- Author
-
Zeisel, J.
|
Welch, P.
- Title
- Housing Designed for Families. A Summary of Research. Final Report.
- Coporate
- Joint Center for Urban Studies of MIT, Cambridge, MA
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA
- Sponsor
- National Bureau of Standards, Washington, DC
- Report
-
NBS GCR 81-320
May 1981
- Distribution
- Available from National Technical Information Service
- Contract
- NBS-G7-9024
- Keywords
-
residential buildings; user needs; housing studies; design; children; family relations; quality of life; research projects; standards; regulations; interpersonal relations
- Identifiers
- NTISCOMNBS
- Abstract
- Research on the social, psychological and behavioral needs of families in housing is not always easily accessible to the designers and developers of housing. The report compiles this user needs information in a handbook for people involved in regulation setting, home building, and housing design. The report's format reflects the types of decisions designers must make and the basic zones that a living environment comprises. Zones are defined in terms of privacy, formality, territory, and intergroup contact. Housing regulations set health and safety standards for new homes, but to date have incorporated little available user needs research. Because of this, today's homes, particularly those built with government assistance, are safe; but they often lack the simple amenities of design that make them truly livable. This report documents, zone by zone, design problems as they appear in the literature. Each section includes comments on related sections of HUD's Minimum Property Standards (MPS) and Manual of Acceptable Practices. Comments make clear which sections of the two documents are responsive to the needs of tenants, which sections seem to contradict each other, and what changes might enhance the standards' responsiveness to the issues raised by the research.