Home, land and home building; these three terms are one in the same and have a common thread running through them. HOUSING, in brief, means the arrangement and assignation of homes or other built structures collectively, for the specific purpose of housing people temporarily, usually for an extended period of time, in a specially designated area. In many parts of the world today, people live in housing accommodations as their permanent home, which is also called an abode. These residential places of stay may be individual homes, apartment buildings, condominiums, row houses and a variety of other structures. They may comprise any or all of the following: health care facilities, schools, churches, shopping malls, military bases, sports facilities, museums, post offices, banks and any other types of establishment deemed appropriate.
For generations, the way people lived was different from today’s standards; they seldom mixed the conventional dwelling of their forefathers with the more modern housing. HOUSING originally took shape as a kind of house building system for the preservation of communal agricultural communities or small-family residences, as well as for defense against marauding neighbors. The arrangements made for housing groups of people in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, Western Europe and Japan are known as homing.
The idea of housing has changed a great deal over the years, becoming more flexible to suit changing social and economic needs. Some developments in this direction include; coops, apartments, condominiums, mobile homeowner units (ROOMS), cooperative homes, self-financed and market-rate (MR) housing options. Currently, a large number of homeowners are opting to buy a home that is built side by side on separate lots, or in what is commonly referred to as “commodity complex housing”. This is an increasingly popular trend, which makes it an interesting comparison to our concept housing above. In our paradigm, the house and the property it sits on are treated singularly; whereas in this construct, the house and its property sit as a unit on a set lot of land. When this arrangement is used to construct multi-unit dwellings, each unit is treated as a separate lot with its own access road, utilities and facilities.
Another type of housing concept that is gaining ground in the United Kingdom and throughout the developed world is “Pod housing”. This term refers to a housing concept that involves individual pavilions (or rooms) that are attached at one end. The concept of pod housing arose from the fact that it would be easier for workers to get to work on foot if the building where they worked in contained multiple pavilions. There were also concerns that certain areas would not be easy to access from various points within the building. This was an issue for pod housing, but it has since resolved.
There are many factors that will contribute to the future of housing, and one of the more important is the way people use the existing housing. One of the challenges facing modern housing in the United Kingdom is the rising cost of servicing individual dwellings, which has lead to a trend towards the increased use of shared dwellings. Shared housing, in the United Kingdom and throughout the developed world, occurs when more than one family resides in a dwelling that is commercially-developed. The economics of this sort of housing is economically viable because it allows families to share expenses and assets.
These types of dwellings are often termed Lifestyle Homes. A typical lifestyle home is a modest apartment building designed to accommodate three to five unrelated adults, all of whom share similar characteristics. The economics of this sort of housing is based on economies of scale, in which larger units allow a higher volume of revenue to be generated by contracting the services of a fewer employees. As such, this type of housing can often be seen lining the roads of large cities such as London and Manchester. Whether you choose this type of dwelling or a more traditional common definition of residence, there are a wide number of housing options available to suit the needs of any individual or family.
