Theoretical Model of ‘HOME’ (original) (raw)

2007, Shehayeb, D., Turgut Yildiz, H. & Kellett, P. (Eds.) (2007). The Appropriate Home: Can We Design “Appropriate” Residential Environments? HBRC: Cairo, Egypt. Proceedings of the First HBRC & IAPS-CSBE Network Joint Symposium (ISBN 977-17-4798-3).

Whilst most designers think of home as a physical private space; this definition of home leaves a large portion of ‘home environments’ unaccounted for, and therefore overlooked by the design professions. The results are misuse, alterations and increasing stress. To understand the socio-psychological processes that relate to the function of dwelling, and how they are influenced by design, one has to draw on knowledge from different fields, and in order to provide compatible concepts useful in the design process, a multidisciplinary approach is required. The objective of this paper is to present a theoretical framework integrating findings from disparate studies that address: perceptions of the designed environment, the relation between the perceived environment and behavior, and those that relate socio-psychological processes to physical characteristics and users in the home environment, including the particularities of the Egyptian case to capture the fundamentals of the appropriate home. A literature review led to the identifying the key issues related to the design of home environment and complementing them with the Egyptian empirical studies. Based on this analysis, a comprehensive model was developed addressing the problem of designing the appropriate home as a function of its users' characteristics, their needs, and behavior.