Abstract:
Buildings need to be adaptable with relative ease to
new requirements, regulations and uses for diverse
and changing users. Designing buildings which can
adapt to changing demands poses a considerable
challenge.
Residential satisfaction on dwelling is a function of
three groups of variables; the user’s characteristics,
the physical attributes of a space and the beliefs
and perceptions of the user’s on the experienced
space. Particularly in residential environments, the
user tries to solve the emerging spatial problems by
making some alterations and thus adapting the
space to his/her changing needs. With this regard,
flexible and adaptable design solutions can be an
important potential to meeting the needs of various
users throughout a building’s life-cycle.
Adaptability reduces the effort and expense
involved in adding, changing or replacing building
components (such as partitions, doors or plumbing
features) throughout the building’s life-cycle. This
increases the building’s value, sustainability and
most importantly, the users’ satisfaction. In
practice however, most buildings are designed and
constructed to cater for the present use for the
present users. Future adaptability is ignored and
not designed for.
This research intends to focus on the evaluation of
the “dwelling space” in terms of the physical
attributes of space. The research will critically
review literature on adaptability and flexible
designing in order to construct a theoretical
platform for understanding the knowledge on how
buildings change can be used to inform design
decisions of internal spaces of Social Housing units.
The research follows an approach which is based
on the systemic separation of building components
and adjusting buildings to accommodate the
frequently changing needs of inhabitants. The
objective of the research is to develop a
methodology which supports the design of internal
unit spaces so that they can be adapted throughout
the building’s life-cycle.
