An Examination of the importance of user satisfaction : a study of socio-spatial relationships with respect to middle income housing

Abstract

Architecture is a reflection of social, cultural, economic and environmental dimensions of a particular society. As architecture reflects the prevailing requirements of a particular society, their house forms were moulded with reflecting the relevant income levels' needs and requirements. In the urban context, the middle-income community plays a big role to balance the activities in the city. They have an urge for economic and social upward mobility. They are the common category that suffers from the housing problem in the urban context. The middle-income category, in the developing countries has started to depend on mass housing solutions in most of the parts of the world. In Sri Lankan context, most of the government built housing schemes, have been satisfied only the quantitative requirements of the occupants. They are only given the required minimum space to carry out their daily activities. Various modifications and mechanisms imply the un satisfaction of the occupants. Doing an examination on the user modifications and their relevance with the qualitative requirements will help to the designers of mass housing to due consideration to satisfaction of user on qualitative aspects. Architects can, understand this pluralistic nature of cotemporary society and the evolving values of the occupants. This will help them to build up design criteria, which caters to the occupants' requirements with satisfaction.