In Dwelling: Implacability, Exclusion and Acceptance(Design and the Built Environment)

A 'dwelling', or the physical space we call a house, is full of meaning for us. It can be implacable, in that it can work for or against us, depending on how we are able to access and use it. This means that we have to learn to accept dwelling as it is and find some accommodation with our surrounding environment. This book develops a new approach to looking at dwelling and how we use it. It explores the manner in which we use housing to exclude others and so protect our privacy. It also argues we need to exclude others in order to protect and nurture our loved ones. The book combines philosophical analysis and literary and film criticism to put forward an innovative and insightful new approach to looking at housing. It draws on the work of thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Derrida, Kierkegaard, Nussbaum and Scruton and the films of Chaplin, Bergman, Lynch, Tarr, Teshigahara and Van Sant to construct a new theoretical approach to housing research.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Preface: retracing our steps; Closed; In and around dwelling; From machines to mine; The confinement of sense; Hiding in the world; Open; Coda: out and back; Bibliography; Films; Index.

About the Author :
Peter King is Reader in Social Thought in the Centre for Comparative Housing Research, Department of Public Policy, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.

Review :
'Peter King has produced an idiosyncratic and highly readable contribution to analyzing the concept of "dwelling". The book is thought-provoking, insightful and entertaining. In engaging with an impressive range of theory and popular culture, it takes numerous unexpected turns with wit and originality. I can think of no other writer who can provide such an accessible examination of subjectivity and the home through an eclectic yet rewarding mix of philosophy, sociology, literature and film.' Tony Manzi, University of Westminster, UK 'Following the reiterative and circular narratives of Derrida, this book shows us housing and home as resulting from the acts of finding place, settling in and keeping it mine. Peter King uses autobiography, film criticism and philosophical speculation to show how places become wrapped up in our sense of self and other. Other than policy leads us to believe, our dwellings are filled with human traces of habitation, attachment, memory and feeling. The book thus offers an intuitive and impressionistic account of housing that calls for original ways of thinking and writing on the place we most care about.' Leeke Reinders, Technical University, Delft, The Netherlands 'This book is a valuable addition to the King canon. It deals with issues at the heart of the relationship between people and their dwelling. It offers a focus for the future direction of housing studies.' Journal of Housing and the Built Environment 'Peter King's new book is an ambitious, beautifully constructed and thought-provoking attempt to reframe elements of our understanding of dwelling based around his key concepts of implacability, exclusion and acceptance...' Housing Studies 'Seven chapters of well-written narrative unfold ideas about implacability and exclusion as experiences of dwelling, the presence of reiterative movements in closing and opening relations, of getting inside and outside, of finding secure hiding places, and the dreadful consequences of losing it.' Architectural Science Review 'Peter King has once again presented a stimulating discussion that provides direction for the field of housing studies. There is no doubting King's commitment to the expansion of this field or his knowledge of the subject. This book philosophically probes relations between individuals, their housing and home, ultimately re-imagining peoples' acts of place making and their dwelling.' New Zealand Geographer