of 49
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
1/49
House Form and Culture
Tucson AZ, UA Student Union, March 4, 2008
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
2/49
HOUSE FORM + CULTURE
Factors Impacting House Form
Climate
Materials, Construction, and Technology
Site
Defense
Economics
Religion
Cultural
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
3/49
HOUSE FORM + CULTURE
Amos Rapoports Hypothesis:
House form is not simply the result of physical forces or any single causal
factor, but is the consequence of a whole range of socio-cultural factors seenin their broadest terms. Form is in turn modified by climatic conditions and bymethods of construction, materials available, and the technology. Rapoportnotes the socio-cultural forces as primaryand all other forces as secondaryormodifying.
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
4/49
Lewis Mumford, Art and Technics:
Mumford argues that man was a symbol-making animal before he was a
tool-making animal...and furthermore that man reached specialization in myth,religion, and ritual before he did in material aspects of culture, and that ritualexactitude came before exactitude in work (or construction technique).
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
5/49
Anasazi cave
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
6/49
Cave paintings at Altamira
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
7/49
Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England (~2800bc)
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
8/49
Cappadocia, Turkey cave dwellings + hillside housing
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
9/49
Climate
Imperatives of climate as determinants of form for shelter
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
10/49
Papago ceremonial arbor (ramada)
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
11/49
Athabascan - summer hut
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
12/49
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 therectangular hut in its various forms.
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
13/49
Eskimo winter igloo
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
14/49
Navajo Hogan
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
15/49
Uru dwelling, Peru - reeds
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
16/49
Marsh Arab dwellings, Iran - reeds
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
17/49
Marsh Arab dwellings, Iran - reeds
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
18/49
Arab tents - sticks + felt
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
19/49
Mongolian yurt - sticks + felt
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
20/49
Yagua dwelling, Amazon - wood + thatch
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
21/49
Masai dwelling, Africa - wood + thatch
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
22/49
Masai dwelling, Africa - wood + thatch (+ mud)
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
23/49
Santorini, Greece - barrel vault roofs (stone...concrete)
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
24/49
Site
Influence of site on house form hilly terrain, ecological determinism, lack ofland, etc.
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
25/49
Navajo individual houses
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
26/49
Pueblo clustered dwellings
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
27/49
Hillside dwellings
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
28/49
Defense
Tight settlement patterns as a form resulting from defense-needs
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
29/49
Masai - connected house walls
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
30/49
Mousgoum - wall connecting houses
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
31/49
Economics
Exerts constraints on house development, but does not account for houseform
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
32/49
Arab tent - Nomadic
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
33/49
Native American teepee - Nomadic
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
34/49
Gecekondu(illegally-built hillside dwellings), Ankara
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
35/49
Jakarta squatters, Indonesia
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
36/49
Religion
Antiphysical determinism (neglecting material factors) - attributes form ofhouses to religious or spiritual views and beliefs; orientation, plan and spatial
arrangements may be affected by religious beliefs; raised on stilts orunderground can also be attributed to religion
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
37/49
Zulu - Africa
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
38/49
Farmstead (Hogaku) - Japan
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
39/49
Cultural
Socio-cultural forces may include religious beliefs, family and clan structure,social organization, way of gaining livelihood, and social relations between
individuals. Social organization may reflect the varying relationships betweenor varying needs of genders or different age-groups.
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
40/49
Bowerbird
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
41/49
Bowerbird
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
42/49
Batammaliba, Africa - male joining wall
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
43/49
Batammaliba, Africa - titatisacred ceremony
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
44/49
Post-Industrial Culture in Housing
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
45/49
Snout Houses
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
46/49
Tract Mansions
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
47/49
Mansion Subsidy
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
48/49
Manufactured Housing
8/6/2019 House Form&Culture
49/49
Ramada House Judith Chafee