L’Habiter : harmonie entre pratiques sociales et configurations spatiales (cas du logement collectif à Sétif)

Abstract

Algerian cities, including Sétif, experienced a generalization of a collective social housing’s model : large housing estates based on the mass production of housing with standard plans. This model of housing proposed to the Algerian population, obeys to a production’s method that excludes the inhabitants, and follows a logical design dominated by rationalization and standardization of these spaces, which is culturally foreign. It presents thus deficiencies in meeting their needs, hence the mismatch with the population that occupies it. To overcome this framework and ensure a minimum of coherence between social practices and spatial configurations of the housing, the inhabitant engages in the manufacture of his living space at their convenience and according to its needs, through a process of appropriation of space. On the one hand, the space designed affects users through its values. On the other hand, the user acts on the space through a set of adaptive practices and other transformations. This work is an attempt to determine how domestic space is experienced, practiced and owned by its inhabitants by studying interactions that may exist between two main elements: inhabitant’s social practices and spatial patterns of housing. From a survey with a sample of 30 social housing type in Sétif, we could detect the inhabitant’s model of living and his role in modeling his space.