This blog draws on the explorations of the undergraduate design studio ARCH201-Architectural Design IV, taught at the Department of Architecture at the University of Cyprus.The course introduces students to the concepts of “home” and “dwelling”. A specific theme relevant to these concepts is explored each year.

Students are asked to design a “home” in a different context each time, that addresses the practicalities of everyday living while responding at the same time to the owner’s idiosyncrasy, personality and dreams. Understanding the relationship between the spatial organization of the house and the social life of the inhabitants is one of the central challenges of this studio. We are interested in the ways in which the “home”, as a spatial form, relates to the social, the cultural, the individual in the context of the increasingly divided, complex and differentiated experiences of contemporary life.