settlement and housing typologies

1. MODULE 1 - PART I
SETTLEMENTS, HOUSING
TYPOLOGIES
AR 17-96-4 – URBAN HOUSING

2. Evolution of Early Settlement Form
Settlement
• Settlements are "a city, town, village or other
agglomeration of buildings where people live and work“
• Process of grouping of people and acquiring of some
territory to build houses as well as for their economic
support
• Any form of human habitation ranging from a single
dwelling to a large city
• It is a process of opening up and settling of a previously
uninhabited area by the people

3. Primitive Man
(tree tops, branches, tree holes and caves)
Paleolithic – Old Stone Age
Nomad
Temporary shelter (isolated dwelling – hamlet, huts were built using
mammoth bone, wood, straw and rock)
Mesolithic – Middle Stone Age
Farmers and Herders
Permanent shelter (formation of village, the roof was made from timber
beams with a reed thatch covering)
Neolithic – New Stone Age
Conflict Between Man – Winner BecameThe King
Non-agricultural fortified settlements were built with moats all around
(formation of town, people started migrating to this town center for
better wages and employment)
Bronze Age
Phase 1 –
Primitive non
organized
human
settlement
Phase 2 –
Primitive
organized
human
settlement
Different Phases of Human Settlements

4. Dynapolis
30 miles in diameter
17th century onwards
Metropolis
100 sqkm in area
Megalopolis
1000 sqkm in area
Ecumenopolis
Whole earth will be covered by one human settlement (population
explosion will be the decisive factor)
Upcoming phase
Phase 4 –
Dynamic
urban
settlements
Phase 5 –
Universal
human
settlement
Due to Excessive Migration
Development came out of forts to accommodate more people giving
rise to bigger settlements (formation of larger towns and cities)
Iron Age
Phase 3 –
Static urban
settlements
or cities

5. Evolution of Early Settlements
Paleolithic Age – Primitive man, Shelter –
Caves, trees (Upto 10,000 B.C.)
• Did not settle anywhere as they
wandered around in search of food
• Did not know how to construct
buildings so lived in the open
• Occasionally took shelter on top of
trees to protect themselves from wild
animals
• Later began to live in caves by the
side of rivers, lakes and springs
• Sites protected by rivers, swamps or
elevated terrain preferred
• Caves not used as places for fixed
residence
• When food gathering in the vicinity
became difficult, early man moved to
another location.
Mesolithic Age – Nomads and hunters,
Shelter – huts built using mammoth bone,
wood, straw and rock (Upto 10,000 B.C.)

6. Neolithic Age – Farmers and
Herders, Shelter – Permanent
(Upto 10,000 B.C.)
• Learned to practice cultivation
• Began to settle down near
fields cultivated by them
• Chose fertile lands and where
water was available in plenty
• Learned to build huts and mud
houses
• Built rectangular houses made
using tree trunks
• Had Timber beam roofs with
reed thatch covering
• The houses had a hearth used
for cooking, as unlike
Mesolithic people, Neolithic
people cooked food indoors

7. Towards Settled Habitation – (10,000
B.C. to 5000 B.C.)
• Some of the earliest settlements
began to take shape.
• Settlements then consisted of groups
of houses built by the side of
agricultural fields, a shrine and a
burial ground
• Oldest inhabited city in the world is
the Palestinian city of Jericho
• Examples of ancient cities are Athens
(Greece), Rome (Italy), Ur (Iraq)
Medieval City – (A.D. 1000 to 1500)
• Most cities of present day Europe
were founded during this period
• Long-distance trading led to the
development of a new class of
people – the merchant class
• An example of a medieval town is
Hirschhorn (Neckar), Germany
• This town reveals three important
features of urban morphology –
castle, wall, and cathedral
Dwelling foundations unearthed in Jericho
Hirschhorn - View of the historic town center and
the castle from the south bank of the Neckar river

8. Types of Settlements
Rural Settlement
A settlement where majority of its inhabitants are involved in activity like farming,
fishing, forestry, mining
• Can vary from a single farm to a cluster of houses
• In the form of village, surrounded by farms with a small population
• Service provided are limited and mostly for every day needs
• Close knit communities and quiet atmosphere
• Dominance of community feeling
• Advantages:
• More natural environs
• Better social/support network
• Less stressful environment
• Perceived as safer
• Class differences are not as distinctive
• Disadvantages:
• Limited transportation available
• Social network can lead to strain (in the case of small town gossip)
• Limited employment opportunities
• Slower social, political progress
• Less immediately available social services

9. Urban Settlement
The majority of people are engaged in non –rural activity
• They work in offices, shops and factories, operate machinery, provide health
care or other services
• In the form of towns and cities
• Large, both in population and area
• Has functions such as business, manufacturing, government cultural centers
• Offers wide range of services
• Separate neighborhood with limited knowledge of others
• Contain traffic and pollution problems
• Advantages:
• Services: Proximity to major and varied services
• Majority of higher paying jobs/careers found
• Art, fashion, politics, and higher culture
• Multi-cultural
• Mass transit, buses, taxis, etc.
• Disadvantages:
• More crime
• Pollution: more people, more waste, more noise, less trees and nature
• Impersonal and sometimes isolating
• Clear distinction between social classes (example: the beggar on the
street, in front of million dollar downtown condos)

10. Rural vs Urban Settlements
Population Density
• Rural settlements contain less than 2,500 people, at a density between one
and 999 people per square mile.
• Urban settlements are areas with more than 50,000 people and at least 1,000
people per square mile; including contiguous census tracts or blocks with at
least 500 people per square mile.
Transportation Network
• Rural transportation networks consist of local and county roads with limited
interconnectivity to rail and bus lines.
• Urban settlements contain highway infrastructure as well as airports and light
or heavy commuter rail.
Economy
• Rural economies rely on a local and agricultural-based economy with
dependencies on services, such as hospitals and educational establishments
in nearby urban centers.
• Urban areas are dependent on a global economy of import and export.

11. Settlement Patterns
Dispersed
• Small groups of buildings
• Separated from the next
group by several kms.
Nucleated
• Places where buildings are
clustered around a central
point
• The central point can be
town square, religious
center, road junction or a
mine
• Maximum use of land in a
nucleated setting

12. Linear
• Settlement follows the river
or road, canal or railways
• Due to easy access to
transport, fresh water or
fishing
• Roads attract shops beside
the settlement
Radial
• Dwellings are located
around the center
• Street circle around it

13. Housing Typologies
Traditional Houses
• The common procedure followed for traditional housing is owning a plot of
land and building one’s own house in it
• Traditional housing are most commonly seen as individually standing, such as
small detached house, cottage, bungalow, etc
• A detached house (or stand-alone house) is a free-standing residential
building with no other houses joined to it
• A cottage is a small house, usually located in the countryside
• A bungalow is a one storeyed house, or has a second storey built into a
sloping roof, and maybe surrounded by a wide verandah
Detached house Cottage Bungalow

14. Plotted Development
A plotted development is where the developer only undertakes plotting scheme
by obtaining necessary approvals from the concerned authority in respect of
layout to the end intent of demarcating the layout into individual plots and then
sell such open demarcated plots of land without any structure thereon.
• Pattern of Development - Involves development based on and comprising of
generally large number of plots having variable sizes, typically of smaller size
• Pattern of Land Ownership - Land generally owned individually or jointly in the
name of few family members, to promote individual housing
• Land Utilization – Low, with more area going under roads and opens spaces

15. • Population/Housing Density - Low density due to individual ownership,
depending upon individual capacity, resources or willingness to construct
entire/part of building
• Open Spaces - Small in size; open spaces available within plots and held in
private ownership with limited use only by the owners; increases need for
making provision of large open spaces at the neighborhood level
• Cost of Construction - Generally high, due to low rise buildings and individual
services
• Safety and Security – Low, due to individual living
• Pattern of Living - Promotes individual living, leading to anonymity and
exclusion
• Design of Unit - More design flexibility
• Cost of Maintenance of Services - Higher cost due to individual maintenance.
Expensive, considering life-cycle cost of building
• Creation of Housing Stock – Low, due to non-construction on plot in one go;
lower land utilization
• Affordable Housing - Makes cost of housing high and unaffordable, due to
land cost and cost of construction; inefficient method to create large
affordable housing stock
• Housing Shortage - Inefficient method of overcoming housing shortage

16. Multi-Storeyed Housing
A multi-storeyed building is a building that has multiple storeys, and typically
contains vertical circulation in the form of ramps, stairs and lifts.
Multi storeyed houses are built in cities to manage space to cater to increasing
population, as stacking more floors on top of each other would save the space
as opposed to building more houses.
Disadvantages of multi-storeyed building
• Requires high cost for foundation
• Floor expansion is not possible
• Natural illumination in center is poor
• Space is wasted in construction of staircase or lifts
Examples of multi storeyed housing are:
Apartments
An apartment is a self-contained
housing unit that occupies only part of
a building, generally on a single story
Apartments facing Central Park in
Midtown Manhattan, New York City

17. Condominium
• A condominium is a building structure divided into
several units that are each separately owned,
surrounded by common areas that are jointly owned.
• Unlike apartments, which are leased by their tenants,
condominium units are owned outright.
• There are also "detached condominiums", which look
like single-family homes, but in which the common
areas and any recreational facilities are jointly owned
and maintained by a community association. The Luminary, a condominium
in Tammela, Tampere, Finland
Over and
under type of
duplex house
Duplex
A duplex house plan has two living units attached to
each other, either next to each other as townhouses,
condominiums or above each other like apartments.
Three-decker
A three-decker is a type of three-story apartment
where each floor usually consists of a single apartment,
and extended families live in two or all three floors
Double three-
deckers in Boston

18. Scissor section flat
• The scissor section is a distinctive way of arranging the flats in an apartment
block in an interlocking design which allows to maximize space given to flats
in any building volume by reducing the space needed for entrance corridors
and providing a dual aspect for each dwelling.
• When used in high rise tower blocks, the scissor arrangement makes the lift
installation cheaper as a landing is only required every three levels.
• The design has accessibility issues and the complex arrangement has caused
confusion for emergency services.
A view of Perronet House, London, showing the 'half
floor' arrangement between the internal walkways
(shown by the end windows) and the accommodation
floors (shown by the side windows)
The diagram shows how two scissor flats
interact. The red flat is a 'down' flat - where
you enter from the top entrance corridor,
down stairs to living area, down to the
bathroom area, down to the bedroom
area and down to an emergency exit to
the lower corridor. The blue flat is an 'up'
flat with this arrangement in reverse.

19. Slums and Squatters
• Most slums lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable
electricity, law enforcement, and other basic services.
• Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings
which, because of poor-quality construction or lack of basic maintenance,
have deteriorated.
• Slums form and grow due to different reasons which include rapid rural-to-
urban migration, economic stagnation and depression, high unemployment,
poverty, informal economy, forced or manipulated ghettoization, poor
planning, politics, natural disasters, and social conflicts.
• Strategies tried to reduce and transform slums in different countries, with
varying degrees of success, include a combination of slum removal, slum
relocation, slum upgrading, urban planning with citywide infrastructure
development, and public housing.
Slum
• A slum is a highly populated urban
residential area consisting of densely
packed housing units of weak build quality.
• The infrastructure in slums is often
deteriorated or incomplete, and they are
primarily inhabited by impoverished people.
Slums in Bandra station
surroundings, Mumbai

20. Squatter
• Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of
land or a building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or
otherwise have lawful permission to use.
• Squatting occurs worldwide and tends to occur
when people who are poor and homeless find
empty buildings or land to occupy for housing.
• In Mumbai, six million of the estimated 10 to 12
million inhabitants are squatters
• Some squatters possess two- or three-story
homes built out of brick and concrete which
they have inhabited for years.
• Squatter Colony in Malad East has existed since
1962, and now, people living there pay a rent to
the city council of 100 rupees a month.
• Dharavi is a community of one million squatters,
where the illegal and unregulated stores and
factories do over $1 million in business every
day
• Other squatters are pavement dwellers, with
very few possessions.
Rocinha, the largest hill favela (type
of slum in Brazil that has experienced
historical governmental neglect) in
Rio de Janeiro
Street dwellers in Mumbai

21. Night Shelters
• Homeless/night shelters are a type of homeless
service agency which provide temporary
residence for homeless individuals and families.
• Night shelters exist to provide residents with safety
and protection from exposure to the weather while
simultaneously reducing the environmental impact
on the community.
• They are similar to, but distinguishable from, various
types of emergency shelters, which are typically
operated for specific circumstances and
populations—fleeing natural disasters or abusive
social circumstances.
• Extreme weather conditions create problems similar
to disaster management scenarios, and are
handled with warming centers, which typically
operate for short durations during adverse weather.
The Good Shepherd, a
Salvation Army homeless
shelter in Toronto

22. THANK YOU