Originally written on the 23rd of May, 2015
Housing is the need of the hour. A place to call ‘home’ and ‘our own’. We are not in dearth of houses, but of homes. While apartments and housing projects sprout rapidly all across the world, we must ask ourselves the question – Are these spaces so created Familial ? For architecture is beyond replication and is a means to instill sensations. Unfortunately, how often does this occur anymore ? One means of catering to this is incremental housing – The Architect/ Planner essentially says “I’ll give you the basics and the infrastructure for additions. You can shape it as and when you want to”.
Inclusiveness of the user in this process – seems closer to creating a familial space, but how do we take this and apply it to other forms of spaces ? Like the Apartments, for instance, are just multiple replicas of the same unit stacked one above the other. Their character is an extension of that of their inhabitants. So there arises a question – Is character in such modular spaces limited to the way the inhabitants make a ‘home’ of a house ? Why is it that the intensity of spaces are diluted as they are replicated and what is it that we, as architects, can do about it ?
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