Personal or Family Private Area – The Home
“Necessity” calls for compact living space:
- Families are much smaller than in the past. Building space is hardly available anymore and very expensive.
- Building and finance costs are very expensive. Service and energy costs are ever increasing.
- “Mobility” of workers, caused by quickly changing technology and/or management directives, makes building of houses by family labour impossible in most cases.
Even the smallest home can be planned to satisfy the basic and common human need for livable housing. In planning and building our houses we should strive to obtain as much of the “desirable” as we can, for the desirable makes life worth living.
Criteria for the house or dwelling should be as follows:
Essential:
- Protection from the climate
- Protection from intruders
- Provision of space and privacy for individual and family life
Desirable:
- Provision of space for relatives or guests
- Contact with nature
- Provision of space for utensils or stores
- Possibility to raise food at home
- Possibility to work at home, for money or pleasure
While scarcity of building space and scarcity of building funds calls for compact housing, a proper analysis of the functions and characteristics of space will enable the planner or architect to provide livable and even beautiful spaces.
Photo by jonathan ocampo on Unsplash
Home (private household space) = enclosed space (house) + open space (garden or court).
The number of persons living within a home cannot be foreseen, for homes change hands, or are passed on to a new generation with different incomes.
In rich or good times, less people occupy more space and older people live apart from the younger.
In not so good times, families tend to stay together, by necessity. Grandparents, aunts, or uncles take care of and watch young children. Young couples watch and take care of grandparents, aunts, or uncles. In not so good times, more members of the extended family contribute to the cost of upkeep of the home.
Design philosophy for compact living space:
- Small and even very small spaces are bearable and livable if balanced by large spaces (not necessarily part of the home).
- Empty space = big space, especially within walls.
- Contact with nature and plants makes life livable by providing instant and constant access to beauty.
- Provision of garden space, no matter how small, provides integration with nature and beauty, provides possibility to raise some food, provides possibility to raise small animals for pleasure or for food.
With careful attention to the above, even the smallest home can be planned to satisfy the basic and common human need for livable housing.
