Developing a Framework for Assessment of Flexibility in Residential Buildings

Residential buildings in the contemporary life are smaller and more compact due to economic pressures, change in the lifestyle, advancement in technology, population growth and etc. These houses should be able to fulfill the requirements and needs of the users that are rapidly changing in order to improve the quality of life. In recent years, design of small residential buildings, becames a challenge for designers in order to provide a space which can offer maximum satisfaction to users’ needs and expectations. Flexibility as a tool was one of the methods which have been practiced in traditional houses and highlighted in the modernism period by many designers. Flexibility in design offers alternatives by providing the ability to change according to users’ preferences instead of dictating rigid and defined spaces. In order to have flexibility in design of residential buildings, designers should be aware of components of the buildings. Building components can be classified as building layers. Although these layers seems to be individual parts of a building the fact is all the layers are connected and they have direct effect on each other from the flexibility perspective. Thus any change in one layer, may effect other layers as well. This research tries to illustrate the relation between the building layers and flexibility and improve the knowledge of achieving flexible design. Analyzing flexibility in buildings, requires to develop a platform which is applicable for the existing buildings by considering the layers. This research has formed an analyzing framework of achieving flexibility based on the different classification of successful scholars and researchers . The achieved results of this thesis determines the level of contribution between dwellers and architects in order to obtain a flexible house which can increase the living quality in small houses. The result will also show the hidden linkage between building layers and the level of flexibility.