DIFFERENT HOUSING TYPOLOGIES

   The first information about the humanity dates back thousands of years from now. Although there are various diversions about this issue, it is commonly believed that humanity has shown up in Africa first 100 thousand years ago, and then reached Arabian Peninsula by crossing the Red Sea. From there humanity spread to the whole world. Human communities which genetically altered by the influence of different geographies, climatic conditions, sunray angles, radio activities in the soil, have lived in different locations as divergent ethnic groups for a long time and formed their own lifestyle and cultures. These dissimilarities have been seen everywhere in human life: in skin colour, clothing, culture, traditional usage and custom, spoken language, science, architecture... the main reason why different cultures have lots of distinctive architectural language lies behind extend of differentiation that human being has passed from the first day to today. If we compare the houses in Scandinavian countries to Asia, it can be clearly seen that houses are completely different from each other, in terms of material, design, systems that used and so on. It is crystal clear that although there is that much difference in housing typing, the factors that lead these dissimilarities are common. Topography and climate condition can be counted two of them.

        Topography can decide what must do or mustn’t do instead of us. It is not coming the meaning that it has totally influenced us or we cannot do anything. Netherlands canal houses are good examples of this conflict. Netherlands is a city that under the sea level and has a high water density. It is pretty hard to find a land to build a home on it. With the drainage canals which were made all around the country, the water is being collected and poured into the sea. As a consequence of this, the land has hardened by drying over time. Because of the areas to build on are very few, building more houses on existing available lands became an aim for the people who live in there. And thin, triangular roofed, adjacent canal houses revealed in this way. We see lots of beams with hooks on the Netherlands house’s façades. The reason for this is that the staircases inside the houses are too small to carry the furniture, and the household goods can be moved into the house easily with the help of pulley system.

  

     

      Geography, of course, is not the only factor of differentiation of typing house. The effects of custom, historical process and cultural elements can be count among the factors that make a Japanese house a cliché as a Japanese house. In traditional Japanese architecture, the interaction of houses with nature is so important that it cannot be overlooked. You cannot see that there are strict boundaries between the spaces neither between them nor nature ( Erdemir, 1993). Sliding panels that limit the space can be removed according to function and need; spaces can be transformed into one another or added. These sliding called Shoji, are made from wood and bamboo and also contains a semi-translucent paper in it. These panels provide lighting of the house in a natural way because; glass is not being used in traditional Japan dwelling. Fsuma, sliding door and wall systems, is one of the important elements in conventional Japanese architecture and has been often used because it enables easy circulation. In Japan, entering the house with shoes is considered as a very rude behaviour, so the formation of a place called Benkan, located at the entrance of the house, where the shoes are located, can be given as an example of a type that is unique to the cultures of the Japanese( Alıcı,2017).

      To give another example of different home typologies that different geographies have created, Scandinavian countries can be put among the countries where climate has a say in design. When winter is said, in architectural and design area, the first style that comes to the minds first, is Scandinavian style. The most striking feature of this style is that it allows the inside to benefit from natural light and the sun efficiently thanks to the structure of the front façade  which covered by glass, under the sheltered wide roof. It is important to get the natural daylight inside the house. As Louis Khan said ‘A plan of a building should be read like a harmony of spaces in the light. Even a space intended to be dark should have just enough light from some mysterious opening to tell us how dark it really is. Each space must be defined by its structure and the character of its natural light’(Louıs Kahn-1998). The usage of its natural lighting properly can be easily seen in Scandinavian housing style. And also, the choice of black on the out façade is a common using style to take measures to prevent climatic problems. Black colour enables the house to warm up much more in colder climates and maintains the temperature that sun provided. 

     As a consequence, every country has a special different answer to the same questions: How to build a house? What we need to design a building?... Because just like every single one in this world is a different one, the cultures which consisting of these different people is obviously different from one another and their preferences for a choice must be different. This variation comes from here. And these differences are our wealthiness.