Impact Of Society Cultural Trends On House Design Identity

Abstract

It is known that the human being is a product of his environment . His thoughts and desires are formed according to cultural trends related to his society , which differ according to changes of natural and environmental factors, and its expansion connecting with concepts of creeds, customs , and traditions. One of the responsible ways for sustainability of cultural trends in a society is the house design which occurs through its culture identity and place identity as a creative activity arising from specific society and specific culture needs. The concept of a house is defined as a place for living in which a certain system of activities, social reaction and culture values take place. The house has three distinct features: fixed features ; the physical layout as walls and floors , semi-fixed features; the furnishing and its arrangement and non fixed features ; the activities and behavior inside the house . Some of the houses' designers, through their designing thoughts, reflect the meaning of globalization, which one of its goals is erasing the civilized and social structure of people and destroying people's heritage, national identity and self culture. Other designers become imprisoned into the cultural trends of his society, whose impact appears in the house design not caring to the house choices. The purpose of the paper is to show that the cultural trends in any society is an integral part of the concept of house design, where the house occupier feels apart from the house if its design does not reflect his choices and the cultural identity. Therefore, the importance of this research is introducing and analyzing a two way relationship between the house occupier and the house features. Thus, the occupier's mental perceptions in his mind ) choices (define and gives meaning to the house features and the house features in return, define and give meaning to the occupier's choices. This relationship is bounded by cultural trends. The relationship is applied on different parts of the house with different activities. The cultural trends for each part arrange the way of thinking of the house occupier towards designing this part .The union of the cultural trends for all parts of the house design gives the house design identity. A case study of Siwa Oasis in Egypt is considered, to illustrate this relationship, as Siwa Oasis is one of the communities that have managed to retain most of its traditional cultural trends in its house design.