Before you head back out into the field to discuss further details of your house and resident biographies with the resident, take a look at all your raw material (video, interviews, floor plans, photos, descriptions, documents, notes, questions, etc.). As you go through your material, consider once again which questions and interests you are pursuing.
Which aspects of the house and/or apartment and its residents do you find particularly interesting? What questions lie behind them? What story(ies) does the material tell? How can you further explore these aspects, questions, and stories? How can you present them? What role should the various methods and formats play in this process? How do you need to process them to extract what interests you? Based on your entire raw material, develop a script for the biography of the house and its residents. Organize your material into an initial minimal structure and please process your material as described below. In doing so, adhere to the currently applicable rules regarding ethics, rights, and data protection. Anonymize the data as much as possible across all formats and at every stage. Discuss all materials with the research participants and agree on an anonymization strategy with them (e.g., choose a pseudonym or use “Ms. B.” or “Mr. T.”; work with your participants to determine how you can use your material in an anonymized form, e.g., using a photo of the front door instead of a photo of the entire building facade). The minimum structure includes:
Profile: House type, number of floors, number of rooms (private and shared), lot area, built-up area, number of residents, use, ownership status
Text: Short descriptive text of the situation (300–500 words)
Drawing: Isometric view of the urban or rural block (as a simple line drawing, oriented north—depending on the house’s location within the block, it may be necessary to show the rear rather than the front of the house).
Detailed isometric view of the house, including neighboring buildings and their use (people, signs, plants, etc.; see Atelier BowWow 2001)
Schematic floor plans of the house showing all stories or of the apartment
Photos: Photos of the house and/or apartment from the exterior and interior
Video: Video of a tour of the house including an interview, 30 seconds to 1 minute
Based on the minimal structure you have created, consider which content you would like to expand upon, deepen, and refine using which format. Depending on your disciplinary background, opportunities, abilities, and interests, choose 2–3 formats (text, film, photo, drawing, etc.) for in-depth exploration. You can describe the uses and activities taking place in the house or apartment in detail through text, draw them, and/or document them on film, or combine these methods. Additionally, incorporate any material that seems relevant to you (e.g., brochures from the housing developer, newspaper articles, old photos of the residents, floor plans, etc.).
Also, develop an initial list of questions based on the findings you have already uncovered. What sociopolitical implications might lie behind what you have discovered?
Next, consider what additional material you need and what method and format you can use to gather it. Do you still need to conduct an interview and address more in-depth questions? Do you need additional film or photographic footage of the building and/or the apartment? Is your goal once again to (re)construct the history and structure of the building’s and/or apartment’s use in greater detail? Once you have prepared your material to this extent, you can also show excerpts of it to the residents and discuss it with them. You can address aspects that stood out to you or remained unclear after the first interview, the first house tour, and the first archive visit, as well as capture the residents’ reactions (e.g., additions, follow-up questions) and incorporate these into the subsequent processing and revision of the material. Work along your narrative. You cannot pursue every narrative contained in the case! Make a decision and pursue one narrative in its various aspects precisely and comprehensively. Use this (penultimate) official research visit to consolidate your story by collecting final material. Repeat this process as often as possible and necessary.
Try to adapt your material to the website’s formats and/or bring your material with you.