Abstract
The aim of this study is to develop standards for evaluation of plane types of collective houses. The recent form of public housing has come out of the traditional uniformity. And various approaches have been made and its level has remarkably risen. However, the thorough investigation is needed as to whether the change has realized the living environment in accordance with the needs on the residents' part. Especially the type of plane needs to be studied fully. The trend of plane planning after the War has to be the one which separates the public and the private zones in houses. This tendency still holds good in cases of public houses today. However, considering the privacy consciousness of Japanese people and the younger generation of residents, it is doubtful that above stated plane plan fulfills fully the various needs of daily living. Even the thorough investigation of living styles in public and private room type plane houses does not give a good plane plan to replace the conventional plan in order to respond to the needs of residents. From this viewpoint, we intended in this study to suggest an open type plane which is quite contrary to the public and private room type, and to clarify the evaluation standard of plane type through comparison of the living styles of the two plane types. Comparison was made on the following items:
1. how to use each room in the house and evaluation by residents
2. evaluation of inner environment
3. evaluation of facility
4. kinds of furniture and their arrangement
5. condition of movement of fixtures
Public houses in Ibaraki prefecture were investigated as test houses of public and private room type plane. The results show the followings: (1) the use of every room is fixed, (2) the inner environment is not good in the rooms which are located in the north and are quite separated, (3) most of life is spent in rooms facing south, and (4) every room is not in efficient use. On the other hand, the life styles of residents of open type plane houses are diversified and the rooms are used in accordance with their own life style. Though the plane type that allows free utilization of rooms is not always the most comfortable plane type for the residents, the fact that there is a significant difference between the two plane types should be an important item to be evaluated in planning of planes of public houses in the future.
