Occupational influences on rural built form: exploring spatial configurations in traditional agricultural settlements
- PP443-456
Culture shapes behavioural norms, so understanding a cultural context enables one to anticipate, to some degree, how individuals within that culture are likely to behave. Prior studies have concentrated on how culture influences rural housing design and the development of associated cultural practices and behaviors, yet the role of occupational factors and their effects on the constructed environment remains unexamined. The research question is whether spatial configuration of built form in the rural context is dependent on the occupational (one of the components of culture) diversity of their households. This paper seeks to emphasize the importance of conserving and preserving remarkable instances of traditional human settlements that evolved in line with occupational requirements. The researcher adopted exploratory, descriptive and explanatory research methods to understand the occupational influence on the built form. House level analysis based on field observations, interviews were carried out to understand primary occupation, secondary occupation, occupational process, timelines, activities, tools, equipment, spaces and the place where occupation is performed. The exploratory research helped in understanding the insights of the occupation and built form, whereas descriptive research on the other hand, focused to describe the household, occupational activities in relation to spaces through field studies. The explanatory research helped the researcher in explaining the aspects of occupation and built form, to give conclusive evidence and helped in understanding the problem more efficiently. The output of this research is to identify the influence of occupation and occupational spaces in rural built form and the same would be helpful in designing the occupational spatial configuration for agriculture-based societies. The housing programmes, schemes shall take the outcome of this research for design proposals.
Agriculture Built form Culture Occupation Rural housing