Transactionism in the built environment : personalization and modifications to state provided housing

Abstract

The home takes the central position of the entire built environment as it encompasses the essentials of human life, as auxiliary service and community facilities. Psychologically people expect their homes to represent their individual human qualities such as identity, personality, privacy, security, territoriality and to exhibit their social status. Housing as a mass production had been concerned more about human settlements, social grouping, community living and some symbolic meanings only. It had not been able to perform well as homes with required qualitative nature, had become a common global phenomena today due to lots of factors. This has been quite acute in the urban situations of the third world. Many solutions have also been given by the respective governments, public authorities, NGO's, professionals, etc., from time to time, but the problem remains a it is. There have been many arguments for this too, brought forward by the same and different parties. In this context, this study also put forward its argument by analyzing the issue of designing homes for the homeless in urban situations and with respect to the government and professional intervention. It argues that contrary to the long established views, the people themselves have to be brought into the scene and what all the others can and should play is the necessary supportive roles. Under this theme, the responsibilities shared by such parties are discussed in detail towards the latter part of the study in forwarding its conclusions.