House form and culture

The analysis of my family culture and house form: evaluating how house form expresses family culture.

Family culture

My family consists of four: father, mother, my sister and myself. However, I would like to include my helper who comes during the day, and my two golden retrievers. We are not normally together at home, since my sister and I are studying abroad. Nonetheless, we are more or less always home for holidays such as Christmas/New year, Thai new years (Songkran) on April and so on. During normal days in the holiday, my sister and I usually sleep in, while my parents go to their work since they are business entrepreneurs. If we do not go out during the day, we are usually at home. My helper comes over at 9 am to clean the house and cook us lunch. My mother is usually back for dinnertime, and we eat together either in the dining room or the living room in front of the television. My father, on the other hand, goes for a swim or rides his motorbike for exercise while we are having dinner. After dinner, we normally stay in the living room: whether we are all watching a movie, or using our computers. By this time, my father gets home and is having dinner in the living room. In some time, my sister and I decide if we want to go for a run, or do a few home workouts. We are a very health conscious family. After that, we shower and head into our rooms for more relaxation time, while my father stays up watching television until very late in the night. These are the norms of a regular day.

During special occasions, such as Christmas or New years, we often have small gatherings of close friends and family. It is usually a dinner, and then a movie or karaoke in the living room.

House form

The house I grew up in is located in a gated community, quite a distance from the hustle and bustle of Bangkok city. Within that community, high walls and gates separate houses. My house is a cubic structure, made up of subtractive and additive transformation of cubes. It is finished with a cream yellow shade, and the roof with a deep blue shade. Similarly, the walls around the land are cream, and the gate is blue. There is a contrast in the two colors, accentuating the gate and the roof. There is a big space in front of my house in a centralized form, consisting 3 parking spaces and a basketball area. Down the side of my house are two storage rooms, which is adjacent to a little corner where my two golden retrievers stay around. There are steps leading to the elevated first floor of my house. The entrance is recessed, and the front door is finished in brown. The first floor is formed by adjacent spaces: connecting the kitchen, dining room, living room, study, and an open area in front of a massive mirror. All these spaces are connected into one big space, with few partitions like columns etc. At the back of my house is a dirty kitchen, where we usually cook our meals. The walls are cream, with several orange accent walls, again, creating contrast, and the floor is all marble. The first floor contains a substantial amount of windows, to allow natural light and ventilation to enter the house. Behind the living room is a spiral staircase, leading to the living room on the second floor. This general area splits into four bedrooms, organized in a clustered matter. The walls are cream, with red accent walls, and the floor is wooden. Two bedrooms of the house have its personal bathroom, and the other two is shares one bathroom.

Correspondence between house form and culture

Firstly, the location and context of the house is important towards our family culture and the Thai tradition in general. The community is isolated and exclusive, and high walls separate us. This affects our cultural factors such as social intercourse and tradition. This architectural concept shows the lack of social intercourse we have with our neighbors, which is a norm in our family and the Thai tradition in general. Withal, the social intercourse within the first floor of the house is nearly unlimited, since the spaces are connected into one big space, which provides more opportunities to socially interact with one another. This expresses our hospitability towards guests in special occasions. In addition to tradition, a design concept in our house is the dirty kitchen. This kitchen is normal amongst Asian households, mainly because it will keep the house more hygienic. It also links with our basic needs of hygiene in my family culture. Furthermore, as for lifestyle, the area in front of the house which is mostly used by myself for practicing jump shots express our activeness and enthuse for sports and exercise. This may also apply to the open area with the big mirror on the first floor, because it is mostly used for home workouts. Lastly for lifestyle, the fact that we prefer a lot of windows bringing in natural light and ventilation expresses our preferred lifestyle of comfort. As for caste, the concepts include that fact that our retrievers stay outside the house, mainly because they are more of guards than companion dogs. Moreover, the size of our bedrooms show caste; my mother is in the master bedroom, my dad and my sister gets a medium sized bedroom and I am in the smallest bedroom due to the fact that I am the youngest. My mother gets the largest bedroom because in the Thai tradition, women are in general more powerful, in terms of positions in the corporate world. Although she is a Filipina, we were raised in Thailand and we have adapted the Thai tradition over any others.  Additionally, the two bedrooms with private bathrooms belong to my mother and sister, showing the basic needs of a woman and the hierarchy in the between the sexes which also connects with the caste. Other design features are the colors of the house. The cream finish of the walls emits mind and intellect, as well as happiness and fun, according to psychologists. The blue colors of the gate and the roof indicate peace, and serenity. The colors most likely affect our ‘asal’ (person-to-self relations), but only to an extent.

In my opinion, the little architectural concepts and design features do express our family culture, person-to-society relations (halaga), person-to-self relations (asal) and our nature (diwa), even if it is to a little extent. More importantly however, the house form shapes our culture and norms, more than it expresses it. I say this because we would more likely to be sociable if high walls did not separate us, or we would be less hospitable if it were not for the big space we have on the first floor of the house. Although we have control over where we place furniture and the layout of the rooms, the structure was pre-constructed when we bought the house. Finally, once adapting to that environment, the house form may then express the way we are, since our nature has already changed into the architectural and design concepts.