Row houses in Taiwan - a study of sustainable dwelling usage and size under environmental crisis

Transcription

1 Row houses in Taiwan - a study of sustainable dwelling usage and size under environmental crisis Chang Herng Lin Department of Architecture, National Cheng Kung University Taiwan, R,0, C. Abstract Since the UNCED Conference was held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development has gained more attention. A series of concrete activities are performed to protect the environment. One of the most important requirements is to treasure our resources. Building land is just a kind of resources that cannot be increased. As a small island within her restricted geographical conditions Taiwan has to pay more attention to this topic than other countries, particularly as the environmental crisis is getting more serious, In view of the ideal of sustainable development this research wishes to look for an appropriate size of habitation in accordance with the usage of the residences in Taiwan and without hurting the comfort of the dwellers as well as the load ability of building land. 1 Introduction Since UNCED held in 1992 in Rio Janeiro, the concept of sustainable development is becoming more significant for the planning field. One of the most important requirements for planners is to reduce the exploitation of development zone to protect nature sources such as particular landscape, local plants as well as not increasable minerals. Residential district is one of the main zones of land use. Its exploitation often leads to unreasonable expansion of cities and to damage rare nature resources. The sensible usage of residences and their rational sizes are consequently very essential for the saving of the development area. It seems that row houses in downtown of big cities are no longer the most

2 dominant house type in Taiwan as it used to be. However according to the number of row houses, which still consists %o [1] of all houses, their importance is conspicuous. The study chooses therefore this house type as the first subject of the series of surveys to know the usage and size of Taiwan s residences, In this stydy 307 effectual samples of row houses in whole Taiwan were investigated, which are selected by the proportion of row houses in Taipei, Taizhong, Tainan and Gauxiong regions. The analysis is as following: 2 The row house in Taiwan 2.1 Size and structure of the household According to the survey, the number of residents of this house type is as in table % of this house type is inhabited from household with 3 to 5 persons, especially with 4 persons, which contains nearly 40 / /0 families in this study have 1 to 6-year-old children, /0 6 to 18-year-old children, /0 grown-up children, %.great parents. And 13.64V0families live with anther non-family people, Parents with children are the most form tlom the structure type of the membership. Great parents are no more the essential part of the family structure. size of household ] 2 (person) Table 1: Number of residents total?/ , Number of rooms Except living room, kitchen and sanitaria, which exist almost in each residence, the number of other rooms influences the usage and size of residences. Number of rooms in these families are investigated, 5.25?40of them have 3 rooms, 55.41YO 4 rooms, 35.74V05 rooms and 3.61?X06 rooms. Generally (91.15%) this type of residence possesses 4 to 5 rooms (s. table 2). Table 2: Number of rooms number of 3 rooms 4 rooms 5 rooms 6 rooms rooms 0/ ,3 Sanitary equipment The number and space for sanitaria in row houses are obviously large when they are compared with other types of residences % households have 2 sets of

3 full sanitaria, 23.44V0even have 3 sets. 68,89% families own another separate toilet, and 17.02% have even another 2 (s. table 3). Table 3: Number of sanitaria number of MI set sanitaria number of separate bathroom number of separatetoilet set ]4 0] ] ,48 1,06 The dwelling type in which bathroom is separated with toilet is not favorite in Taiwan /0residents mind that full set sanitaria, bathroom with toilet, are more suitable to use than the separated ones. 2,4 Size of living space In comparison with other house types, row houses possess a large living space. According to the study, the average dwelling space of this type amounts m2. The living space of each region is quite different (s. table 4). Especially in Tainan, the average size of row houses appears much smaller than the ones in other regions because the city size of Tainan is smaller than Taipei, Taizhong and Gaoxiong. Row houses in Tainan is for middle or middle-high income families, but this dwelling type in other 3 regions is mostly for high income families, whose residences require more luxury even by the size of living space. Table 4: Average size of row houses in different regions region \Taipei Taizong Gaoxiong ltainan ltotal Average size m m m m \170.04m Investigated data of average size of each individual room and of private open or half open spaces are shown in table 5 and 6. [n table 5 it can be concluded that the living room is the most significant room indoors of residences in this house type. Owing to generally placing a bathroom in mater bedroom, the master bedroom also occupies a large space in house, which has nearly double size as a normal non-suite bedroom. In consideration of an efficient usage of residences it is necessary to check up whether the habit, that master bedrooms are usually installed with their own bathroom as a suite, is reasonable. Table 5: Average size of individual rooms room living living-dining Living-dining dinning master normal room room -kitchen room bedroom bedroom size m 24,34 m m 6,22 m 22,01m 13.56m

4 Compared with the whole indoor space of this house type the outdoor spaces appear relative undersized, The front garden, which is the main outdoor space of all, is not larger than a normal chamber indoors, so that the quality of outdoor living will been limited. Table 6: Average size of private open or half open space space front rear balcony roof garden garden terrace size m m 11.39m 22,93m 2.5 Structure of space and their proportion Being restricted tlom their quite small site, which averagely comes to m2 in this study, row houses in Taiwan cannot have a very complicated space structure, so that all kinds of space structure of them look comparatively simple and similar. Generally a stair house is situated in the middle of a little long formed house plan, mostly together with sanitary equipments. The rest space will be cut into two rooms, thereby one is in front, and the other at rear (s. figure 1). The wideness of row houses, average ca. 5m, is so narrow that the rooms can usually no more be divided longitudinally again, thus they are quite big on the other hand as a single room to compare with rooms in collective housing. F m l Figure 1: Schema of a typical level plan ffom row houses in Taiwan In order to contact each level, a stair must be disposed in the houses, This together with a required access space, so called circulation space, occupies again a pretty large proportion of the small level space in this house type. Besides, the sanitary equipments are generally installed in each level of row houses in Taiwan for convenience although it doesn t have to. The stairs, access space and sanitaria take nearly 30?Z0of space from houses of this type, so that the space composition seems ineffkient (s. table 7). Table 7: Proportion of space in a Taiwanese row house space publtc space individual circulation sanitaria space 0/

5 3 Usage of the row houses 3.1 Usage and variability of indoor spaces The Smtainuble city II 241 Normally the function of living room, dinning room and master bedroom in a Taiwan s row house is fixed. Due to the size and the location in the residence, variability of usage from these rooms is not often seen. Living room is /0 used as living room in the wider sense. 51,83 Yosamples put their dinning and 10.00V0their working activities also in the living room, In view of the fact that a lot of houses in this type have no partition between living room and kitchen, % dwellers cook in the living space (s, table 8), Table 8: Usage of designed living room except pure living function activities I dinning I cooking working 0/ The usage of master bedroom, that often owns a separate bathroom, is quite stable % of it is still used as mater bedroom (s. table 9). Table 9: Usage of designed master bedroom usage master double room living room studio recreation room bedroom 0/ ,00 8, Since the characters of other normal non-suite rooms in a row house are approximate equal, the variability of usage is relatively diversified, such as double bedroom, living room, recreation room, studio and so on. It is worthy to be noticed that a high percentage (10.88%) of these rooms be dilapidated. It is even higher than other intensive usage such as studio (9.950/0),recreation room, washroom etc. That indicates an inefficient usage within those rooms. Further, nearly 30% of these rooms have an average size of 13,56m2, serve even only as single bedroom, i.e. a luxurious standard which collective houses seldom possess (s. table 10). Table 10: Usage of non-suite rooms us- single room double dilapi- studio Stor- master oratory recre- baby living washage room dated age bedroom ation room room room room ~~ kid I adult aduits[kids , , [14,67 10,79 [5,23

6 3.2 Usage of outdoor spaces Open and half open space of row houses such as garden terrace etc. mark the character of this house type and should be very important for dwellers to choose those houses. But the outcome of the survey points out this space that hasn t been intensive used. There is still a large proportion of these space dilapidated. Front garden will mostly be used as garage or carport (53.33VO),only 27.27% with plants (s. table 11). Table 11:Usage of the front garden ~ usage carport plants dilapidated storage wash space space space?/ The rear garden, which average size is only 10.95m2, will mostly be used as wash place for clothes. 12,73V0of them are rebuilt as kitchen (s. table 12), As the size of a rear garden is rather small, it is very easy to roof it. According to the practical usages, the rear garden of this house type in Taiwan nearly loses its character as outdoor space, Table 12:Usage of the rear garden usage wash rebuilt as Dilapidated plants carport storage space kitchen space % Surprisingly, balconies from this house type seem not to be treasured. Almost 30?40of them will be dilapidated, also more than another intensive usages (table 13). Table 13: Usage of balconies usage dilapidated plants wash recreation storage rebuilt as space space space a room % , The roof terrace, that owns a pretty large size and has good chance to be a nice outdoor living space of the family, is actually most dilapidated or only as wash space for clothes (table 14).

7 Table 14: Usage of the roof terrace TIIe Sustainable Cih II 243 usage dilapidated wash plants recreation rebuilt rebuilt as storage space space space as a a oratory room? , Consistent with the results above, dilapidation of the outdoor spaces from row houses is widespread. It reveals an exceedingly serious problem about efficient usage in dwelling space of this house type that is worthy to a near investigation. 3,3 Dweller s experiences The motivation why the dwellers choose this house type is diverse. The most favorite reason for choice of the house type is because of the individual entrance, so that the dwellers do not need to share the door with other people. Unexpectedly, the next attraction of this house type is the private outdoor space, although they don t intensive use it. The three most essential reasons, that amount A, all have a relationship with privacy (table 15). This phenomenon implies a living style in Taiwan s society that people don t like often to hold a complicate parley with neighbors and still have a strong tendency to alone possess a real estate, Table 15: Reasons of choosing this house type reason private private private a larger a dwelling no entrance outdoor land dwelling constant size special space size value increasable reason % Table 16: The most missing rooms in a row house room recreation study storage Studio wash one more oratory room room bedroom %0 20,76 17, ? 0 9,31% 4.77% 4.77% As it was investigated what room is missed in a row house, 20.76% of the dwellers find that a recreation room is mostly necessary, And 17.42% of them would like to have a study. Besides, storage, studio and washroom are also eagerly desired (s, table 16), Number and size of rooms are two essential factors of residence characters % of the investigated residents believe that the size of the residence is more important than the number of rooms. In deed 42, 12Y oresidents content

8 244 Me.~us[[~itmb[e ( i(l, ii themselves both with the size and the room numbers of their residence % of them are not satisfied with the size of the dwelling despite of an appropriate room numbers (s. table 17). Table 17: Satisfaction with the size and the number of rooms satisfaction satisfiedwith satisfiedwith satisfiedwiththe not satisfied both sizeand numberof rooms size but not with with both number of rooms but not with the the number of size rooms 0/ From table 17 it was found out that although row houses have a relative large dwelling size than collective housing, but there is still a large part of dwellers (46.42Yo)are not satisfied with the size of their residence. Consisting with the opinions above, 26.79% of dwellers want to change to another bigger houses and 13.69? oto rebuild house to gain more space. Only 1.79% of them wish for a smaller one (table 18). In spite of the relative large dwelling space of row houses, the high percentage of dissatisfaction with this house type indicates obviously a contradiction between size and usage of these houses, i.e. an inefficient management of the spaces in house. Table 18: Dweller s plan in the future action maintain the to find another to rebuild the to find another condition larger house house or to smaller house increase rooms 0/ Conclusions The row house is now an important house type in Taiwan except downtown of large cities. They will be more needed when living standard gets more progressive, since the outdoor space is one of the most significant and attractive characters of this house type, especially for families with children. But according to this survey it can be concluded that the usage etllciency of the space in row houses is now not reasonable enough for a sustainable development, EfHcient disposition of the spaces in row houses can be one of the mainly methods to approach the efficient usage. To change the residential behavior to attain an efllcient usage of the spaces in house can be another one. Anyway, to be alert to the restriction of space, either in a house or in the residential regions and to handle them more efficiently will be necessary measures to lighten the exploitation of our precious living environment.

9 Acknowledgement lje Smtaitmble Cit,v II 245 This research was granted by the National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC Z ). The author is grateful to this support, The author is thankful to the members of the Institute of Dwelling Environment and Living Space (IDEAL) to the help for survey. References [1] The survey of residence situation, Statistic Bureau, Department of Interior, 1993 [2] Xu, Tian-An: A study of the relationship between the usage survey and planning in collective housing, master thesis of Taiwan University, 1999 [3] Chen, Yi-Ru: A study on the living pattern in collective housing, master thesis of Zhong-Uean University, 1998 [4] Chen, Zong-Yi: A Study on character of row houses for the space structure - take Jia-Yi as a sample, master thesis of Fong-Jia University, 1996