The Architecture of Happiness was written by Alain de Botton who is a professional philosopher and so he takes a look at architecture from a different point of view. He considers architecture and its role in achieving happiness and psychological and spiritual satisfaction. He believes that our happiness and our well-being are affected by our surroundings, particularly by the quality of the design of homes. Therefore when buildings that we see make us happy we would call them beautiful. De Botton admits that beauty is not the most important feature of architecture. He notes that modernist architects reject the historical styles and aesthetical beauty. …show more content…
House Form And Culture. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Print. In “House Form and Culture”, Amos Rapoport presents his idea that “house form is not simply the result of physical forces or any single causal factors seen in their broadest forms”. The origin of the house form must be the interaction of sociocultural factors. In his book Rapoport reflects a part of the “interrelationship between a man and his environment which gives form to his daily habitat”. Instead of studying the “high style” buildings of various civilizations, he looks at and compares the characteristics and meaning of the folk, primitive, vernacular building and the modern ones.
Rapoport links behaviour and form in the book and states that house form influences the behaviour. The book focuses on comparison between the vernacular and modern societies and their buildings and slips by the meaning of the built form, which is crucial in the understanding of the study. Houses are built not only because of the climate or need of shelter. Vernacular dwelling is a result of the “complex relationship between man and the sum of his cultural value-system and the environment he exists …show more content…
This article presents the results of comparative case study of the use of houses and specific spaces within it. Facilities for cooking and eating food are the main focus of the article, since they both are associated with dwelling and are common in all cultures and societies. Roderick looks at the topic from historical point of view, but ethnographic approach helps in understanding the use of space, as it is described by its users.
Meaning and ideas associate with domestic facilities are quite independent of the label that is commonly given to a particular room whether it is a kitchen, dining room, living room or a laundry. The author states that use of domestic facilities is related to a “complex matrix of social codes and controls”. Apparently there is active interdependence between domestic space and activities. The use of space and its meaning differs between cultures and different social groups in the same culture. There are methods of classification of various activities and spaces. The oppositions of day and night, public and private, clean and dirty define the position of domestic activities relative to spaces within the