Corridor Society (2018)
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Exhibited at the Royal College of Art Graduate Show, at Global Grad Show as part of Dubai Design Week, and at designjunction as part of London Design Festival 2018
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Published on Dezeen, Designboom, Architectural Digest, and FRAME Magazine
Corridor Society transforms London's neglected hallways into social infrastructure through four pieces of mediator furniture designed for shared accommodation. The project addresses the crisis where landlords convert living rooms into bedrooms, leaving flatmates isolated with no communal spaces, demonstrating how spatial design can rebuild social connection in co-living environments.
The traditional family structure's hegemony as the only way to live together is no longer invincible. Co-living has become exceedingly common among London's mega-city dwellers, yet the dedicated architectural identity of this concept is yet to be defined. Currently, flatsharers reappropriate spaces specifically designed for nuclear families.
Roughly half of London's shared flats no longer have living rooms, as landlords convert them into bedrooms. This transforms rooms into individual micro-houses, making shared flats into micro-neighborhoods where corridors function more like streets than transitional spaces. With no common spaces, tenants use beds as sofas, dining tables, and living rooms—a condition actively encouraging isolation.
This architectural mismatch of spaces designed for families but occupied by strangers creates dysfunction that intensifies social isolation and loneliness among residents.
I conducted ethnographic research across 10+ London shared flats, interviewing 15+ co-living tenants and developing cultural probes to understand corridor usage patterns. Through embedded observation, I identified existing behaviors: tenants leaning on walls, chatting through doorways, dragging stools for extended conversations that revealed latent social potential in these transitional spaces.
My experimental approach involved designing and prototyping interventions that activated both doorways and corridors. I created "stoop-like" doorway prototypes that made doors more porous and non-binary, encouraging tenants to keep them open and initiate contact. I then embedded myself directly in corridor environments, using the space for extended activities: working, eating meals, watching films with a projector, exercising to test how sustained occupation would influence flatmate interactions and space perception.
This immersive methodology allowed me to observe real-time social dynamics and prototype place-making strategies that transformed corridors from transitional zones into destinations, validating the social infrastructure potential of neglected domestic spaces.
Corridor Society reclaims corridors as social infrastructure. Drawing from urban design principles where sidewalks function as "urban living rooms" for chance encounters, the project transforms corridors from transitional spaces into destinations. Four pieces of mediator furniture—Multi-Level Lounger, Standing Sofa, 3/4 Table, and Spreading Hub—create a hybrid typology combining sidewalks, living rooms, and corridors.
-References & Inspirations include: one shared house by anton & irene, ‘trapped’ series by benny lam, the doss houses of london, the kommunalka, less is enough by pier vittorio aureli, harvard design magazine no.41&46, famili: proxy paranoia or technological camaraderie by ayr, the death and life of great american cities by jane jacobs, jack self’s lecture as part of ‘the risk society’ at the design museum, figures, doors and passages by robin evans, real review issues 3, 5,& 6, the system of objects by jean baudrillard, verner panton’s multi level lounger
