Housekeeping by Design
Hotels and Labor
One of the great pleasures of staying in a hotel is spending time in a spotless, neat, and organized space that you don't have to clean. That doesn't, however, mean the work disappears – when we're not looking, someone else is doing it. With "Housekeeping by Design", David Brody introduces us to those people – the housekeepers whose labor keeps the rooms clean and the guests happy. Through unprecedented access to staff at several hotels, Brody shows us just how much work goes on behind the scenes – and how much management goes out of its way to make sure that labor stays hidden. We see the incredible amount of hard physical work that is involved in cleaning and preparing a room, how spaces, furniture, and other objects are designed to facilitate a smooth flow of hidden labor, and, crucially, how that design could be improved for workers and management alike if front-line staff were involved in the design process. After reading this fascinating expose of the ways hotels work – or don't for housekeepers – one thing is certain: checking in will never be the same again.
About the Author
David Brody is associate professor of design studies at Parsons School of Design, the New School. He is the author of "Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines", also published by the University of Chicago Press, and co-editor of "Design Studies: A Reader".
Reviews
"Design scholar and unabashed hotel fan Brody serves up a wonderfully readable mix of personal anecdote, historical overview, theoretical analysis, and ethnography in a perceptive study of the 'invisible work' of housekeeping" – Times Higher Education
"'Housekeeping by Design' is a thorough and well-written study of service design, housekeeping, and labor in the hotel industry. Brody brings a designer's sensibility and a researcher's focus to a subject that most travelers encounter but never see. The book is a significant contribution to the study of service design and to the field of design more generally in its emerging research practices. Brody's book provides a fascinating contrast between the vision and imagination of the world's greatest luxury hoteliers and the service system and labor that lie behind every hotel today. One will find it but a small step from this study of the hospitality industry to the many issues of labor and patient experience in the healthcare industry. The merging of hotel hospitality and healthcare has become a model for a growing number of hospital systems. Their administrators will benefit from reading this book" – Richard Buchanan, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University
"'Housekeeping by Design' is a stunning achievement. It has the page-turning pace of a whodunit, the moral vigor and indignation of a utopian tract, and the practical good sense of the best design writing. It will change the way you experience hotels; if we are very lucky it will change hotels" – Ben Highmore, University of Sussex
"In addition to his incisive history of the hotel industry's division of labor, Brody delivers a far-reaching call for architects to collaborate with workers – the real end-users of hotels – in designing buildings. The result is a book that can and should be acted on" – Andrew Ross, New York University
