In "Black Vernacular: Architecture as Cultural Practice", I learned that a person's situation greatly affects their perception of space and of control. Hook talks about how her class had been assigned to create their dream homes, and how they should disregard their real-life situations, focusing only on their desires. Hook describes the political undertones of this, and how subconsciously they had an effect on her decisions. I like how she connects the structure of a building or "space" to the socioeconomic context of the situation. Her "Daddy Jerry" had "a small square brick house" that she didn't appreciate until she understood the politics at the time the house had been built. With the white-supremacy of the time, her paternal grandfather had to be careful about what he did with his space.
The thing I found most interesting is what Hook said about the projects. The projects were designed to help those with economic disadvantages, but they took away the freedom of their residents in a way by creating a uniform design for a community of homes. This replaced the ingenuity of these people who had previously made their space their own, and personalized it to their needs and desires. I had never given much thought to the structure of a house and how much it could affect a person, but this text has opened my mind to the idea of space having an impact on a person's life, and that those with less money can still choose to personalize their space. As Hook said, poor people have been thought to have "no meaningful constructive engagement" with their living space, but that's not necessarily true. It is just a result of the media and of "standardized housing". And actively thinking about the personalization of space can help us to understand choice and the importance of class, gender, and race in an everyday setting.
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