BUILT ENVIRONMENT &

SPATIAL CULTURE
Lecture 05, 21-022014

Meso-space behavior: Home Base

Meso-space behavior: Home Base

Definition
The home base of any animal contains its nesting area, a secure
position for performing vulnerable behaviors such as sleeping, raising
young, and grooming.

"Good fences make good neighbors- Robert Frost

Home sweet home;

Home is where the heart is;
Theres
no
place
like
home

Men are merriest when they

are away from home;
Home is a girls prison and
the womans workhouse;

Home
Definition and difference with House
A dwelling is built to contain not only the human body and its actions but
also our minds- our thoughts, dreams, memories etc.
Juhani Pallasama
It is a territorial unit which provides territorial satisfactions in terms
of:

Security

Identity

Stimulation

Security

Moslem
HighWall

English
LowFence

PublicStreet|PublicDomain

ThresholdofAnxiety

North American
OpenPlan

Identity
Home is the universal archetypal symbol of the self- C. G. Jung
For the house he had built for himself, he regarded as- a symbol of
psychic wholeness.

Introvert

Extrovert

PublicStreet|PublicDomain

Household studies
Thesocialunitthatlivesinahouseiscalledhousehold.
Ahouseholdis
the most basic social unit
a co-residential group consisting of

a single person or

a nuclear or

an extended family or

unrelated persons or

any combination of the above

Afamilyiswithinthehousehold.Thosemembersofthehouseholdwho
arerelatedtoaspecifieddegreethroughblood,adoptionor
marriage,constitutethefamily.

Factors to consider for understanding of a particular household:

Patterns of work:

paid or

domestic

Type of community of which the household is a part of

Rural

Urban

Suburban

Village

Town

Neighborhood distances

Life outside home

Peoples stage in lifecycle; i.e.; their age

Gender

Household studies
Criteria of co residence in defining household unit
Sharing same residence is argued to be central to social and economic
cooperation amongst members of domestic groups
Activity area : links of pattern of social behavior to spatial organization
Increasing complexity of society leading to stratification and monofunctional spaces
Gender relations in society: womens life-cycle (child birth,
menstruation, divorce, separation) are represented and experienced in
the built environment. Domestic space becomes specialized by sex.
Eg.- purdah system

Ethno-archaeology
It is the ethnographic study of peoples for archaeological reasons;
done usually through the study of material remains of a society.
It also helps archaeologists reconstruct ancient lifestyles by studying
material & non-material traditions of modern societies.

Study of
Sizes of dwellings, their location within the settlement
Distribution of luxury items, belongings, specific goods
Study of burials, their contents & sizes

Ethno-archaeological studies
Coincidence of physical form to social organization
Explanation of Cross-cultural variation of built form through social
organization
Intra-cultural variation of built form
Dwelling form and size as indicators of social make up: size, shape,;
clusters, round square etc.
Relation of household wealth to form

Definition of Culture
Relation of culture to symbols. Universality of symbols having similar
meanings.
Hence importance of following studies could be established:
Social symbolic accounts which emphasize how built forms express
and produce a political or social structure
Structuralist approaches to the built form
Ritualistic approaches to the built environment

Dwelling prototypes:
Ephemeral or Transient: nomadic,bandtypesocieties
Episodical: nomadic,bandtypesocieties
Periodic: morepastoraleconomywithinanomadicsocialstructure
Seasonal: semi-nomadicexistenceformarginalcultivationpursuits
Semi-permanent: sedentaryfolksocietiesthatpracticesubsistence
cultivation
Permanent: advancedagriculturaleconomies