UNDERSTANDING SPATIAL EVOLUTION OF HDB UNITS USING NETWORK ANALYSIS

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to catalogue the majority and common configurations of Singapore’s public housing, to evaluate its relevance to inhabitants. Through network analysis and qualitative approach to examine the relationship between housing alterations and the inhabitants’ satisfaction. Morphological analysis has been conducted on some of the housing layouts, to give insight as to how housing configuration influence user’s satisfaction and living patterns. By establishing and understanding this intricate relationship between the two, the intention is to develop new evaluation tools beneficial towards the design of public housing in the future. The first part of the paper discusses on the objective of public housing and its development in Singapore since the inception of the Housing Development Board (HDB). The second part focuses on the analysis, which has been divided into two parts, spatial network analysis and survey analysis. In the spatial network analysis, the configurations of individual housing units and altered units were compared using reduced-graph analysis. The survey functioned as a qualitative analysis to relate the lifestyle patterns of contemporary society to the housing configuration. Lastly, spatial satisfaction from the survey was used to determine the association between satisfaction levels and alterations made to the housing units. From the results gathered from spatial network analyses and the qualitative evaluation, it is observed that the existing public housing configuration requires more variety and adaptability to meet the demands and changing living habits of different households. Inference can be made from the survey conducted as inhabitants expressed greater satisfaction when personalisation of their housing unit was made through alterations.