Assessing the habitability of single-family houses in Iraq a case study in Sulaimaniya city

Nahedh Taha Al-Qemaqchi,Tara Azad Rauof

doi:10.34069/ai/2021.43.07.18

Abstract

A residence strongly influences the lifestyle of its occupants and may be a determining factor for the family's quality of life. To maintain the comfort and well-being of its occupants, each dwelling should be adequate for the household. The dwelling should therefore provide a habitable and comfortable environment. Housing space standards in many countries set the conditions for achieving these objectives and generally regulate the overall sizes of individual rooms in addition to the layouts of dwellings. This paper seeks to explore the relationship between habitable area ratios and other component area ratios, such as the structure area, the service area, the circulation area and the open space area, in the context of Iraqi single-family houses. Therefore, this study aims to answer two key questions: Is the habitable area ratio among other ratios compatible with Iraqi housing standards? And does it affect the performance of the units? To this end, the paper adopted a methodology for calculating each area ratio in several newly established complexes in Sulaimaniya City and their relationship to the size of different plot areas for assessing the habitability and efficiency of different house plot areas.

Highlights

IntroductionMost Iraqi cities are suffering from a major housing crisis, resulting from overcrowding of dwellings, (informal) subdivisions of existing housing units or plots where it is noted that the number of families occupying one dwelling (formally subdivided) continues to increase (UHSM, 2010)
Most Iraqi cities are suffering from a major housing crisis, resulting from overcrowding of dwellings, subdivisions of existing housing units or plots where it is noted that the number of families occupying one dwelling continues to increase (UHSM, 2010)
There is a clear discrepancy detected from the graph [Figure 3], by determining a direct correlation between the amounts of the equivalent services area ratio and the average plot areas in the case studies while the (UHSM) standards remain stable

Summary

Introduction

Most Iraqi cities are suffering from a major housing crisis, resulting from overcrowding of dwellings, (informal) subdivisions of existing housing units or plots where it is noted that the number of families occupying one dwelling (formally subdivided) continues to increase (UHSM, 2010). The crisis of housing leakage became prominent in recent decades after many wars and was mainly solved through introducing a new series of residential projects that offered respectable quality accommodations for middle- and lowincome households (World Bank Group, 2018). These projects have provided mixed layouts to fulfil the needs of the residents. Different plot areas were adopted, but most of them went towards developing relatively small areas for economic and investment considerations (ECOM, UN-Habitat, 2010) Most of these projects have been based on varying standards to achieve design solutions for houses with different spatial configurations. The designs came at the expense of the functional habitability of the housing and what could have been achieved for residents (Al-Qemaqchi, 2019)

Objectives

Results

Conclusion