What can we expect from our housing?

In light of growing social inequality and the urgent need to take action against climate change, has having a comfortable home become a luxury? Surveys carried out by experts at EPFL and the University of Geneva suggest that comfortable living conditions aren’t necessarily incompatible with more sustainable, socially responsible lifestyles – provided that urban policy is oriented in that direction.

Who currently enjoys comfortable housing?

Until the mid-19th century, factors now seen as basic elements of comfort in Western societies were the preserve of the middle and upper class. But since then, everyday citizens have come to expect things like privacy, adequate surface area, running water, temperature control and well-functioning appliances. Expectations for these amenities have become higher than ever before.

By a number of measures, housing conditions in Switzerland are some of the best in the world. But income inequality and the lack of affordable housing in the country mean poorer families are excluded from homes built to these standards. At the same time, climate and energy experts are calling attention to the high environmental cost of many conveniences enjoyed by the rich. And because modern notions of domestic comfort were derived largely from a patriarchal system, much of the effort has fallen to women. In light of all this, what can policymakers do to provide more equitable access to comfortable, sustainable housing?

New fronts in the housing battle

A first step would be to alleviate “home saturation” – the accumulation of professional and family activities carried out in the domestic space. We saw during the pandemic lockdowns that homes stop feeling like safe havens when they’re also the place of activities previously carried out in shared structures, such as offices, schools and healthcare facilities. We constantly expect more and more from our housing: more space, more furniture and fittings, more electronics, better connectivity and more appealing aesthetics. But if we want people to feel comfortable in their homes, we need instead to adopt a minimalist, decluttered approach.

Innovative architectural designs and local initiatives can help, but they won’t be enough to reshape society’s expectations for housing.

A second step, building on the first, would be to create more common spaces and encourage the sharing of equipment and energy, so that citizens can pool their resources to ensure decent conditions for all. We’ve already seen examples of this in habitat and energy cooperatives, demonstrating that communities of different sizes can effectively allocate and manage the resources needed for well-being at home.

Innovative architectural designs and local initiatives can help, but they won’t be enough to reshape society’s expectations for housing. Many of today’s standards for decent housing were made possible through social struggle; modernizing those standards will require structural shifts and can only be done as an integral part of a broader social movement, whether in the area of the environment, gender equality, decent working hours or the right to housing. All these issues will contribute to the transformation of what exactly constitutes “home sweet home.”

Garance Clément, postdoc at EPFL’s Urban Sociology Laboratory and at the University of Geneva’s Sociology Research Institute

• This article was published in three local dailies – La Côte (Vaud Canton), Le Nouvelliste (Valais Canton) and Arcinfo (Neuchâtel Canton) – in May 2022 under a joint initiative between EPFL and ESH Médias to showcase the R&D being carried out at EPFL on advanced construction techniques.