I have a theory. If you lived in a house other than the one where you currently reside, you have thought about what it looks like now. You have wondered who is using your old bedroom. Did they ever find the Hot Wheel car you dropped down the furnace register? Is your name still carved underneath the basement stairs? Have they replaced the green shag carpet in the living room? You get the idea.
In a hyper connected world, we can find old friends, ancient (literally) relatives, up to the minute dinner plans of every person we know (or don’t), videos of their laughing baby, and the list goes on. But to get a glimpse inside the home we grew up in, our only option is to go there in person, knock on the door, explain you aren’t a serial killer, and ask to search the house as if you were Inspector Clousseau.
The last 100 years have seen so much change in every facet of life, we who are living it become immune. The houses we all lived in have probably changed their interior design 5 times since we were in them. Where are the records of these changes? Mostly sitting in picture albums, the backdrop to the “Christmas 1979”, or grandpa’s 85th birthday, or any other gatherings that show the horrid wood paneling that took days to tear down. We are so connected in so many ways, yet the architectural and historical records of 119 million homes in the U.S. alone, are bifurcated into individual memories. As they say, each home tells a story, but to whom? And where is it told?
Admittedly, we kiss the fence on some current technologies. Google Street View gives us an opportunity to view external images but it doesn’t allow for sharing, connecting, or going inside. You can’t very well knock on the virtual door in Street View. Sure, we can share photos on Flickr, but it’s more likely that they would be shared with our own circle of family and friends. Ancestry.com gives us a way to connect our family trees with people we don’t know, but it still doesn’t bind us together around the living space.
My Kaleidico Project proposal is a new website called “I Used to Live There!” Here is a mock-up.
This website would enable members to find their former (or current) homes, and upload relevant photos to the address record. It would also enable people to comment, connect, and explore. Imagine connecting with someone and finding out interesting bits about your home- “We built that wall because…” or “Did you find a cigar box in the attic with photos of…?”.
From a practical perspective, it creates another avenue of connectivity, it builds a shared historical record, it can even trigger relationships and/or memories.
Doesn’t it make sense to share and connect around one of the most integral American institutions we have- the house itself?
What say you? Would you visit such a site? Would you use it?
