Along with the rest of the world, Singapore’s COVID-19 circuit breaker response required many to work-from-home, transforming conventional boundaries between work and home. Suddenly, societies world-wide were confronted with unforeseen challenges and unexpected silver linings of home-based work (HBW). Yet, the pandemic is only a catalyst for this phenomenon, as HBW has been around far beyond it, be it through traditional cottage industries and piecework, or telework spurred by the increased adoption of technology over the last few decades. In Singapore, HBW presents specific challenges particular to the high-density, high-rise environment that accounts for the majority of housing. Our city planning makes clear demarcations between spaces designed and zoned for work and those designed and zoned for living, where houses and housing estates have always been designed for unpaid home life, and not paid work.

​

What, then, makes the home and neighbourhood operable for various forms of home-based work, be it teleworking, home-based businesses, or freelancing? How do home-based workers adapt to the demands of today’s labour market? How does a resident furnish, use and service their home and their routines to shape the domestic environment for labour? What kind of amenities, environments, or communities near the home are needed to support their work life?

Foundations for Home-Based Work: A Singapore Study (NUS-IRB-2021-799) is an inter-disciplinary project funded by MOE SSRTG, seeking to address these unanswered questions and to understand how home-based work is built into homes and neighbourhoods. The interdisciplinary team, comprising of researchers from the National University’s Department of Architecture, Department of Communications and New Media, and Yale-NUS College, meets this gap with an approach that bridges between the social sciences and design thinking.