THE JOURNEY

This project explores the notion of personal space through a journey that begins in the public realm and concludes in the intimate confines of my own room. Inspired by Constantine P. Kavafis’s poem Ithaka, which reflects on the meaning of returning home as both a literal and emotional voyage, the study frames “home” not as a fixed destination but as an evolving spatial experience, one shaped by routine, transition, and reflection.

The investigation began with a series of observations and photographic surveys tracing my daily path from the moment I step off the underground train to the threshold of my neighbourhood and, finally, into the shared house where I lived. Through this journey, I sought to understand how layers of familiarity and anonymity define one’s perception of personal territory. Each segment of movement, from the collective to the private, became a spatial study of thresholds, boundaries, and the subtle gradations between them.

Within the room itself, the project turned inward. Using diagrammatic mapping, axonometric drawings, and photographic documentation, I analysed the spatial logic that organises everyday activities within a confined domestic setting. Each programme like sleeping, studying, dressing, resting, occupies its own zone, delineated not by walls but by patterns of use, orientation, and light. The project became a reflection on how limited space can still hold multiplicity and identity when carefully observed and articulated.

The project unfolds as a narrative study, a meditation on the spatial and emotional dimensions of inhabiting. The representational methods function as both record and interpretation, revealing how ordinary environments carry layers of memory, adaptation, and care.

Ultimately, Ithaka suggests that home is not merely a physical enclosure but a journey of self-location. By mapping the route between the collective and the personal, the project turns an everyday path into an architectural reflection, a quiet exploration of how we define, inhabit, and return to our own sense of place.