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Abstract
The focal point of this study is traditional housing
and how to improve traditional housing from a developmental perspective. The
objective of this study is to step-up the slow process of transforming and
changing the traditional houses in order to, on the one hand, ensure that
traditional houses and settlements comply with other developments that take
place in the community, and on the other hand, to meet the rising demand for
houses to be built.
This study mainly deals with the basic theories initiating
from Rapoport’s house form and culture, and partly from Alexander’s
theory of a pattern language.
Furthermore, traditional housing in Central
Afghanistan-Hazáraját is applied as a case study.
Throughout this study, efforts have been made to understand,
what a given house form is, and which parts and elements it physically consists
of. This study is also concerned with meanings or socio-cultural factors, and
to which extent they contribute to the definition of houses and built up
environments.
Detailed and in-dept appraisals of influencing factors
on the house form, like physical forces and socio-cultural factors, are basic
findings and a broad information base for architectural design in this study.
This study concluded that any changes that take place
within the scope of traditional housing necessitates referring and resorting to
the original and basic resources of the tradition in order to be sustainable
and acceptable for the people in the community. The deficiencies and
shortcomings of traditional houses can be eliminated by employing modern
facilities. However, this is no longer tradition and is thus called post
traditional housing. The aim of post traditional housing is to
combine traditional values with modern possibilities. According to this
concept, post traditional housing, on one hand, reveals local identity,
and on the other hand, employs global skills and facilities.