Residential Space Design: Human Needs Vs Cultural Requirements

Introduction Every countries have their own culture among the people themselves no matter they are majority or minority. Even a single race of people may have major differences with different development in groups or tribe. They have their very own features such as language, religions, cuisine, social habits, music and arts which made them unique among other races (Ann. K, 2017). Culture has made impact to almost everything such as people’s lifestyle which includes interior design (Vulture C, 2014). Different individuals will have different culture that will blend into their home and get used to those particular requirements during their growth.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs shows that home is one of the fundamental for people to motivate themselves in their lives (McLeod. M, 2018). There are many residential building can be a home for everyone such as apartment, condominium, terrace house and many others nowadays while people before will have a simple structure as a home such as . A home is one of the space that every people will spend the most time in. People will carry out various daily activities like eating, sleeping and resting and some even working. Some bigger families will even carry out some parties and other activities. All of the spaces require certain amount of space in their home. However, as the modern people have a very different lifestyle than traditional, some cultural requirement does not fit into modern residential interior designs and may cause some contradiction. Most of the modernist architects believes that the culture and religion should stay in the background of the buildings while some of them think the culture and material is only tools for the construction of a building (Mohammad, SB. n. d.). Both of the points has proved that the process of the creation of dwelling has definitely has a strong relationship to their culture. Every country has their very own design of the dwellings which can function suitably in any weather, environment, culture and hospitality. For example, in Islamic culture, people will have a pooja room in their dwelling, a place for them to pray to their god. It is the conduct of the prayers to show honour and reverence to their creators (Bogenfuerst. A, 2017). It is not easy to give up those culture especially for those who has been following their ancestors. Even it is not spectacular, more or less the culture knowledge might affect a person more than a religion in some ways. For example in Malaysia, some of the Buddhist has changed their religion to Christian, but they will still continue to burn incense to worship their ancestors which is actually not allowed in law of bible. It is the same for the effect to the dwellings. As long as the culture does still exist no matter how deep the effect it is, there will still be a very special memory core of it in a dwelling.

In modern times nowadays, there are many lifestyle that is different from modern lifestyle. There are many influences among the changes such as the environment, development, population, economy, occupation and others .In the older times, people will have a better environment condition than now. The air is fresher and the space is also bigger for the family. There is more cooperation and division of labor occur in a smaller society than a larger one (Bell, et al, 2009).The elders may carry out similar activities or related to maintain children and their life such as farming, fishing, hunting and picking up natural sources like yam. However, when the family becomes bigger and bigger, there will be no enough space to live together anymore. There is also more opinion, wishes and idea to be carry out by some of the members. This creates a division in the family and start to spread to other spaces which refers to modern people. Modern people nowadays have a more specific and personal awareness than traditional ones who are more towards groupism. People with the acquaintance ambition will gather together and develop together which forms the society nowadays. This is one of the major influence when it comes to the comparison for both era of society. This can be shown by the extraordinary difference particular phenomenon such as the amount of the taxes, expenses and development of services. Some of the development especially the development of services will be a big influence for major normal residence as the quality of lifestyle in modern days are higher than traditional.

For example, the creation of air conditioner and warmer helps to provide a comfortable thermal condition which might made some people to change their traditional ways of resting or taking a break while in their home. The widespread of the high tech television is also not surprising for modern people while in older times a whole gang of people will gather together just because of one family who is afford to purchase a television for their home.A traditional home is normally build for a bigger family (Perales. P, 2016). Renovation can be progressed more easily which is suitable for particular situation. The space is also bigger for furnishing purposes. However, people nowadays have a totally different lifestyle than 50 years ago. (Arts Columbia, n.d.). According to an article on Royal Homes, modern houses are smaller than the traditional one. Lots of the houses in United States have shrunk since 1999 to 2014 (Lee, J, 2015). Although houses nowadays are smaller compared to traditional houses, the modern rooms are designed for multi purposed function than traditional houses. The modern houses are designed to fit into the only interior space which has been optimized. The designs has made full use of the only space that is available. Some rooms with function that most people do not demand has been removed from their residential interior design. For example like parlors, a private room for the meeting of house owner with guests is now oblivious to most modern people nowadays. There are more private spaces and less public spaces from modern houses than older ones. Some people will build rooms or space that is related to their hobbies, work or entertainment such as gaming room, playroom, audio room and others. Human is a society animals. They will always carry out different kind of activities, event or festival to have commemorate memories together in order to live a better life. Different opinion and convention is shared among the society. There is no one who can live alone forever in a society.

They will carry out different activities in order to have a commemorate memories or held some thanksgiving event. In older times, some residents will normally participate themselves in farming activities In order to have a better quality of life. This kind of activities require a certain amount of spaces in their residential properties. They will always plant some fruit trees or vegetables around their dwelling compound. In modern era, this activities will not be carry much by people. The society has developed into a more balance and different job is available for people from different layers. Most of the people will focus more on their professions or entertainment except for some who likes planting or those who do for living. Although there is also gathering among friends or families in the dwelling, the amount for both era are totally different. People especially in older times will invite every single person including relatives and their friends to celebrate some special festival or elder’s birthday which is less in frequent. However, modern people will always have party during their leisure time and they will only invite their close cousins or friends. Some gathering might not even carried out in the dwelling but other occasion as there are some services which helps to run a party or gathering. There are many activities that is still carried out by the people but some element has been changed with the era itself. The construction of traditional and modern varies with different issues such as the technology, transportation and the quality of material itself. In older times, the architect will only be able to use available resources and traditions for architectural projects. They need to cut down the cost so it is affordable for most resident. This is one of the reason as the traditional houses looks similar while modern can be different with paintings, renovation and personal needs space. The technology is also poor due to poor submission of knowledge on architecture or interior.However, some furnishing product in older times has very good quality.

Most of the furnishing is manmade with unique skills and they are very strong even for modern days. Due to western influences, there are more technology and technique that is available for modern architects that fits into their design for particular conditions such as the climate, looseness of land and even natural disaster. Less and less traditional skills will be used as some of them might not be suitable for modern houses and even for security purposes. There are more and more materials that is invented and produced with modern technology to make them functional in some conditions. For example, most of the residential houses is built with light weighted material so when some natural disaster like earthquakes or heavy rain happens, the broken pieces of collapse houses will not hurt the residents that badly and can be rebuild fast. The light weighted material also enables thermal comfort in Japan climate. However, there are more and more bad business occur even in a legislative country. The developer will like to earn much more money while using low cost on original material. They might mix some similar materials or making a better appearance to deceive the consumers. This will made modern interior become dangerous if the owner does not choose a good quality of furnishing themselves. Fire Resistance There is some differences that occurs in between traditional bedrooms and modern one no matter in the concept, space, material and the furnishing. It will also change from owner’s education, personality food they eat, and the location their houses be whether it is beside a street or a busy road or urban.

Modern bedrooms nowadays are designed more for private space than traditional which is shared among the families or siblings. Traditional houses normally has less rooms which has more space to be used by the whole families together which is different to modern lifestyle that is lived by people nowadaysThere is an experiment carried out in SAMSFMedia, a Youtube channel, about fire resistance of the bedrooms. They set the fire on the blanket and the fire in modern one spread way faster than the one in the traditional. The fire can be clearly seen which is spreading faster in modern than traditional. The modern one has a lower quality of fabric which allows the fire to spread faster. The wooden frame for the bed is also having a lower fire resistance as the wood has undergo a worse preservation and preparation. This phenomenon happens due to the chemical content and quality of material produced by the producer.The technology above shows that what modern houses can be improved or achieved by modern technology and technique. However, most of them requires a certain amount of consumption which is not affordable for some of the residents nowadays although there are more residents living with a more balanced income. Some technology is not shared among the countries although it can be ideal in the same situation. Most of the developer will fully use their copyright technology to ensure the maximum benefits for their incomes and the company. This phenomenon limits the sharing and the distribution of the technology to the resident which made the adaption for some technology in certain situation becomes expensive.

This made those who are rich or affordable are the only group who can access to the advance interior nowadays. Although this problem has been occured since older days, it just become more obvious in modern days. Conclusion Culture has played an important role in our development of society nowadays while dwellings has been one of the most important part as safety protection for us. There will be more studies carried out in future including culture that can affect and changes the outcome of particular dwellings like Feng Shui which is developed in physical and psychological ways. Other is technology that helps to complete or dedicate for the development of the interior to enable a more creative or mind blowing construction. It is blended into the space design through some particular mindset of particular society. It could even has a big difference occur among the same race of people. Some could even represent inherence fron ancestors of the family. There is no right or wrong if we are trying to keep or remove those traditional spaces form our home. It is important for a house owner to decide how their dwellings going to be as long as it is comfortable to live in as a new culture has been formed in a new within the new generation. Architecture must represent the way we live today, not the way we lived hundreds of years ago (Arts Columbia,n. d.).It will never stop changing along with human’s development as the culture will never disappear completely as it will always affect us no matter in older times or in the future.