HOUSING LAYOUT, SOCIAL INTERACTION, AND THE PLACE OF CONTACT IN ABU-NUSEIR, JORDAN

Abstract

This paper reports on an important concern for housing designers; that is, site design and its relationship to the social life of the community. The importance of site design including housing layout, social interaction and the place of contact was studied in the context of multiple-family housing. Residents in the town of Abu-Nuseir, a satellite community near Amman, the capital of Jordan, responded to a questionnaire about the areas near their homes and the perceived adequacy of these places for social interaction and, as a result, the development of social relationships. The study employed a house-to-house survey of households that were randomly selected. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data. Findings demonstrate differences in the ways people use and practice interaction across six patterns of housing layouts; physical environmental forms, within the town of Abu-Nuseir. They suggest that the layout of residential buildings and the different aspects of the resulting open spaces between structures need to be distinguished. Large open spaces, for example, played a minor role, at best, in resident's perception and evaluation of the various aspects of the neighborhood. Opportunities to walk around a small group of houses or to sit in small, confined spaces, by contrast, were significantly related to social interaction and friendship formation. The data suggests that people's satisfaction with the residential setting in multiple-family housing is dependent, at least in part, on the effective use of the open spaces nearby one's residential building.