Plans for Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennia were begun at the close of 2019 with the idea that the subject of home could be a relatable framework for exploring the synergies and divergences in how people across the United States, US Territories, and Tribal Nations experience design today. Rather than identifying existing projects that represent a pervasive contemporary ethos, we set out to support the development of new work and works in progress. With this Triennial, we focus on perspectives that made visible personal and professional design processes and embrace design not just as a tool, but also as a means of connection. This approach has been shaped by a desire to foster a greater understanding of our cultural, economic, geographic, and political landscape as ideological divides reverberate across the nation.
We could not have predicted the impending 2020 global lockdown that brought intense scrutiny to the meaning of home in our lives. As we persevered with research for the Triennial, conducting virtual meetings with designers, architects, activists, and experts in the field—often zooming from living room to bedroom, closet to garden—the intimacy of those exchanges meant they moved beyond a professional dialogue. People shared their memories, gave us tours of their homes; we met family members and partners, spoke about vulnerability, exclusion, and dreams for the future. These encounters defined the exhibition, which presents twenty-five site-specific and newly commissioned installations illustrating home in the United States as an individual and a collective phenomenon. The shared experience also identified a direction for this book, Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century. Collected here are Triennial exhibition participants and a roster of additional contributors telling the stories of how they have made home, and what for them defines home in the first quarter of this century.
Excerpt from Making Home: Belonging, Memory, and Utopia in the 21st Century, (Cooper Hewitt | The MIT Press, 2025) published in companion with Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial (New York, Nov. 2024-Aug. 2025)