Dwelling and Neighbourhood Design
The aim of this course is to enable students 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-centred approach to dwelling design is based on the explanatory theory of the meaning of ‘home.’ It sensitizes students to the concept of home as regulator of social interaction and communicator of social status and identity. Students understand how dwelling can be understood as system of activity settings with boundaries outside the private domain in shared spaces, accommodating daily activities, trips to work, opportunities for education and leisure. The course covers neighbourhood design and planning with its spatial layout, land use and connectivity, enabling students to understand and design the balance between several dichotomies such as sense of community and social mix; between economic prosperity and community privacy, between appropriation of collective space, safety, sense of belonging and accessibility, inclusiveness and equity. It explores the revival of home-based work, different contemporary lifestyles, patterns of living heritage and varying households. The course compliments the view of housing as a product, with that of housing as a process, the tenets of ‘adequate housing’ and the special considerations for different user groups; women, children, elderly…etc..
1. Understand the meaning of home beyond being a shelter, but rather as a system of activity settings.
2. Understand and apply the criteria for creating appropriate ‘homes’ for people.
3. Identify the gap between the demand for housing and supply in the housing market.
4. Understand the components of a Housing Policy and assess policy implications for different target groups and the degree to which policies achieve their targets.
5. Identify and understand the different Housing Typologies (unit design, aggregation and clustering, urban densities, urban patterns) and their implications on daily life experience in terms of dwelling activity system of settings.
6. Discern lessons from formal and informal housing and how to design remedial intervention to capitalize on advantages while neutralizing the disadvantages.
7. Understand and apply theories of different dwelling typologies.
8. Design the rehabilitation / upgrading of existing residential environments, infil projects and new city extensions, relocation housing when necessary.