The research will explore how participatory, trauma-informed practices can reimagine supported
accommodation into sites that can foster a sense of belonging and wellbeing for residents. Focusing
on the institutionalised domesticities of supported housing in the Brighton and Hove area, the
study will examine the current service-led model, engaging residents as experts of their
environment.
This project positions supported accommodation as a critical yet under-examined site for
understanding embodied, material, and affective geographies of home. It argues that institutional
design can inadvertently reproduce processes of home unmaking and even domicide (Porteous & Smith, 2001), limiting residents’ sense of belonging and potentially hindering transitions to independent living. It will employ trauma-informed, participatory research methods to uncover the affective and embodied dimensions of dwelling within these semi-institutional settings, enabling design principles to more closely reflect residents' needs through creative methods, such as photovoice, mapping and object elicitation interviews.
Building on theoretical frameworks, including critical geographies of home, new materialism and
trauma-informed approaches, the project will advance theoretical debates on home as embodied,
contribute new trauma-informed participatory methods for researching the embodied home, and offer
practical frameworks for rethinking supported housing beyond its current service-led objectives.