This thesis explores how familiar objects such as the homely recipe book hold our affection and shape our personal worlds. It takes its inspiration from a body of literature that only recently has explored in detail our relationship to mundane objects, subjecting these objects - and our feelings about them - to a serious scrutiny. The thesis is concerned with a material culture that takes us into domestic space, and to the objects within it to which we attach importance. Specifically, the inquiry explores the cultural mores surrounding the practice of cooking and writing food. It considers the interplay between public and private, male and female, self and other and the significance of the domestic space in each case. It asks how the culture of the recipe book helps shape female domestic identity, that is, the personae of women within the home, and as wives and mothers, as opposed to their public personae. This thesis studies the (until-recently) under-researched yet broad field - previously regarded as both too trivial and too formulaic to merit study - of homely recipe books. It considers the large collection of historic manuscripts of this genre available at the National Library of South Africa, in particular the collection of Louis C Leipoldt, and it regards these as part of a continuum with my own mother's recipe book. An important leitmotif of the study is the evolution of the recipe book from manuscript to printed, and from single copy to mass-produced text. On the one hand using recipe books as historical sources for the study of food and material culture, this study is also concerned with the affective impact of these texts, and more specifically what they say about the individuals and societies that made them. A central theme of the study is the role played in women's lives by the collecting and archiving of recipes through hand-written texts. My purpose is twofold: first, to bring these hidden histories to light, opening the kitchen door to the lives of ordinary women through their private writings; and second, to explore why the practice of writing food continues to be relevant into the present. I trace how homely recipe books are both exercises in personal authority as well as material traces of women's internal worlds and archives of the communities in which they exist. This study ultimately sees the return of the personalised recipe book as a route back to a positive and affirming female domestic identity, through a practice which is both therapeutic and self-actualising and which, through the act of archiving, brings together both past and present.

This dissertation investigates the problematic locality ¡§home¡¨ and its relationship with the female protagonists in Doris Lessing¡¦s novels by studying the interrelationship between gender and space. By applying the concepts of feminist geographers Linda McDowell and Doreen Masssey, this dissertation interprets how Lessing develops her childhood home, the source of nostalgia, to a fluid and dynamic domain in her imaginary world. I will argue that Lessing¡¦s women break through the arbitrary distinctions between the domestic and public, feminine and masculine, within and without the boundaries by infusing into contemporary elements such as mobility and globalization of women. The first chapter introduces the motivation of my dissertation, the intertextuality between these texts, then literature reviews on Lessing scholars, and on the speculative aspect of feminist geography, and finally the methodology and organization of the whole dissertation. In Chapter Two, the impact of domestic space on female subjectivity is the focus in The Grass Is Singing. Gender, race, and class barriers are violated by the female protagonist Mary Turner when she transgress the boundaries between domestic and public, white and black, master and servant. Chapter Three deals with the self-development of the female protagonist in Summer before the Dark. The female subjectivity must be reconstructed through the process of negotiation between the private and the public spaces. The heroine Kate Brown undertakes an ordeal physically and spiritually to achieve her self-awakening in sexuality and autonomy. Chapter Four focuses on women¡¦s anxiety about their identities in urban city in The Golden Notebook. The sense of insecurity in both private and public spaces is manifested in Anna Wulf, her writing, and her reflection of sexual relationship. In the fifth chapter, three essential factors that affect the concepts of home in this novel: time-space compression, globalization, and the changing relationship between biological mothers and their daughters are discussed in Lessing¡¦s latest full-length novel The Sweetest Dream. The final chapter is a conclusion of the whole dissertation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--School of History, Technology and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2004. Directed by Andrea Tone. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 325-371).

Thesis (M.Arch.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Zugl.: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2005

Space is socially constructed, reflecting and reinforcing the nature of gender relations in society. This is evident in nineteenth century architecture, particularly domestic architecture, where space was structured around the ideology of respectability. Within the discipline of interior architecture, this study investigates the relationship between the Victorian (1837-1901) ideology of respectability and the gendering of domestic space. The problem was investigated by means of a literature review; thereafter, a set of criteria derived from the literature were applied in a critical analysis of selected examples of Victorian domestic architecture, interior space and the decoration thereof. The findings indicated that Victorian domestic architecture embodied a male/female dichotomy in which men owned and ‘ruled’ the home/house; while women maintained it. Although Victorian ideology was fissured and developed unevenly, it still functioned in terms of the ideal of respectability which was embedded and demonstrated in domestic space. / Dissertation (MInt)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Architecture / unrestricted

The thesis is primarily a proposal for a research methodology. Its concern is with the analysis of southern African domestic architecture, which, it is argued, has become separated from the study of social systems and human behaviour. It is suggested that architectural research needs to be grounded in a coherent theoretical framework of a sociological nature if the meaning of buildings in society is to be adequately understood. By combing Bill Hillier et al.' s theory of ' space syntax' with Anthony Giddens ' theory of ' structuration' , a set of concepts and techniques for the study of domestic architecture is formulated. This model is demonstrated using two dwellings in the Cape Town metropolitan area. The emphasis throughout is with understanding systematically how spatial design is integrated with the wider aspects of domestic social life. To reach this understanding, a major theme in southern African architectural studies is examined. This relates to a persistent categorisation, based on formal and functional criteria, of African architecture as 'traditional' , against which is counterposed the more modern or 'designed' architecture of western cultures. As such, two approaches to the study of African architecture on the sub-continent are identified. On the one hand there are those writings that study aspects of built form by focusing on stylistic and technological details. On the other, the emphasis is on the function of buildings, focusing mostly on the non-physical principles of social organisation. Both approaches have as their objective the explication of the social meaning of built form, and each generally excludes the subject and approach of the other. The view adopted in this investigation is that each form of analysis on its own is inadequate. Theories of form and theories of function must, it is argued, necessarily incorporate each other if a rounded and systematic analysis of meaning is to take place. The problem for research is thus one of establishing an adequate methodological basis for understanding in theory that which is materially realised in built form already, namely the integration of society and space. The concern ill this dissertation is consequently with an attempt to answer two seemingly simple questions: How do buildings affect behaviour and activity patterns? and, how do interactions among people affect the form of buildings? By integrating the methodological and descriptive procedures in space syntax with the interpretive framework for social system analysis in structuration theory, an attempt is made to provide sane answers to these questions and thereby to contribute towards a non-functionalist theory of architecture. The conclusions are firstly that the pervasive distinction between 'traditional' and 'modern' architecture is unnecessary and misleading. Secondly, theoretical aspects of both syntax and structuration are identified that may be useful to the development of both.

Tang Siu Hong. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2008-2009, design report." / Thesis Statement --- p.2 / Abstract from Research Phase / Chapter - --- Affordability of the Nuclear Family and the Availability of the Apartment in terms of Size --- p."3,4" / Chapter - --- Relationship between Nuclear Family and Foreign Domestic Helper --- p.5 / Chapter - --- Current condition of servant quarter --- p.6 / Spatial Concept / Chapter - --- Spatial Requirements for the Nuclear Family --- p.7 / Chapter - --- Exploration of the location of the Servant Quarter and the Relationship between the Apartments --- p.8 / Site Study --- p.9 / Chapter - --- Site Selection - Kowloon City / Chapter - --- Programmatic Study - Kowloon City --- p.10 / Chapter - --- Rich Streetscapes in Kowloon City --- p.11 / Chapter - --- Building Study - Existing Residential Tower in Kowloon City and the Proposed Housing --- p."12,13" / Design Concept --- p.14 / Chapter - --- Site Articulation- 'infill' Strategy / Chapter - --- Elevation --- p.15 / Chapter - --- Section - Tenement House Level --- p.16 / Chapter - --- Section --- p."17,18" / Chapter - --- Plan - Communal Space and Housing Units --- p.19 / Chapter - --- Diagram --- p.20 / Chapter - --- Acess to the Tower --- p.21 / Chapter - --- The Communal Space --- p.22 / Chapter - --- Formation --- p.23 / Chapter - --- Scenario of Spatial Usage --- p.24 / Chapter - --- Scenario - Phasing of Urban Renewal in the neighbouring site --- p."25,26" / Chapter - --- Final Model --- p.27 / Chapter - --- Presentation --- p.28 / Chapter - --- Process Model --- p.29

Cosy aphorisms such as “home is where the heart is” have always suggested a universal understanding of home. But home is a subjective concept that defies any homogenous designation. If, as Walter Benjamin told us, a consequence of modernity is the necessary sequestration of ‘bourgeois’ domestic spaces from an increasingly ‘modern’ outside world, such a spatial binarism is notably absent in the works of Irish and British women authors from 1929-1946. On the contrary, in these texts, domestic space has multiple functions, not least of which is its usefulness in exploring concepts of modernity, including the consequences of industrial scale warfare on civilian life. During this time, women authors such as Elizabeth Bowen, Kate O’Brien, Nancy Mitford, Evadne Price and Daphne du Maurier respond to the ways in which the ideas of home were in a continuous state of redefinition. They do this for multiple reasons. Factors changing these authors’ perceptions of d0mestic space vary from material, aesthetic, external, broadly philosophical and political. These issues are also sometimes deeply violent, as is seen, for instance, in the burnings of the houses of the Anglo-Irish Ascendency in the Irish War of Independence, and the destruction of houses by bombing in the London Blitz. This project analyses Irish and British domestic spaces as women authors imagine them after the formal segregation of the two countries with the Anglo-Irish Treaty (1922). As both countries move in different political and cultural directions, so too, these authors perceive, do the meanings of home. This changes the ways in which authors construct both the conceptual ideas of home and the material realities of houses in both countries. Congruently, this cross-cultural analysis complicates our understanding of these women authors’ responses to changing meanings of home, women’s issues, and the experience of modernity in the period.

Over 11,000 graffiti once covered the site of ancient Pompeii, inscribed upon many buildings in the city including houses, temples, and public buildings. Their messages include greetings, proclamations of love and desire, and bits of poetry. These inscriptions have fascinated scholars since the first walls were unearthed at Pompeii in the eighteenth century and this interest has yielded a wide array of methodologies and approaches. As archaeology has evolved over the centuries, so too has the approach to this material. The unique position of graffiti as objects of both philological and archaeological study has necessitated the need for a multidisciplinary approach. This dissertation recontextualizes Pompeian graffiti as artifacts and examines the distribution of graffiti within domestic space in Pompeii including the relationship between content and context. Specifically, this dissertation examines a corpus of graffiti from twelve buildings in Pompeii. I analyze the locations of the graffiti and the rationale for these locations using space syntax, a theory for analyzing the configuration of space. From an examination of their locations, I propose how the Pompeians used the spaces within these buildings and postulate how their use may have changed over time. This analysis indicates that, in general, Pompeians chose highly visible, accessible, and well-trafficked locations in which to write graffiti, indicating that writers of ancient graffiti, unlike many modern, wrote these messages in areas under surveillance. Visitors and inhabitants wrote them in areas where they would be seen doing so. Further analysis of the interaction between graffiti and their context shows that while these messages occupy highly visible areas, they were written in such a way as to not detract from the overall aesthetic appearance of the space. Close study of the content of the individual messages shows how the substance of the graffiti responded to the spaces in which they were written and the other graffiti written around them. This combination of archaeological and philological inquiry allows an identification of types of space and, to some degree, organization of movement within a space, which, in the absence of other artifacts, has been difficult to interpret.