A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for an individual, group or family. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it.
Homes provide sheltered spaces for instance rooms, where domestic activity can be performed such as sleeping, preparing food, eating and hygiene as well as providing spaces for work and leisure such as remote working, studying and playing.
Physical forms of homes can be static such as a house or an apartment, mobile such as a houseboat, trailer or yurt or digital such as virtual space. The aspect of ‘home’ can be considered across scales, from the microscale showcasing the most intimate spaces of the individual dwelling and direct surrounding area to the macro scale of the geographic area such as town, village, city, country or planet.
A principle of constitutional law in many countries, related to the right to privacy enshrined in article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the inviolability of the home as an individual's place of shelter and refuge.
The concept of ‘home’ has been researched and theorized across disciplines - topics ranging from the idea of home, the interior, the psyche, liminal space, contested space to gender and politics. Such topics can be found in the writings of Gaston Bachelard, Jean Baudrillard, Mrs Isabella Beeton, Pierre Bourdieu, Beatriz Colomina, Le Corbusier, Mary Douglas, Diana Fuss, Dolores Hayden, Martin Heidegger, Henri Lefebvre, Edith Wharton amongst many others. Discussions of home can help better understand and challenge perceptions of self and the extension of self.
Places of residence do not necessarily correlate with associations to the home; the home consists of a physical space as well as an emotional and psychological relationship, where memory, comfort, activity and familiarity are some many important factors in the construction of home. Amongst being a space of domestic activity the home in the 21st century has appropriated new meanings with the advance of technology, therefore enabling multiple activities to be performed within a singular space. The home blurs boundaries of the domestic, the professional and the leisurely and conceptually becomes an amorphous space.The home as a concept expands beyond residence as contemporary lifestyles and technological advances redefine the way the global population lives and works.