A Review of the Evolutions of Rural Housing Upgrading and the Future Perspective

The need for housing in villages is different from that of citie's requirements. The most important aspects of planning and measurements in cities is concentrated on solving housing shortage and mostly trying to create balance between supply and demand while the main problem in the villages is something different. In other words, the most challenge that rural housing is facing, is not a balance between supply and demand but it is the phenomenon of bad housing resulting from the lack of suitable strength, erosion, sanitary pollutions for the interference of existing and livelihood spaces in the house and in the meantime, its indigenous designing compatible with their life style according to the location and natural environment. In this line, effective measures have been taken in the recent 3-4 decades in order to solve above mentioned problems which their explanation and analysis and also the feedback of their results have been found necessary in the current planning, suitable direction of policies, and future planning. This article tries to scrutinize and analyze the rural housing in the past and the present time and strives to find a suitable direction of policy making for provision of rural housing in the country. The first section of this article refers to an introduction for the necessity of paying attention to the rural housing in Iran and investigating the characteristics of the previous ones. The second section considers the current situation of rural housing in Iran through investigation and assessment of sample data of the years 82 and 87. In this section, the rural housing of Iran is taken into consideration on the basis of four important aspects: skeleton (strength and amount of space), welfare and comfort facilities, the role of livelihood activities in housing and its economic position, and environmental feature. The assessment and analysis of sample data illustrates the difference of characteristics contained in housing situation among the provinces and if interacted with other effective factors and components in planning of suitable rural housing, could play a determinant role in solving the needs of this section. The final section by emphasizing on the variety of architecture, technology and concluding the natural difference of housing in different regions, proposes "adoption of regional approach proportional to the rural identity and emphasis on the workshop property of such housing through fortifying the livelihood spaces in housing planning", as the most important present priorities in housing provision.