Factors Influencing Personalization of Dwellings Among Residents of Selected Public Housing Estates Lagos Nigeria
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Contents available at: www.repository.unwira.ac.id https://journal.unwira.ac.id/index.php/ARTEKS Research paper doi: 10.30822/arteks.v6i1.620 Factors influencing personalization of dwellings among residents of selected public housing estates Lagos Nigeria Kolawole Opeyemi Morakinyo Department of Architecture Technology, School of Environmental Studies, The Federal Polytechnic, Ede, Osun State, Nigeria ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Several factors have been implicated as responsible for Received July 12, 2020 personalization of dwellings. These factors ranges from Received in revised form August 12, demographic, socioeconomic and cultural. Demographic factors 2020 however, have been most frequently cited with respect to housing Accepted November 19, 2020 behaviour of households. Within the context of public housing, this Available online April 01, 2021 study seeks to investigate factors influencing personalization of Keywords: dwellings among residents of public housing estates using selected Dwellings Public Housing Estates of the Lagos State Development and Lagos Nigeria Property Corporation (LSDPC) as case study. The cross-sectional Personalization of dwellings survey research design was employed in this study. This involved Public housing collection of primary data using structured questionnaire and personal observations. Four public housing estates were selected purposively comprising three low-income and one medium-income housing estate out of 22 low-income and 10 medium-income estates, being the largest estates. The sampling frame for the four selected *Corresponding author: Kolawole estates comprised 9734 housing units in 1361 blocks of flat out of Opeyemi Morakinyo Department of Architectural Technology, which systematic random sampling was used to select a sample size School of Environmental Studies, Nigeria of 973 housing units. The result of the binary logistic regression Email: [email protected] revealed gender, religion, educational and income level, current household size, satisfaction with housing design, living status and availability of alternative dwelling were all significantly associated with personalization of dwellings. Lower odds of personalization was found among the men (OR=0.003, p<0.05) when compared to the women. While the odds of personalization was 82.0% lower (OR=0.18, p<0.05) among respondents from other religious group relative to respondents affiliated to the Christian religion, respondents affiliated to the Islam religion were 18.0% (OR=0.82, p>0.05) less likely to personalize their dwellings relative to Christian respondents, although the result was not statistically significant for respondents affiliated to Islam women. While respondents with higher education were 85.0% (OR=0.15, p<0.05) less likely to personalize their dwellings, respondents with secondary education were 69.0% (OR=0.31, p>0.05) less likely to personalize their dwellings relative to respondents with maximum of primary education, though the results was not statistically significant among respondents with maximum of primary education. Other factors that were significantly associated with personalization of dwellings include: higher income level, household size, level of satisfactions with design, residency status and ownership of alternative apartment. The findings of this study reinforced the Copyright ©2021 Kolawole Opeyemi Morakinyo. This is an open access article distributed the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License 85 ARTEKS : Jurnal Teknik Arsitektur, Volume 6 Issue 1, April 2021 pISSN 2541-0598; eISSN 2541-1217 importance of socio-economic variables as important factors to be considered in the study of personalization of dwellings. Introduction post-constructional changes in these housing estates. It is common to find changes taking place Housing embraces the totality of residential when the financial capability of the house owner neighbourhood and environment comprising of improves which could be as a result of either a physical structures, facilities and all other needed promotion, increase in salary or inheritance. services that guarantees the health and social Whichever the case is it simply means that when wellbeing of individuals and family (Salau, house owners have more money to spend, they are Opara-Nadi, and Swennen 1992). Furthermore, it most likely going to try to improve their house. symbolizes the status of an individual and Within the context of public housing, this describes one’s personality as defined by the study seeks to investigate factors influencing society (Adetunji Babatunde and Egwaikhide personalization of dwellings among residents of 2010). However, deviation in the expected role of public housing estates using selected Public housing as perceived by the occupants often Housing Estates of the Lagos State Development results in modification and personalization of and Property Corporation (LSDPC) as case study. such house. The concept of personalization refers The National Housing Policy (2012) defined to the use of visible marker to define personal housing as the process whereby secure, identity, create boundaries with aim of regulating comfortable, attractive, functional, affordable and the level of communications and social identifiable shelter in a suitable setting within a interactions among residents (Kopec 2006). The neighbourhood and supported by continuous need for dwellings personalization arose from the maintenance of the built environment for daily desire of people to mark and distinguish their living activities of individuals and families is house from others. In other words, people provided while also putting into consideration personalize their dwellings by modifying the their socioeconomic, cultural desires and physical environment in a distinct way that preferences. Similarly, Abdul Karim (2008) reflects ownership (Abu-Ghazzeh 2000; Marcus argues that housing consist of both physical and and Sarkissian 1988). social components. The physical components Several factors have been implicated as include the house, facilities and utilities, while the responsible for personalization of dwellings. social components comprises of the individuals These factors ranges from demographic, occupying the house, neighbours and the socioeconomic and cultural. Demographic factors community. When houses failed to perform the however, have been most frequently cited with required function, the resultant effect is that respect to housing behaviour of households. For people tends to engage in personalization. instance, changes in the size of the household has The process of personalization of dwellings often been associated with changes in space need. have been found to be very important to occupants The varying household size is a key factor that because the entire process ultimately aim to create encourages occupants to personalize their a place that can be called home. Through dwellings because majority of these houses were personalization, occupants can modify their not designed to meet the individual needs of the dwelling to suit their taste (Gifford 1997; Ressell, family. Potangaroa, and Feng 2008). Moreover, studies Improved finance of the owners is also a major have identified personalization of dwellings to be factor that affects the nature and extent of the influenced by several factors ranging from socio- 86 Kolawole Opeyemi Morakinyo: Factors influencing personalization of dwellings among residents of selected public housing estates Lagos Nigeria demographic such as gender and religion, cultural could be as a result of either a promotion, increase reasons, level of satisfaction, need for privacy, in salary or inheritance. Whichever the case is it identify among others. For instance, Sazally et al. simply means that when house owners have more (2012) in their study assessing personalization of money to spend they are most likely going to try houses in terraced houses in Malaysia identified to improve their house. Also, dwellers respond to the absence of mutual respect and respect to increased demand for space due to the expansion cultural values and rites as two key factors of household size, the inevitable increase in responsible for personalization of terraced houses family size due procreation and extended family (Sazally et al. 2012). ties have also been cited as a motivation to Gender consideration have been identified by carryout personalization. The need to create more Tognoli (1980) as factor in personalization of rooms or enlarge existing ones to accommodate dwellings (Tognoli 1980). According to this study family members came as a pressing challenge which investigated gender differences with which was tackled through what they considered respect to their feelings towards domestic space, to be most affordable when compared with other the author revealed both men and women option opened to them. Most times, their sizes demonstrated high level of sensitivity to their were quite small as at the time they moved in, living space. For instance, it was found that while compared to what happened years after or even the women were able to recollect most of the their present sizes. events that occurred over the past week in their On the other hand, Natakun & O’Brien (2008) rooms, the men on the other hand were more in their study conducted in Bangkok which concerned about the design and decoration in their investigated modifications to government-built kitchen and bathroom. houses in the metropolitan area of the region of Religious