Housing/Home Need

Identification

House/Home is more than a

shelter

It must meet all universally acceptable

standard

It must meet its peculiar locational

requirement

It must be customized in design and

construction

It must fit into the hierarchy of socio-economic, physical and psychological need of the

occupants.

House is a building that is constructed for

residential purpose. The general tendencies

among would be home owners is to erect a

dream house whenever they intend acquiring

a home either through mortgage purchase or

self-development. However, in most cases

would be home owners either over estimated

or underestimated their need vis-à-vis their

budget limit, which in most cases culminated

to project dispute, huge debt burden,

abandonment of home projects and in extreme cases collapse of building.
Five Living Needs Area
The following are the basic five living need of a

couple

Food Preparation-storage

Dining

Living and recreation(indoor)

Bathing-Laundry

Sleeping-dressing

All the above activities need to be

accommodated depending on the size of the

family. The rate at which the size of the space

required to accommodate the afore-listed

need change (increase or decrease) depend on

the phase of the life cycle of the particular

family.

If the family intends to have three children

maximum we can watch out for the following

scenario.

At first the family is made up of a man and

wife the need in the five areas above may be

contained in one room. Then at the arrival of the first

baby. There may be need for a storage area

and imminent need for extra sleeping area. At

the arrival of second child the all the five areas

of living needs shall be needed. Also at the arrival of third child additional sleeping-derssing area and consequent additional private bathing and washing area. At this point the

family living need shall remain stable for a

long time until the next phase of the life cycle.

This is the phase when the first family leaves home,

it shall bring about decreasing need in the

house because the family size is reduce to four

persons.

This shall continue till every child leaves and

the family return to original starting point of

two persons. The last phase may be when,

through death one of the spouse leaves, then

the need are less than it was at the beginning.

The above analysis is expected to guide home owners and general public in perception of housing need