How does research in the social science and humanities impact our world? This is a question the inaugural “Ideas Festival 2024 – Insights from the Humanities and Social Sciences” seeks to address as it delves into the intricate challenges confronting Singapore and the region amid a period of disruptive change by drawing on the works of the local Social Science and Humanities (SSH) research community. Launched on 20 March 2024, this festival was organised by five of the Autonomous Universities (AUs) in Singapore and is supported by the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). It features 13 events over a month-long period.

NUS is the host of two events at the festival. One of them, Foundations of Home-Based Work, will take place from 12 April 2024 and will explore the spatial, social and technological dimensions of home-based work (HBW) in Singapore. This is done through looking at considerations such as the policy framework surrounding this type of work and exploring the following questions: who is involved in it; what kind of living do they make; in which housing types and neighbourhoods is this work occurring; and the pathways for accommodating HBW in our lives through design and policy recommendations. Accompanying these home-based work case studies and design propositions are a selection of student projects from Domestic Capital, an Options M.Arch 1 design studio at NUS Department of Architecture, led by A/P Lilian Chee.

Date: 12 April – 9 May 2024

Time: 9am - 9pm

Venue: NUS Central Library, Level 4 Seminar Room

This exhibition documents the variety of paid work conducted in the Singaporean home – from an electrical repair service operating out of a study table, to a burgeoning urban farm on an adjacent green corridor. The drawings are complemented by a series of speculative models that reimagine a 4-room public housing (HDB) flat as the site for four different types of home-based workers: a homebaker, a teleworker, a craftsperson, and an aesthetician. The models offer new typologies for the public housing flat that might adequately accommodate paid labour activities. Accompanying these home-based work case studies and design propositions are a selection of student projects from Domestic Capital, an Options M. Arch 1 design studio, under A/P Dr Lilian Chee.

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 Associate Professor Natalie Pang.