International Journal Advances in Social Science and Humanities
Available online at: www.ijassh.com
REVIEW ARTICLE
Housing Forms and Patterns of Culture
Adadu Ochapa*
Department of Sociology, Kogi State University, Anyigba.
*Corresponding Author:Email:[email protected]
Abstract
The relationship between culture and housing can never be over emphasized. The overt expression of cultural elements is more evident in rural areas. This study is an attempt to investigate the relationship between culture and housing. Specific objectives of the study on salient issues such as the direction of such relationship, the impact of housing on the socio economic and cultural lives of the people and the differences in housing forms and patterns on the basis of linguistic orientations. The study is based on theoretical analysis of culture and housing across development literature using secondary data from print and internet sources. Evidence from this study reveals that housing is more than a dwelling. It is symbolic of the people‟s cultural values norms and expectations as it reflects the socio economic lives of the people as well as linguistic orientations. Consequently, the study recommends that (1) the mass media should intensify mass education on the inevitability of cultural relativism and (2) advocacy for preservation of the rich cultural ethos of the people through public and private housing by the ministry of culture and housing.
Keywords: Housing, Culture, Rurality, Housing forms , Patterns of culture.
Introduction
To create any type of place, space must be enclosed. Residency in a location is also universal to mankind and other species of the world just as all activities always go on within environment. Every civilization of man produces its own housing form, highly reflective of the historically prevalent, cultural values and objectively conditioned by structural system of social organization and production relations [1]. Since buildings and settlements are the visible expression of the relative importance attached to different aspects of life and the varying ways of perceiving reality; the houses and their forms (both internal and external) in the villages, hamlets and towns express the fact that societies share certain generally accepted goals and life values. Rural housing forms on its part are less the result of individual desires than of the aim and desires of the unified group for an ideal environment. Their symbolic values serve a culture by making concrete its ideas and feelings. At the same time, house forms are
influenced and modified by so many factors including socio-cultural forces. Socio-cultural forces, on its part can be seen in many different ways. For instance, the term “de vie” used by Max Sorre includes all that cultural, spiritual, material, and social aspects which affect form.
It can therefore be said that houses and settlements are the physical expression of the genre devise, and this constitutes their symbolic nature. One would further suggest that the socio-cultural component of the genrie “de vie” is the sum of the concepts of culture, ethos, world view, and national character used by Redfield, which he defines as follows:
Culture-The total equipment of ideas and institutions and conventionalized activities of a people.
World view-The way people characteristically look out upon the world.
National Character- The personality types of a people, the kind of human being which, generally, occurs in this society [2].
Housing being a human fact, even with the most severe physical constraints and limited technology, he has built in ways so diverse that they can be attributed only to choice, which involves cultural values. And
within the various economics and
geographical constraints, the biological, physical and psychological makeup of man, and the law of physics and structural knowledge; there are always numerous choices available, particularly since man has a great “propensity to symbolize everything that happens to him and the actual environmental stimuli. This has made socio-cultural forces man‟s way of life to the environment. House is therefore not a purely physical thing, but a social control mechanism and still tells us much about life and the attitudes expected of the people that live in them, such as the formality, informality, and neatness; and what some authors called “Silent language” of those that dwell in it. Many designers and other related bodies pay attention to what the buildings should look like rather than how they will be used in practice and their cultural fit [3]. There is therefore a great need to bring it to the notice and deep impression of these people that it must not be so.
This research work aims at analyzing the influence of socio-cultural parameter on rural house form and layout pattern in our rural environment which in this case is
Taraba State of Nigeria‟s rural setting.
Statement of the Research Problem
It is a well known fact that man is not only social but also cultural. Culture provides opportunities for man to develop the personality by means of socialization which
is social training. Through cultural
conditioning, one learns the fundamental culture patterns of the society. Culture
defines situation, attitudes, values and goals. One lives within the framework of culture as it decides our career even our behavior patterns. And all these processes affect the way we live in and build our houses as well as its placement within the environment. These makes houses to be physical expression of man‟s cultural and social system hence, will lack relevance if it is in contradiction of cultural values and users‟ lifestyles.
The reality will follow that housing altitude in developing countries need to be possibly adjusted as at the very least this offers a fruitful field for research. Most probably, one could say that the absence or negligence exhibited in this area could be the prime cause of enormous housing problem in this terrain.
One of the problems lies in the absence, neglect and non inclusion of the relevant socio – cultural values and preferences among others of the target population to housing designs and development. The rural landscape was perceived visually unwelcome and the buildings within the rural settings as substandard. This eventually led to migration from the rural to the urban centers. About forty years ago. There arose a burning desire to undersize everything including our environment, particularly the development of a building, style that completely ignored the unenviable part and insult the sensibility of our socio-culture values. There is the need to return to the basis and rigorously begin to pursue research work on rural housing and in particular rural housing and culture, in order to reduce the contemporary housing problem and to increase our cultural awareness, utilization and development.
history of built form and culture. Neglect of the vernacular buildings which form the environment has affected the progress of rural housing, making the latter seem unimportant. Indigenous culture and rural housing (traditional housing is rural housing as confirmed in a study) is the direct and unself-conscious translation into physical form of a culture, its needs and values-as well as the desires, dreams, and passions of a people (the owner being very much, a participant in the design process, not merely a consumer). Although vernacular always has limitations in the range of expressions possible, at the same time, it can fit many different situations, and create a place at each.
Very little work has been done from point of view adopted in this project. When references to dwellings and settlements occur in the anthropological literature, mostly, for example, they are descriptive rather than analytical but here it will be seen in the diagnostic tool, a concentration on morphological classification with house form and culture being viewed in a broader way. The present study is designed to review the impact of culture on housing form across different variables such as:.
What is the relationship between culture and housing?
Of what relevance are housing forms to the socio- economic and cultural expression of the people?
Are there differences in housing forms and patterns across ethnic groups in Nigeria?.
Objectives of the Study
The general objective of this study is to examine the relationship between housing and culture while specific objectives are as follows:
To examine the relationship between
culture and housing.
To investigate the relevance of housing socio-economic and cultural life of the people.
To highlight the different housing forms and patterns across major ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Literature Review
This study is set to review literature on culture and housing with special attention on the concepts of culture and housing, the impact of culture on the socio-economic life of the people as well as differences in housing forms and patterns on the basis of ethnic differences.
Housing concept
Housing is an important part of people‟s lives, and it is inseparable from them. Yakubu [4], Olutuah [5], Onibokun [6], Jiboye [7] all emphasizes the importance of housing to man and his existence, survival, life, or living . Kicklighter [8]; Onibokun [6], Fratz and Fetterman [9], like Sada [10] opine that it is more than dwelling or shelter but also includes all that is within it and its environment. Housing indeed, is conceived in much larger, dimension since the purpose of housing are to provide a shelter for the performance of human activities, protection from climatic elements, safety and security (from animal predators, human vices, fire hazards, building collapse), for conditions which promote good health, adequate space and privacy [11].
provision of any physical structures usually used for shelter, inclusive of all facilities, equipment, services and devices needed or described for healthful living [15].
Housing transcends the physical dimension of shelters, but includes the general environment within which the structure is located, and the availability of essential social services and infrastructural facilities which ultimately ensure the satisfaction of the user population. The problems of housing in Nigeria are enormous and complex, exhibiting apparent and regional differences. In most part of Nigeria, like the urban areas, the problems are not only quantity but quality, manifested in the overcrowded homes, neighborhoods and communities; and increasing pressures on infrastructural
facilities and rapidly deteriorating
environment and affordability (But that of rural areas and more of quality, hygiene and sanitation). There is the problem of high cost of building materials among others. All in all as has been repeated in this work, it is easier tackle the Nigerian housing problems from the side and position of the rural housing angle as to achieve the right of everyone to housing in the country.
Socio-cultural Factors and House Forms The different forms of dwellings are a complex phenomenon for which there is no single explanation as people with very deferent attitudes and ideas respond to
varied physical environments. These
responses vary from place to place due to changes and differences in the interplay of social, cultural, ritual, economic, and physical factors which might be gradual in the same place with the passage of time. Since building a house in a cultural phenomenon, its form and organization are greatly influenced by the cultural milien to which it belong producing an environment best suited to the way of life of a people. Usually, given solutions or adaptations do not always occur simply because they are possible, because as the physical setting provides the possibilities among which choices are made through the taboos, customs, and traditional ways of the culture.
No matter how numerous the physical possibilities, the actual choices may be limited by the cultural matrix. It furthers those Climatic conditions which make some things impossible and encourages others and methods of construction, materials available, and the technology (that is tools for achieving the desired environment), in turn are modifiers of form. This makes the social-cultural forces primary, and the others secondary or modifying [2].
The vision that people have of the ideal life is what finally decides the form of dwelling, and moulds the space and their relationship, given the availability of certain materials, climate and the constraints and capabilities of a given level of technology. Solutions of forms are much more varied than biological needs, technical, devices, and climatic conditions because of the several socio-cultural forces of religious beliefs, family and clan structure, social organization way of gaining a livelihood, and social relations between individuals. Rapopart emphasizes that “buildings and settlements are the visible expression of the relative importance attached to different aspect of life, and the varying way of perceiving reality”. He further pointed out that the house, the village, and the town expresses the fact that societies share certain generally accepted goals and life values. Socio-culture forces can be seen in many different ways.
cultural factors can operate; and because they can operate, purely physical forces cannot determine form. Degree of choice in many cases on the value system, most funds- mentally in the initial decision as to whether it should be built, and all there give credence to more important cultural, social and psychological factors. Man may build to control his environment, but it is as much the ideal environment that is the inner, social, and religious environment, as the physical one that he is controlling. . He does what he wants as much as the climate will allow; using the tools, technology, and materials to come as close as possible to his ideal model. The degree of use of resource and technology is affected as much by goals and values as by their availability. Making choice will result in varying dominance of one or another of the many variables and for this reason, one must know the culture‟s true meaning and beliefs before its house can be understood.
House forms in Nigeria
Throughout time and history, as man tries to reshape his immediate environment to provide himself with a means of cover and protection from the elements, the house form created from so doing have also being a physical expression of his cultural and social system (mills-tottery, 1989). in the statement of Rapaport [2], “house form is not simply the result of the physical forces or any single causal factor but is the consequences of a whole range of socio-cultural factors seen in broadest terms – the specific characteristics of culture- the accepted way of doing things, the socially unacceptable ways and implicit ideals- need to be considered since they affect housing and settlement form”. Onokerhoraye [16] in relation to this assertion identifies social cultural and institutional factors like age, marital status, household size, education, occupation and ethnicity as responsible for the determination and development of spatial and residential pattern in the society, and this supports the different assertion enumerated repeated in this work.
In essence, several categories of house forms are visible in Nigeria traditional society.
These are Sudanese style, Impluvium style, hill style tents beehive style, and, underground structures. The Sudanese style is generally a variety rectangular adobe building with courtyards, found mostly in the Northern part of the country, believed to be attributed to Islamic influence. This has been disapproved with excavation at Nteresso in Northern Ghana which revealed the existence predating the coming of the Islamic; complied with the fact that Fulanis, Nupe, and some other converts to Islam in the north did not build in Sudanese style. Several characteristics of the style are courtyard plans, flat or dome-shape vaulted roofs, parapets pierced with gutter pipes or channels and walls constructed of mud bricks set in mortar and mud roofs, supported by palm frond joist.
Compounds are characteristics of traditional house cities too, like Kano and Katsina. It has guest room called zaure between the street and the compound and the entry serving as the window through which household head acknowledge the greetings of passers- by receive and entertained guest beyond which the stranger never ventures. Impvuium style is house with four or more buildings facing one another in a courtyard, with gabled roofs – these are found among the Benin, Yoruba and Ibo peoples. In Yoruba palace for kings are larger versions of the Imphilium style, and could consist of several buildings facing each other in the courtyard. Some king palace which are considered sacred consist of courtyards with several building with elaborately carved columns supported gabled roofs along the courtyard perimeters others have clustering of rooms or huts, most of the time fully enclosed to form a compound. In some cases, the very arrangement of the rooms with party or continuous walls forms the compound and in others, the huts are fenced in together usually with mud or vegetables. There are some discernible of many indigenous Nigeria house forms (legacies of urban realms or communities).
rectangular buildings faces each other around a courtyard within the boundary wall and so are of the buildings left open but the bed rooms fully walled. The Ibo also has a reception hall ovante-room-“OBI” for guest and visitors like that of the Hausa compound. The impluvia appropriately and adequately functions as a means of collecting water in to containers and also ensure proper ventilation, with the rooms well arranged to achieve privacy and security. Among the different styles traditional artistic decorative of varying pattern could be found sculpted or pointed on walls and wooden doors, which ranged from figurative designs to complex abstract patterns which revealed exquisite balance of forms, color, and shading.
The basic Yoruba imphivium style house consists of a two room linier building, the first room is the parlors/ kitchen and the second a bedroom in multiplication of gable roofs round the courtyards. The tents are based on a framework of hoops covered by mats and average family could pack its house and their entire belongings on the back of a donkey characterizing the Fulani pastoralists. On the other hand as they take their cattle round over large distances, moving from one settlement to another; they utilize materials available on the site to construct their tents. Hill style houses are usually found in hilly settlements like those in Adamawa and Gombe State and their main feature are store terracing and round buildings, with diameters less than their height. Beehive are build of stepped thatch houses usually round plan and often dome shaped and pliable material like reeds, grass leaves, woven mats, and animal skins are often used. Examples found southern Kogi State, undo land and part of Edo state.
Underground structures mainly used as animal and grain houses in the northern area are commonly rectangular or circler in plan with roof structure supported by branches and rafters covered by earth. The Portuguese constructed medieval fortress, the English built gothic forts, Victorian style houses, and English cottages including Brazilian style houses punctuates the landscapes here and there where the force
men and women , returned to Africa after abolition of slave fried and where the colonial masters and missionaries trend. The process of the buildings requires not only a consideration of building form but cultural meaning, and a design process that empowers the community through building communities inspired by style deeply noted in African culture and materials with surface articulation and space delineation as some other design elements. Indeed, the major challenges today lie is integrating the different styles and house form spaces to create a unique Afro-centric style for today‟s architecture.
Methods and Sources of Data
This study titled “cultural patterns and housing forms in Nigeria” is a theoretical study which heavily relies on secondary data from printed sources. They include: Text books, Journals Newspapers, magazines and internet materials. The information from these sources was reviewed in line with the objectives of the study to provide a broad insight into the relationship between culture and housing, the impact of housing on the socio economic lives of the people and patterns of housing across linguistic groups [18-37].
Conclusion / Recommendations
Rural housing being an expression of man‟s desires and culture in an enclosed space and environment brings out the symbolic value of his unique way of life in the setting.
In this study, therefore, the meaning, concept, the relationship between house form and culture including that of socio-economic factors and house forms were elucidated. Socio-cultural factors that could influence house forms were highlighted. Various house forms of some Nigerians ethnic groupings were discussed too.
First, Since culture is relative and has part of it‟s expression in the housing forms and patterns of the diverse socio-cultural group that occupies the Nigerian space, the mass media should motivate people to appreciate the housing patterns of the people by which cultural roles of the people could be sustained.
Second, the ministry of housing and culture should encourage and advocate the provision of built environment whether at private or public costs to fall within the cultural milieu of the group concerned as a way of preserving the rich cultural edifice of the people.
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