Contemporary Housing Research Articles

Algorithmic Design Paradigm Utilizing Cellular Automata for the Han-ok

This paper investigates using a Cellular Automata (CA) as a generative design strategy that creates a design framework for a contemporary house. This is done in a way to reflect the unique spatial configuration of the Han-ok with Chae and Madang. When the Han-ok, the traditional Korean house, was modified to adapt to social change and urbanization in the modern era, the spatial diversity and order of the Han-ok with Chae and Madang were lost. This study aims to define the spatial configurations of the Han-ok, then uses CA to offer numerous possibilities that accommodate today’s life-style while keeping these core relationships. The significance of this study is in seeking the application of CA in a generative design process for modernization of the Han-ok.

Islamic Ideology and the Evolution of Courtyard – A Case Study of a Havili, Old City Lahore

A courtyard in buildings plays an important role in determining climatic setting, as well as physical and 1psychological environment for the residents. This paper focuses on the evolution of courtyard houses in light of the teachings of Islam. Islamic planning, in terms of structures, spatial arrangement and form, determines the socio-cultural features of its community. In Islam, a house is represented as a shelter where familiescan enjoy their privacy and ease within the domain of Islamic values. For this, a detailed study of various courtyard housing has been carried out, probing their history, evolution, form and elements. A side reference of the Islamic ideology is also studied for a better understanding of an Islamic courtyard house. The analysis concludes that with only a few exceptions, the courtyards functions the same in both the contemporary and Islamic worlds-providing privacy and fully ventilated dwelling. This study provides appropriate architectural design strategies that could promote the use of Islamic values in modern yet contemporary courtyard houses worldwide.

Role of Housing Reconstruction Between Years 2000 - 2014 in Merging of Urban Structure of The North East Wrocław / Rola Zabudowy Mieszkaniowej z Lat 2000-2014 w Scalaniu Struktury Urbanistycznej Północno-Wschodniego Wrocławia

The article presents the urban structure of the North-East of Wroclaw, where in the vicinity of the historic buildings and residential buildings from the 70s of the last century, and between, in the last 20 years there were built new buildings, as binding material of the urban structure. The new multifamily housing development of years 2000-2014 of Psie Pole as a housing development in Wroclaw, closes the gap between the historic district residential buildings in the old Psie Pole and the buildings of large slabs of the 70s of the twentieth century. The contemporary residential development uses the existing social infrastructure centre of the old Psie Pole district, and also the social infrastructure of the housing development of 70s of the twentieth century. The authors analyze, in the first part, the spatial development of these areas on the basis of historical materials. In the following, based on an analysis of urban structure created in the last 15 years of development, analyze existing conditions, context and value (in terms of urban planning - the wealth of social infrastructure), the contemporary housing development of Psie Pole.

Adapted Design Language for Anatolian Vernacular Housing

This paper aims to define an adapted contemporary design language for housing built next to vernacular residential buildings of Anatolian villages. The case has been selected from Balıkesir province in the North-western part of Anatolia within a corpus of 104 houses from selected 81 villages of the region. Originally, vernacular house plans consist of allocation of rooms around a hall: sofa. Each room is a core living space with everyday living needs for a family. House is formed with various spatial relations between sofa and rooms around it. This relation is the determinative feature in formation of vernacular language for each Anatolian house. The study has three phases: analysis, adaptation and generation. The first phase analyzes the elements of vernacular by decomposing its language into sub-parts. In the second phase, the inadequacies of existing vernacular structures were exposed with methods of observation and questionnaires applied on users and new demands for living have been adapted with vernacular existing language grammar rules. In the last phase within the framework of adapted language rules for Balıkesir vernacular, numerous novel design alternatives were generated. This study claims to sustain the existing socio-cultural spatial configuration by adapting newly built contemporary houses to actual vernacular architecture in the planning context.

Art in traditional African domestic architecture: its place in modern housing and implications for the training of architects

Over the years, art in its various forms has played a vital role in the lives of African people. It served as a major form of communicative expression of religious beliefs and socio-cultural norms of the people. Its form, presentation and significance however, varied from one cultural setting to another. This paper examines art in the context of domestic architecture of indigenous people of South West Nigeria and its relevance in contemporary housing as well as what it portends for architectural education in that cultural zone. The paper notes the disappearance of the rich traditional motifs and symbols from contemporary housing and their replacement with more contemporary art forms influenced by globalisation and industrial mass production. It concludes that the current trend presents an architecture that is devoid of cultural architectural uniqueness and identity. One of the implications identified is for architectural curricula to incorporate indigenous themes that will help architects produce domestic architecture that have contextual relevance. Data for the paper was collected through literature review and the qualitative research method using interviews and observations of houses in the zone. Those interviewed include architects and residents in the zone. Data was content analysed to highlight common themes.Keywords: Art, Domestic architecture, Yorubaland Â

Art in traditional African domestic architecture: its place in modern housing and implications for the training of architects

Over the years, art in its various forms has played a vital role in the lives of African people. It served as a major form of communicative expression of religious beliefs and socio-cultural norms of the people. Its form, presentation and significance however, varied from one cultural setting to another. This paper examines art in the context of domestic architecture of indigenous people of South West Nigeria and its relevance in contemporary housing as well as what it portends for architectural education in that cultural zone. The paper notes the disappearance of the rich traditional motifs and symbols from contemporary housing and their replacement with more contemporary art forms influenced by globalisation and industrial mass production. It concludes that the current trend presents an architecture that is devoid of cultural architectural uniqueness and identity. One of the implications identified is for architectural curricula to incorporate indigenous themes that will help architects produce domestic architecture that have contextual relevance. Data for the paper was collected through literature review and the qualitative research method using interviews and observations of houses in the zone. Those interviewed include architects and residents in the zone. Data was content analysed to highlight common themes.

“Creation Through Translation” in Early Twentieth-Century Women’s Fiction: On a Literary Trend in the Initial Stages of Cultural Exchange Between China and the West

In the 1910s, the trend of “creating through translation” emerged in fiction by female Chinese writers. This concept, similar to that of “covert translation,” introduced by the contemporary Western translation theorist Juliane House, sprang up from the early stages of new literary forms that developed in the context of changes in early modern Chinese literature. The works of female Chinese authors were influenced by the plot, characters, and narrative techniques in Western literary works from which they consciously or subconsciously took inspiration, passing from the imitation of foreign novels to “creation through translation.” The arrival of this phenomenon is closely connected to the increased dissemination of Western knowledge and to a wider circulation of foreign novels among female writers in China. When reading and translating foreign literature, female authors transposed, filtered, and rewrote it into new texts that featured local elements. Ideologically and artistically, the practice of “creating through translation” provided enlightening guidance for modern women’s fiction in that it broadened the means of learning from Western literature, proving beneficial to China’s literary and cultural development. The same trend appears in early vernacular poetry during the May Fourth era, from which it can be traced further back to scholarly texts of the early modern period, such as Wei Yuan’s Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms (Haiguo tuzhi 海國圖志) or Wang Tao’s Report on the Franco-Prussian War (Pu-fa zhan ji 普法戰紀). Also Liang Qichao’s writings on Western thought and culture, for example, his Notes on Rousseau (Lusuo xue’an 盧梭學案), are written in a similar form. The emergence of “creation through translation” therefore evidently represents both a conscious, active effort by a generation’s intellectual elite to seek knowledge and truth from cultural exchange between China and the West, and a new exploration and practice under Western influence that had a positive impact on China’s literary and academic history, in that it broadened cultural/academic perspectives and stimulated the development of Chinese literature and culture.

Manifestation of Culture in Traditional Architecture of Iranian House Based on Old Houses in Kashan

<pre>Culture has huge effect on designing architecture form and space and also on quality of resident lives. Architecture applied in the places should be based on recognition of resident culture so as to satisfy their mental and physical needs, otherwise they would not be able to communicate with the space and feel pleasant sense of belonging. Although most designers focus on significance and influence of culture on building, they simply ignore the essence of culture and its impact on designs. In this research, in order to recognize how Islamic Iranian culture components manifest in the body of traditional house architecture, old houses in Kashan by using case study and descriptive and analytical method are studied. Considering culture elements including values, national norms and customs, myths and religious beliefs, spatial hierarchy, internal and external consistency, privacy, and communication with the nature and type of planning as the main criteria, this conclusion can be drawn that despite of all functional and regional limitations, architects pay adequate attention to resident culture and its impact on the deepest layers of their mind. Such researches are truly essential to survive contemporary housing pattern which is constantly falling into decline under the municipal laws.</pre>

How not to be an egalitarian: the politics of homeownership and property-owning democracy

This paper offers a critical evaluation of the narrative of ‘property-owning democracy' (POD) in contemporary housing policy and in the political cultures of the UK and the USA. It describes and contrasts two competing interpretations of POD. The dominant interpretation permeates the politics of housing in Britain and the USA. It is based on the assumption that homeownership creates virtuous and independent citizens, is strongly associated with the conservative ideal of the small state, and is firmly embedded in both policy and the accepted terms of political debate.In contrast to this, there is a less dominant, egalitarian interpretation of POD, which seeks to promote a view of property and citizenship based more on solidarity and interdependence. This interpretation of POD tends to view property more broadly, including smaller savings and even extending to mass ownership in industry. But it also typically neglects the political reality of POD as a homeownership ideology and the anti-welfare dynamic it has created. This paper therefore argues that the egalitarian (re)interpretation of POD is politically and sociologically naïve, and that it is offers an untenable counter-narrative to the politics of welfare retrenchment. A more egalitarian housing policy needs to start from a different place.

Light clay straw bale solutions in the contemporary housing as an element of sustainable development. Selected issues

The article presents issues related to the solutions with light clay and straw bale in the contemporary housing. Building using straw bale and light clay is simple, eco-friendly and accessible to all. It fits in with the idea of sustainable development, supporting local businesses and giving people the opportunity to integrate in the design and construction of the house. The article presents the thermal analysis for both walls made of straw bale and of light clay. The analysis showed a very good performance. All positive aspects allow treating straw and light clay as a viable alternative to the commonly used technologies for erecting buildings.

Espacios desde objetos. Relaciones entre modos de vida y arquitectura a través de muebles

This article is a reflection on the relationship between space and the body of its inhabitants through furniture. It explores the ways in which the furniture arranged in space shows a social or family structure and a time. A review of housing projects is made, from the spatial structure in the nineteenth-century bourgeois house, through modern housing, and to sophisticated contemporary Japanese housing proposals. Using the concept of ‘structures of placement”, coined by Jean Baudrillard in his book The system of objects (2003), we propose here a look from which architecture is understood as incomplete without furniture, since it is precisely through furniture that the ways of life which occupy it are defined.

Quantitative And Qualitative Research In Housing Areas: Contemporary Housing Developments In Silesian Metropolitan Area, Poland

Abstract Between 2000 and 2010 housing development in Poland changed dramatically. Local development plans released large rural areas on the outskirts of most cities for single-family housing. As a result, there are many new low-density housing estates and very few high-density estates within city centres. The paper refers to a research method that has been developed to measure and compare various housing developments. The method can be used to show both density indicators and a general overview of different cases. The research presented in the article, based upon the developed method, was conducted in the Silesian Metropolitan Area on 41 case studies. The article summarizes the methodology and popularizes findings from the research.

“Team Play” between Renewable Energy Sources and Vehicle Fleet to Decrease Air Pollution

The reduction of air pollutants for the purpose of maintaining or improving air quality across the globe is a fundamental concern to which all modern governments are allocating varying amounts of attention and resources. The successful amelioration of air pollution requires strategic investments in the commercialization and adoption of “clean energy technologies” by both private and public entities, the conversion of contemporary houses to “smart houses”, the diffusion of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) including photovoltaic systems (PV), wind farms, and different forms of bioenergy, and the integration of electric-powered vehicles. In concert with these ideas, this paper aims to discuss the possibility of undertaking a feasibility study in two countries Canada and Italy concerning the integration of electric vehicles (EVs) and electric motorcycles (EMs). The proposed feasibility study would seek to assess the prospect of replacing the current vehicle fleets in these two countries with EVs in a manner that utilizes renewable energy sources and, thus, does not generate new toxic emissions. In conclusion, this study demonstrated that a pronounced introduction and distribution of RES, EVs, and EMs can operate as a great opportunity for both the environment and the capacities and needs of energy production. Today, the EV is not widespread. With this contribution, it is shown how EVs can be well integrated with renewable energy. Therefore, it is the duty of governments to implement policy strategies, in order to spread them across more territory.

저출산 고령화 사회에 대응하는 노후 공동주택 단위세대의 리모델링 방법론

An increase of single and/or two-people households with decrease on typical three or four people households (which was defined as sizes for nuclear family) has led to varieties in family formations and lifestyles. It is not just a reduction on number of family members but generates several issues. Apartment, which has been the typical contemporary housing type in Korea, have a difficulty to satisfy emerging demands of various residents, due to standardized unit plans and mass supplies. Based on remodeling cycles of apartments, it becomes a time period that requires a significant number of remodeling on degraded apartments. Recently, as an alternative, development of urban small housing has been encouraged in national level as a solution to meet increasing needs of small housings and increasing needs for improving living environments in degraded residential areas. Years of consistent massive volume of housing supply policies, which was to ease the housing problem by quantitative way, was pointed out to be a leading problem of providing poor living environment. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an architectural planning guideline for degraded apartment remodeling that able to accommodate need of residents with variety of lifestyles and ensure better residential environment. In this paper, we first determine the changes in life styles of residents and public housings through the statistical data analysis then investigate architectural planning method for apartment remodeling in terms of low-fertility and aging population.

Globalising homeownership: housing privatisation schemes and the private rental sector in post-socialist Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Research has shown how private homeownership features prominently in housing policy on a global basis. Little critique exists, however, on how property is framed in more contemporary privatisation policies unfolding in today’s post-socialist cities. Taking the case study of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, this article examines the extent to which the government and international community remain focused on homeownership to the detriment of developing policies and legislation on other housing tenure, notably rental housing. The article examines two contemporary housing programmes: the introduction of homeowner associations and the government’s approach towards informal settlements on the city’s outskirts. These two programmes are examined as an entrenchment of earlier privatisation programmes introduced in the late 1980s and 1990s which resulted in the sale of state housing and the distribution of land on the city’s outskirts. The results indicate that tenants often remain either invisible or their rights are subjuga...

Luxified skies

This paper is a call for critical urban research to address the vertical as well as horizontal aspects of social inequality. It seeks, in particular, to explore the important but neglected causal connection between the demonisation and dismantling of social housing towers constructed in many cities between the 1930s and 1970s and the contemporary proliferation of radically different housing towers produced for socio-economic elites. The argument begins with a critical discussion of the economistic orthodoxy, derived from the work of Edward Glaeser, that contemporary housing crises are best addressed by removing state intervention in housing production so that market-driven verticalisation can take place. The following two sections connect the rise of such orthodoxy with the ‘manufactured reality'—so central to neo-liberal urban orthodoxy—that vertical social housing must necessarily fail because it deterministically creates social pathology. The remainder of the paper explores in detail how the dominance of these narratives have been central to elite takeovers, and ‘luxification’, of the urban skies through the proliferation of condo towers for the super-rich. Case studies are drawn from Vancouver, New York, London, Mumbai and Guatemala City and the broader vertical cultural and visual politics of the process are explored. The discussion finishes by exploring the challenges involved in contesting, and dismantling, the hegemonic dominance of vertical housing by elite interests in contemporary cities.

Dickensian blocks: East London's contemporary housing landscape

Dickensian blocks: East London's contemporary housing landscape

Climate Comfort Comparison of Vernacular and Contemporary Houses of Iran

Technology development causes a human oriented design to be forgotten all over the world. In housing design, one of the important factors for human-oriented design is Climate comfort. Today similar architectural patterns in different climate regions in Iran, can’t provide residents comfort. While vernacular housing architecture of Iran had different patterns for providing climate comfort in different regions. The aim of this paper is to suggest some solutions to enhance the level of comfort in today's housing of Iran. This paper compares contemporary and vernacular houses of Iran in terms of climate comfort by using description and case study analysis methods.

Rethinking the Concept of the Neighborhood: An Enabling or a Housing Model?

Aiming at achieving the utopian housing scheme, contemporary housing studies have exhibited an increasing interest in the concept of the neighborhood; its design, components, and relationship with the surrounding. The concept of the neighborhood, as introduced by Perry in 1929 is considered a utopian approach that seeks to create a residential community, socially and spatially, in which the sense of community as existed in pre-industrial cities prevails. It arose as one of the modern reformist approaches that appeared in response to the urban ills that characterized the modern capitalist society such as social disintegration, inequality, and injustice in resource distribution and life chances. Likewise, aiming at achieving the socio-spatial ideal, many postmodern approaches emerged to create the ideal residential community; most prominently is the movement of “New Urbanism.” But did these utopian approaches succeed as community-housing ideals in providing appropriate housing (spatially) and realizing the sense of community (socially) at the same time?This research attempts to read critically the concept of contemporary neighborhood, particularly the movement of “New Urbanism” in terms of its ability to fulfil its aims in producing a residential coherent community, socially and spatially. It compares the production mechanisms, decision-making processes, and distribution and nature of rights in New Urbanism with the concept of residential communities in traditional Islamic built environments. It is concluded that, adopting capitalist production mechanisms characterized by centralized domination, hierarchical power structure, and lack of residents enablement, New Urbanism was no more than a spatial solution that produced residential compounds (spatially) rather than enabled communities (socially). As such, it is merely a housing scheme that failed to be qualified as a socio-spatial ideal, as targeted.

The revival of benefits and reimbursement of rural houses in association with Contemporary interior design

Among the difficult equations that designers strive to achieve today, is to combine the aesthetics of rural housing with its social and utilitarian positives and the luxury of contemporary housing in terms of ease and ease in completing tasks.