The Concept of Model House: from Image to the Reality

Home is the most significant space of the individual. It is more than a shelter; it is a nurturing space where individuals can be protected from the chaos of the world, relax, act as wanted and be with the ones they love. However, as the consumer society took over our world, naïve and ordinary meaning of home rapidly started to change towards images aiding consumption. Individual’s innocent longings towards home started being manipulated by the housing market. In the course of events, home has become a consumption and investment object. Today dream home, naïve home image in individual’s mind is being used by the housing professionals and market for imposing values, requirements and standards to people for economic earnings. Former wants of people that where, humble, simple, pragmatic, budget and square meter based, have been over shaded and changed by the imposed images. On the other hand, it is evident that these images are also adopted and favoured by the customer equally. In time, popular and common house image has been formed/ deformed and model images of home came into the picture. Model houses were ready-made and mass-produced homes designed for a specific time, culture, context that had many divergent models. In this research main focus is aimed to be a critical look to the notion of model house and how these houses are in reality coordinated with the expectations of people in scale of North Cyprus. This aim will be supported in the field research by an interview conducted to 15 designers who are active both in education and market. Keywords: Dream Home, Model Home/ House, Image, Reality, Incompatibilities