Space Modification and Personalization in Public Housing: Case of Walk-Up Apartments in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Public housing programs are critical in developing countries such as Sri Lanka where Governments’ aim to accommodate housing affordability through a dynamic housing market addressing the desired housing mobility and choice of housing solutions. The process of public housing production lacks end-user participation in its design stage and instead provides a typical layout to communities with similar needs and requirements. Nevertheless, the end user inhabits the house by a process of modifications addressing their changing needs and requirements. But such process has no involvement of an Architect, thus modifications done without space planning and design knowledge, results in inhabitable spaces and poor quality of the living environment. This study explores the personalization strategies of the public housing process taking two ‘walk-up apartments’ type of public housing schemes as a case study.