- Throughout the history of human civilization, house has been one of man's basic needs for life sustenance and well being of its occupants.
- Man-made physical environment displayed the cultural values and contemporary social order.
- The architecture of shelter evolved into diversified solutions to meet the challenges of widely varying cultural and social habits of the families.
Family Type and Composition
It is a prime factor that affects the housing choice. According to the number of adult members, children and their age and sex, housing requirements vary. Every family passes through different stages of life cycle unless and until they are childless or opts to remain single. For proper mental and physical health of all the members, in all these stages, the house should provide sufficient space for living, with adequate lighting, ventilation and good sanitary facilities. The accommodation should be designed with special needs for physically handicapped and aged members of the family to avoid accidents and to make them live as self-manageable members of the society. Joint family requires bigger accommodation than the nuclear family. Number of couples in family, influence the number of private rooms and sanitary areas required in a house to provide privacy and safety.
Family Income
It is most influential factor in deciding on the affordability of living accommodation. Money earning of the average workers have risen sharply in the recent days with increased wages and in turn raised the standard of living. Flow of income is low in beginning stage of family life cycle, but increases with expanding and contracting stages. Depending on affordability and family, a family decides to either own or rent a house.
As acquiring a decent house with all the basic and modern amenities is considered a prestige symbol in the society, all the healthy adult members of the family, irrespective of age and sex, contribute to the family income and strive to acquire a house of their own. In urban area, as there is a great pressure on land and land scarcity, many opts to live in multi-storied apartments. These are also designed to suit to different economic level of the families. The standard of living that a family wants to maintain, the family values and priorities in life are considered while selecting a house.
Occupation of the family members
The housing demand differs with different occupation. The houses of farmers differ with from that of artisans. The house of businessmen or lawyer should provide additional space for business meetings and that of a small entrepreneur should have space for his workshop. A transient family which moves from place to place, because of occupation or other needs look for temporary arrangement while a permanent family which is reasonably sure of living in the same place for a long time gives importance to location, its size and convenience are given importance. Neighborhood development and life style of the habitants influence the location of residence. Families prefer to live in places where similar group of families live and share their common interests and ideas. Lifestyle preferences (recreational facilities, desire for greenery or planting, gated communities, club house) of a family are also major influencing factors.
Other than lifestyle preferences, the values of a family, or key points to which a family attaches importance also play an influential role – some families give a higher ranking to kind of locality, convenience and proximity to various services as against comfort within the house.
Culture :
In a typical Indian family system, the cultural and social values influence the way of living. The social and cultural habits and behaviour of the inhabitants; Behavioural changes associated with the space inside the house; and social and cultural adjustments associated with the space inside the house are influenced by the family values. Every human group in a society has a system of set of norms, codes and behavioural procedures in which it functions/operates. Customs and traditions of the communities inhabiting them, their religious faiths and mythologies, social organization, folk beliefs, caste, kinship, family, marriage, rules of inheritance of property and succession etc. play an important role in designing living environment. It reflects the lifestyle of its inhabitants and their thinking, feelings, beliefs and aspirations. So, houses are not merely shelters; these are homes where people can live not as human aggregates but can grow and develop into well-knit harmonious communities. These are the symbolic representation of socio-cultural and economic status of a community and family.
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Participants