The influence of the levels of lifestyle meaning factors on the organization of dwelling environments, a case study of a rural residential environment

Residential environments are subject to a variety of factors, most notably the “lifestyle” that depends on the culture. The main purpose of dwelling is to create an environment that fits the people’s lifestyle. The lifestyle structure can be studied through its explicit components such as activities and its environmental aspects such as the temporality and spatiality of activities, the temporal and spatial sequence of activities, and other obvious aspects. Activities also have hidden and meaningful aspects in addition to their explicit aspects, which can reveal the mental aspects of the lifestyle. 

In this study, due to the nature of the problem and the theoretical framework of the research, the “qualitative research” method has been used based on “basic theory” and “logical reasoning”. This study focuses on a case study in rural housing (Qazmzari village in the west Fars Province). The reason for selecting the case study of rural housing was cultural integration and the possibility of necessary answers in a relatively small and accessible environment. However, this research methodology can be generalized to other research in different residential environments. The process of obtaining the hidden components of lifestyle as well as meaning factors is time-consuming. It has been made possible by recording the spatial planning maps, providing behavioral arrangement diagrams, conducting semi-structured interviews, and coding the categories using grounded theory. The study in different residential environments gives different meanings; therefore, the titles expressed as the levels of meaning factors, the research findings, and summaries are based on the researcher’s study, and most of the research is based on logical reasoning.

The “mental components of lifestyle” include the “levels of meaning factors” that influence the “explicit components of the lifestyle” and the “features of the dwelling environment”. The “levels of meaning factors” affecting the spatial and temporal organization of behavioral events and the physical features of dwellings, such as elements, distances, and spatial directions, harmonize the dwelling environment with hidden and obvious lifestyle components. The study of mental components affecting living environments shows that according to the importance of mental components, “two levels of meaning factors” can be identified in proportion to the lower and middle levels of Rapoport’s classification. The “Middle level of meaning factors” are hidden components of the collective lifestyle that affect the features of the residential environment as well as obvious behavioral events. The “low level of meaning factors” are less collective than the middle level and are more observed in family lifestyle. They directly affect the obvious components of lifestyle and physical features of the dwelling environment. The middle level of meaning factors that create living environments stems from the mental components of collective living methods such as ”social status, privacy, identity, kinship, security, and livelihood”. They are considered as hidden aspects of lifestyle. The second category of mental factors that make up living environments is the “low level of meaning factors”. These meaning factors directly affect the obvious components of lifestyle and physical features of the dwelling environment. They shape the dwelling environment together with the middle level of meaning factors.

The concept of “lifestyle” leads to quality of life, activities, and the ways of doing activities related to environmental qualities in housing. Therefore, the lifestyle structure can be studied through its obvious components such as activities and environmental aspects such as the temporal and spatial sequence of activities and other obvious aspects. These obvious aspects can include “ activity type, temporality and spatiality of activity, the temporal sequence of activities, and spatial sequence of activities.” According to the study’s theoretical framework studying the components of lifestyle structure, activities can have hidden and meaningful aspects in addition to the obvious aspects, which can reveal the mental aspects of lifestyle. The mental components in lifestyle and the “levels of meaning factors” create the dwelling environment by “determining the spatial and temporal features of behavioral events”, through the consequences such as the segregation and integration of behavioral settings, the temporal and spatial sequences of behavioral settings, and determining the quantitative and qualitative features of spatial elements. Although the middle and lower level of semantic factors is simultaneously referred to, responding to the “middle level of meaning factors” is prioritized. Considering the effect of hidden and obvious lifestyle components on the dwelling environment features, the mechanism of the effect of mental lifestyle components on the organization of the dwelling environment in this study has been investigated and presented. The “levels of meaning factors” create the dwelling environment by “determining the spatial and temporal features of behavioral events”, through the consequences such as the segregation and integration of behavioral settings, the temporal and spatial sequences of behavioral settings, and determining the quantitative and qualitative features of spatial elements.