Associate Professor Lilian Chee, and Co-Investigators Professor Jane M. Jacobs, Professor Audrey Yue, and Dr. Natalie Pang.

November 29-30, 2023

Hybrid (Online via Zoom &

Seminar Room AS8 04-04)

Asia Research Institute

National University of Singapore

Along with the rest of the world, Singapore’s COVID-19 circuit breaker response required many to work-from-home, transforming conventional boundaries between work and home. Suddenly, societies world-wide were confronted with unforeseen challenges and unexpected silver linings of home-based work (HBW). Yet, the pandemic is only a catalyst for this phenomenon, as HBW has been around far beyond it, be it through traditional cottage industries and piecework, or telework spurred by the increased adoption of technology over the last few decades. In Singapore, HBW presents specific challenges particular to the high-density, high-rise environment that accounts for the majority of housing. Our city planning makes clear demarcations between spaces designed and zoned for work and those designed and zoned for living, where houses and housing estates have always been designed for unpaid home life, and not paid work.

What, then, makes the home and neighbourhood operable for various forms of home-based work, be it teleworking, home-based businesses, or freelancing? How do home-based workers adapt to the demands of today’s labour market? How does a resident furnish, use and service their home and their routines to shape the domestic environment for labour? What kind of amenities, environments, or communities near the home are needed to support their work life?

Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study (NUS-IRB-2021-799) is an inter-disciplinary project funded by MOE SSRTG, seeking to address these unanswered questions and to understand how home-based work is built into homes and neighbourhoods. The interdisciplinary team, comprising of researchers from the National University’s Department of Architecture, Department of Communications and New Media, and Yale-NUS College, meets this gap with an approach that bridges between the social sciences and design thinking.

PROJECT METHODS & APPROACHES

OBJECTIVE 1: GEOGRAPHIES

Chart and theorise the social geographies of home-based work, past and present: Types, Distribution, Contexts

what types of home-based work does Singapore support?

who is involved in this work and what kind of living do they make?

why are home-based workers doing this work?

where are they doing their work - in which housing types and neighbourhoods?

how has participation in home-based work changed over time – what is the history of home-based work?

what is the policy framework and public discourse around home-based work?

  • HOUSEHOLD SURVEY

    An n=1000 survey of current and past (pre-COVID) home-based workers has completed fieldwork and is in analysis stage. The survey includes data on the types of home-based work, demographic data on who is involved in home-based work, including why they do it, data on housing typology and digital access (hardware and services), and data on how they network through social media and the physical neighbourhood.

  • ONLINE SENTIMENTS AND PLATFORM STUDIES

    Reviews of the Terms of Service of freelance work platforms (e.g., Upwork, Freelancer.com, Fiverr) have been conducted to better understand online freelance work. Interviews of freelance platform-using home-based workers are also being conducted. Social media analysis of mentions of home-based work is also in progress.

  • STAKEHOLDER INTERVIEWS AND POLICY REVIEW

    Policy stakeholder interviews with government policy stakeholders and private providers (e.g., co-working space providers, work communication platform providers) have been conducted, to be complemented by a review of Singapore-based policy documents.

OBJECTIVE 2: ECOLOGIES

Document and theorise local ecologies of resilience and adaptability in home-based work: Spatial, Social, Digital

at home: does the home-worker’s housing and home-based ICT infrastructure adequately support their work? How do workers adjust their home to accommodate their work?

in place: how does home-based work interact with the neighbourhood? Does it contribute positively to the neighbourhood, by adding social or cultural capital (character, services, networks, heritage), or generating shared social and economic responsibilities? How do home-based workers use virtual networks (e.g., platforms)?

  • HOME VISITS AND COMMUNITY MAPPING

    Detailed home visit interviews are being conducted to understand how home-based workers have adapted their routines, social interactions, home spaces, and use of the neighbourhood due to home-based work. Outputs include elevation drawings of home workspaces, social maps, and neighbourhood maps. Observations have been conducted at areas where home-based workers may work (i.e., work pods, libraries, cafes), with intercept interviews in the works.

  • DOCUMENTARY FILM

    A filmmaker group (Third Street Studio) was contracted to capture the daily lives of four home-based workers, including their paid and unpaid routines, and how these routines interface with the architecture of the home and the wider neighbourhood. Filming of participants commenced in April 2023, and is estimated to conclude in September 2023.

OBJECTIVE 3: PATHWAYS

Propose pathways for accommodating home-based work: Design, Policy, Collaboration

  • ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN RESEARCH

    Two seminar-and-studio courses were conducted in 2021 and 2022 examining “Domestic Capital” and home-based work, where students investigated historical and contemporary situations and home-based work locally and globally.

    A third installment of seminar-and-studio courses is ongoing in academic year 2023-24.

  • STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOPS

    Stakeholder workshops will be organised to share findings of the study with government and other relevant stakeholders.

  • CONFERENCE AND EXHIBITION

    The organisation of a conference titled “Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Comparative Perspective” at NUS on 29-30 November 2023 is underway. A call for papers has been issued, and papers may be collated into a special issue on home-based work. An exhibition which features fieldwork from WP5&6 and speculative design work from WP8 will accompany the conference.

THE TEAM

LILIAN CHEE

Principal Investigator

Lilian Chee is Associate Professor of Architectural Theory and Design at the National University of Singapore, where she co-leads the Research by Design Cluster. She is also Academic Director of the NUS Museum. Her research connects experience and evidence with architectural representation, affect, transdisciplinary feminist politics, and creative practice methods. Recent work include Architecture and Affect (2023), Art in Public Space (2022), and Remote Practices (2022); the films Objects for Thriving (2022) and the award-winning 03-FLATS (2014).  She leads the Social Sciences Research Council-funded Foundations for Home-based Work (2021-24). She writes on affect, architectural representation and domesticity. 

Jane M JacobsCo-InvestigatorJane M Jacobs is Professor of Urban Studies and the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple Professor, Yale-NUS College. Her specialist area is social and cultural geography and she has published on postcolonial geographies, architecture and society, high-rise urbanism, and the politics of heritage. She is author of Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996), Cities of Difference (1998), Uncanny Australia (1998), and Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture (2014). Prof Jacobs manages the pleasant confusion of sharing her name with the influential, but now deceased, urbanist Jane Jacobs. Because of this, she has become an expert in professional disambiguation.

JANE M JACOBS

Co-Investigator

Jane M. Jacobs is currently an Honorary Research Fellow with the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne, and an Adjunct Professor with Monash Indonesia, Jakarta. She gained her PhD in human geography from University College London (1991) and has taught at The University of Melbourne (1991-2001), University of Edinburgh (2001-2011) and Yale-NUS College, Singapore (2012- 2023). Prof. Jacobs has published on postcolonial geographies, architecture and society, high-rise urbanism, and the politics of urban heritage. Her publications include Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City (1996 Routledge), Cities of Difference (1998 University of Minnesota Press, edited with Ruth Fincher), Uncanny Australia (1998 University of Melbourne Press, co-authored with Ken Gelder), and Buildings Must Die: A Perverse View of Architecture (2014 MIT Press, co-authored with Stephen Cairns).

Natalie PangCo-InvestigatorNatalie Pang is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Communications and New Media and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, both at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD in Information Technology at Monash University and worked on the world poll and subjective well-being projects at The Gallup Organization prior to entering academia. Her teaching and research focuses on internet and new media studies, including social media and citizenship, digital humanities and digital inclusion/well-being. Her latest publication on digital vulnerabilities amongst youths was awarded the 2020 Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award by the Association for Library and Information Science Education.

NATALIE PANG

Co-Investigator

Natalie Pang is an Associate Professor at the Department of Communications and New Media and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community, both at the National University of Singapore. She completed her PhD in Information Technology at Monash University and worked on the world poll and subjective well-being projects at The Gallup Organization prior to entering academia. Her teaching and research focuses on internet and new media studies, including social media and citizenship, digital humanities and digital inclusion/well-being. Her latest publication on digital vulnerabilities amongst youths was awarded the 2020 Bohdan S. Wynar Research Paper Award by the Association for Library and Information Science Education.

Audrey YueCo-InvestigatorAudrey Yue is Professor and Head of Department of Communications and New Media, and Deputy Director of the NUS Centre for Trusted Internet and Community  at the National University of Singapore. She researches in transnational Chinese media cultures; cultural policy and development, and; queer Asian studies. She has published 8 scholarly books and more than 100 refereed journal articles, book chapters and commissioned reports. She is Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Communication; Television and New Media; Sexualities and Feminist Media Studies. She has received more than SGD$6m in international competitive research grants from the Australian, Hong Kong and Canada Research Councils.

AUDREY YUE

Co-Investigator

Audrey Yue is Professor and Head of Department of Communications and New Media, and Deputy Director of the NUS Centre for Trusted Internet and Community  at the National University of Singapore. She researches in transnational Chinese media cultures; cultural policy and development, and; queer Asian studies. She has published 8 scholarly books and more than 100 refereed journal articles, book chapters and commissioned reports. She is Editorial Board Member of International Journal of Communication; Television and New Media; Sexualities and Feminist Media Studies. She has received more than SGD$6m in international competitive research grants from the Australian, Hong Kong and Canada Research Councils.

Researchers

Tan Yi-Ern Samuel
Research Associate
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Phua Yi Xuan, Anthea
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Ruella Che Xinrui
Research Assistant
Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Sim Jing Xi, Rachel
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Liyana Doneva
Research Assistant
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Collaborators

Erik L’Heureux FAIA
Vice Dean, Dean’s Chair Associate Professor
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore

Ong-Ker Shing
Associate Professor, BA (Arch) Programme Director
Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Principal of Lekker Architects

Hong Renyi
Assistant Professor
Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore

Image Credits (Top to Bottom): Rebecca Chong Shu Wen,Lim Kun Yi James, Tan Wei Jie, Eugene, Pennie Kwan Jia Wen