Abstract
This research examines how the apartment units of a housing estate, most of which were equipped with movable partitions and movable storage units, have been transformed by the residents since they were built more than 20 years ago. The purpose of this research is to verify whether residents have adopted the design concepts of KEP to suit their individual needs and how they have adapted their living environments to changes in their lifestyles over time. The residents′ family structures have changed since the first ones started to live in the apartment house in 1982. Therefore, they have needed to remodel rooms, change the position of partitions, the specifications of equipment, and so on. We studied the movable partitioning system that had been used by residents as it was planned originally. We visited all the 184 residences individually, and when we were allowed to enter a unit, we observed the actual changes that had been made to it and asked the residents why and how they changed their units. This paper reports on the results of our studies, especially on the changes in room arrangement (layout changes).
