Dwelling and Neighborhood Design

This course focuses on how to design residential environments that are supportive to people’s lifestyles, fulfilling to their social and psychological needs in addition to the main function of shelter from the ambient environment. The people-centered approach to dwelling design is based on the explanatory theory of the meaning of ‘home’ and considers housing as a process rather than a product. Considering dwelling as a ‘system of activity settings’ with boundaries outside the private domain in shared spaces, accommodating daily activities, trips to work, opportunities for education and leisure it explores the tenets of ‘adequate housing’ and the special considerations for different user groups; women, children, elderly…etc... It emphasizes the concept of home as regulator of social interaction and communicator of social status and identity. The course covers neighborhood design and planning with its spatial layout, land use and connectivity, enabling students to understand the balance between several dichotomies such as sense of community and social mix; economic prosperity and community privacy, between appropriation of collective space, safety, sense of belonging and accessibility, inclusiveness and equity. It explores the diversity of housing demand including the demand for home-based work, co-habitation, living heritage patterns and varying household structures.