In Search of Home

Written at the Maastricht Academy of Architecture, the thesis treats home not as a building but as a state of mind — a place of stillness one can return to. It begins with the etymology of the word across languages: the Arabic maskan, rooted in sukūn, stillness; the Old English ham; and in every case the link between dwelling and peace.

From there it traces three things that turn a house into a home — people, belongings, and place — and how their order has shifted through history, from nomadic life to the Industrial Revolution and the mass housing that followed. The collapse of Pruitt-Igoe is read as what happens when location is given everything, and community and ownership are given nothing.

It closes on the architect's role: not the god-creator who finishes the building, but someone who leaves room — for inhabitants to place their own belongings, mark their own walls, and complete the home themselves.