House Form Inter Veining Factors

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Crucial Issues Impacting The House Form.

The survival of human beings on this earth has always been supported by

human habitat. The idea of ‘house’ germinated from man’s need for shelter.

The form in which this idea finds expressions in individual instance is

conditioned by various forces. The forces that have affected the humandwellings have resulted into the evolution of the house form along the time

period. These forces and interventions are varying from time to time, leading

to various life-styles, cultures, and form of the house. The development of

technology and better appreciation of environmental forces leads to the

improvement of the old house form of houses. Since the Industrial Revolution

this phenomenon has had a twofold significance, in so much as there are new

forces or interventions demanding acknowledgements and new solutions

evoked by already existing forces.

Man settled down from his existence as

a nomad and a hunter to agriculturalway of life – this first step to plough theland, molded his society in a differentway from that of his nomadic existence. Then, he had an economy based onagriculture. Ever since man has foundevermore skills to earn his livelihood. This has led to increasingly complextransactions, adding more complexitiesto life. His social structure and intra/interfamily relationship became morecomplex and were stabilized to a largedegree. Man built more elaborate

dwelling, which were more complex inthe organization and also morepermanent.

This change may be seen as a changefrom the necessity society to that of theprosperous society. The demands go onincreasing- the demands for morecomfort, better equipment, etc. - madepossible because of the economic levelsof society. The dwelling is an expressionof a culture and a way of life. It is thisthat decides hierarchy of spaces i.e. thespatial organization.[1] Spatialorganization of the shelter is theoutcome of religious and traditionaltaboos as much as that of materialaspects of technology, materials andeconomic levels. These shifts have takenplace in the social, cultural values of people and these have found anexpression in the built form. The primaryneed for a house has remained constantbut the form has modified or evenchanged over a period of time,

representing a process which thecivilization has undergone.

Time is ‘The Element’ which cannot be

neglected while considering the houseform, as the house form has evolvedthrough the time but not in a sudden andhaphazard manner and it takes ages forany kind of evolution. As mentionedearlier the forces and the interventionsaffecting the house form keep varyingtime to time, for instance in early ages of mankind it was a form or shelter just toprotect the human from climate and wildanimals, so here the forces were basicsi.e. climate and wild animals. But todaywith the development and crave for

more comfort than the necessities theforces affecting the house form areincreasing day by day.

The major factors affected the houseform in the run of time leading to thebetter dwellings and comfort living arediscussed further.

Climate

Climate is the most vital determinants of

form for shelter. Since the early ages till

date climate has affected the house formfrom time to time and from place to

place. Looking at the early dwellings

may be the summer hut or the rock cut

caves, it truly reveals the response to

the nature i.e. the climate.

The summer huts (Fig.1) in Athabascan,

are the response to the climate. These

huts are made during the summers only

with the locally available materials. They

keep the inside shaded and cool during

the day and allow the breeze to passthrough.



The Papago ceremonial arbor (Ramada)

(Fig.2) is another example of the house

form responding to the climate,

requirement of the shade is fulfilled with

the minimum availability of resources.

In every part of the world the houseform has responded differently to the

climate and mostly with the locally

available materials and technologies.

Thus this lead to another factor affecting

the house form i.e. materials,

construction, and technology.

Fig. 1. Athabascan -summer hut.

Fig. 2. Papago ceremonial arbor (ramada).

Materials, Construction, and

Technology

Evolution of form gives way to various

materials and techniques available – i.e.the progressive development of the

cave, to the circular hut, to the

rectangular hut in its various forms. The

materials and technology have always

been tools to cater to man’s needs.

Since the beginning of mankind, man

has observed things around him and the

way they are available in nature from

which he has derived the properties of

those materials. It may have been his

rational thinking process by which hehas come to know that stone is a very

hard material or that grass can be bent

very easily or that it is difficult to work

with wood in the absence of any tools.

This process of selection and elimination

may have been a long continuous

change technology development.

The winter igloos,(Fig.3) and Uru

dwelling, (Fig.4) shows how the house

form is changing with the use of different

material and the construction

technology. The form of the igloo is

derived by the construction technology

but at the same time it is responding to

the climate, in the same manner the

sloping roofs of the Uru dwellings are

responding to the climate but the

material used is reeds, so the

construction technology has responded

to the material available.

Fig. 3. Eskimo –winter igloo.

Fig. 4. Uru dwelling, Peru –reeds.

There are also situations where social

values take precedence over

technological advances. This is an

interesting point, since we tend to

equate technological advances with

progress without thinking of the social

consequences of adopting suchadvances. In North Africa the French



piped water to a series of villages, this

caused serious dissatisfaction.

Investigation showed that in Moslem

society women are shut in the house,

and the village well provides their only

chance to get outside, gossip, and seetheir limited world. As soon as the well

was restored and the taps eliminated,

the dissatisfaction ended.[2] In some

areas, after thatch has been replaced by

more modern materials, it becomes

fashionable as an antique with status

value.

Materials, construction and technology

are best treated as modifying factors,

rather than form determinants, because

the decide neither what is to be built nor

its form- thus is decided on other

grounds. They make possible the

enclosure of a space organization

decided upon for other reasons, and

possibly modify that organization. They

facilitate and make possible or

impossible certain decisions, but never

decide determine the form.

Economics

Economics has been widely used to

explain settlement and building form,

and its importance is indeed

great.However, it exerts constrains on

house development, but does not

account for house form.

Since houses are less critical for survival

than food, we would expect them to be

even less affected by sheer economic

necessity. In Annam, as soon as a

peasant has money he builds a house,

beautiful but not comfortable, andbeyond his means; there are more rich

houses there than rich families.

A teepee (Fig.5) is a Lakota name for a

conical tent traditionally made of animal

skins and wooden pole used by the

nomadic tribes and sedentary tribal

dwellers (when hunting) of the Great

Plains..Teepees could be disassembled

and packed away quickly when

a tribe decided to move and could be

reconstructed quickly when the tribesettled in a new area. This portability

was important to Plains Indians with their

nomadic lifestyle.

Fig. 5. Native American teepee –Nomadic.

The Recent

Interventions

Affecting The House

Form.In today’s date the house form is not just

responding to the limited factors or

issues but the number of interventions or

activities happening all over the world.

Each and every thing is affecting thedeveloping form of the architecture in

some or the other way. It include the

little inventions in technology to the big

happenings like terrorist attacks.

For instance television or media has a

very important place in today’s lifestyle,

most of the families, may be the poor or

middle class or the rich, cannot imagine

their day without television. So if we

keenly have a look at today's form of the

house mainly the living room, it revolvesaround the placement of the television.

In every design the sitting arrangement

of the living to the size of the living

changes with the position of the

television. Such an intervention of a

small thing is really a noticeable effect.

This is leading to a new life style and so

the new house form.

Such interventions seem small but affect

the house form drastically, with the

advanced technology the definition of

comfort is also intervened with the



greedy behaviour of humans. First there

was need, and then the need of the

necessities turned to comfort and now

the more comfort heading towards the

greed and more greed. This greed of

human behaviour is also an interventionin the form of violation of social

behaviour and more.

Another issue that has come up recently

and is one of the intervening factors is

the terrorism all over the world. Recently

with the completion of ten years of the

9/11 attack, which razed the World Trade

Centre to the grounds (fig.6), an article

was published about the great buildings

of the world in Times Of India. Directly or

indirectly terrorism is also affecting

today’s architecture. Since November

2005, there is a committee for terrorist

resistant buildings, and have included a

new building code in 2009 against, in

International Building Code. In October

2006, New York a small plane crashed

into a high rise residential building

(Fig.7) because of the error of the pilot,

injuring many and caused the death of

the pilot and co-pilot. But now

technology has developed to construct a

building to resist the hit of a Boeing too,

thus the same technology will one way

or the other way can might affect the

house form.

Fig. 6. WTC Attack.

Fig. 7. A small plane crashed into an

apartment building.

Thus the recent inventions in technology

and change in the life style growing

towards more comfort are leading to

many interventions in the house form,

may be how small or big are they, they

are becoming the part of the house form

evolution which we cannot neglect.

End Notes:

1. House Form [Thesis], Yogesh Shah.“Introduction”.

2. See pg. 25. Amos Rapoport, House

form and culture, Prentice Hall

Publications, 1969.

Illustrations:

1. House Form and Culture. Tucson AZ,

UA Student Union, March, 2008. The

Drachman Institute, University of

Arizona.

2. Climate and House Form [Thesis],

Hemant Naik. CEPT University,

Ahmedabad.

3. Times Of India, dated: 11 th

September 2011.



Bibliography:

1. Amos Rapoport, House form and

culture, Prentice Hall Publications,

1969.

2. K.B. Jain, Generic Form.

3. Article, International Code Council.

4. House Form [Thesis], Yogesh Shah.

5. Materials and House Form [Thesis],

Patel.

6. Climate and House Form [Thesis],Hemant Naik.

7. Study of Change, its comprehension

and the evidence of change in the

dwelling forms [Thesis], Parul Shah.

8. Architectural Research Quarterly.

Cambridge University Press.

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House Form Inter Veining Factors