Socio-cultural factors affecting house layout formation in Somalia: investigation of user evaluation of villa and apartment designs in Mogadishu

Mogadishu was once named the White Pearl of Indian Ocean. A civil war which lasted for more than 30 years destroyed the cities modern Italian and Arab influenced architecture. Since 2011 Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) was able to retake control of Mogadishu. On afterwards the city was invested in heavily by Somali investors. Buildings, roads and other commercial facilities were constructed. As the city grew so as the population did and the need for housing especially apartment buildings increased. The increase of apartments led to this study. the investigation of socio-cultural factors that affect housing in Mogadishu, by investigating user satisfactions on the design of the apartments and villas. A questionaries' survey that consisted of 36 question was carried out on 156 residents of Mogadishu. the survey was carried out by Google forms on the internet. And the participants were recruited through random process using snowball method (chain referral). The results showed that the participants were mainly satisfied in the apartments. but they believe that in the future, apartment buildings could have impact on the Life style of the Somali people. On the other hand, participants main factors (preference) on choosing an apartment unit was; unit size (4+1,3+1) are preferred, number of rooms, room arrangements, room sizes, and balcony. family size, number of rooms, and apartment size are related. And in the future participants might choose apartment units that have children 's playing room, storage, laundry and other amenities. On the v other hand, most of the participants live in a villa, but still agreed that living in apartments is more comfortable and satisfactory. Even though they might not have experience of living in an apartment building. The participants also preferred living in apartments over villas.