ARC 353: Housing Policy and Design

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ARC 353 Housing Policy and Design

• Module 4
• Housing Policy and Design Issues in Saudi Arabia

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Questions that Presentation seeks to answer

• What is the nature of the urbanization and
  housing problems in Saudi Arabia and how are they
  related
• How has the government in Saudi Arabia addressed
  housing and land problems through its policies,
  programs and projects and how successful is
  government intervention
• What are the various common housing form in Saudi
  Arabia and what are the factors that give form to
  the house
• How are communities and neighborhoods designed

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Module Issues Outline

• Population and Urban Growth and Housing Problems
  in Saudi Arabia
• Housing Policy in Saudi Arabia
• Residential and neighborhood design practices in
  Saudi Arabia

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Population and Urban Growth and Housing Problems
in Saudi Arabia

• Module 4 Lecture 1

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Outline

• Saudi Population and Urbanization Pattern
• National population and urbanization trends
• City growth trends
• Sources of growth pressures
• Housing Problems
• Housing situation
• Major Housing problems

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Population Growth and Urbanization Patterns
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Pop. Growth and Urbanization

• Saudi Arabia has witnessed a massive
  transformation of its society in the last 100
  years
• Among the significant aspects of this
  transformation are the increase in the size of
  its total and urban population, the high level of
  urbanization in the country and the emergence of
  very large urban settlements
• The transformation of the country can generally
  be divided into four periods as follow

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Pop. Growth and Urbanization

• The early period of Development up to 1930
• The period between 1930 and 1970
• The period between 1970 and 1990
• The period between 1990 to the present
• We will look at the urbanization trends in these
  periods and also examine the housing situation
  and problems that results from the changes that
  were going on in the society

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Growth In Early Period to 1930

• The Early period consist of the period when King
  Abdulazziz united the people of the Arab
  peninsula to the founding of Saudi Arabia in 1932
• Population and urbanization levels during this
  period were low and less than 10 of the country
  lived in cities
• The most significant action taken during this
  period was the sedentarization of Bedouins in
  Hijar Settlements which was to later have an
  impact on urbanization

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Growth In Early Period to 1930

• Cities were relatively small
• Makkah was the largest town in the kingdom by
  1940 and it had a population of 80,000 people

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Growth From 1930 to 1970

• The period 1930 to 1970 was one in which Saudi
  Arabia started experiencing growth in urban
  population
• From an urban population of 10 in 1940, it
  increased to 58 percent by 1975
• Cities also grew very rapidly
• The attached table shows the growth of some
  cities between 1940 and 1974

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Population of Saudi Arabia
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Growth of Cities
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Growth From 1930 to 1970

• Growth was mainly a factor of the discovery of
  oil and the large investment in the provision of
  infrastructure in cities
• The major push for growth was from internal
  migration as people left villages to towns to
  seek for better jobs
• There was also an element of international
  migration

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Growth from 1970 to 1990

• From 1970 to 1990 is when Saudi Arabia
  experienced its greatest expansion in population
  and urban population and also in the size of its
  cities
• Total population grew from 6.2 million in 1970 to
  13.5 million in 1992
• Percentage urbanization increase from 58.4
  percent in 1975 to around 80 in 1992

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Growth from 1970 to 1990

• Cities also expanded rapidly
• In 1987, Riyadh and Jeddah had surpassed the
  million size, with each having a population of
  1.4 and 1.3 million population respectively
• 4 more cities had a population between 500,000
  and a million, and 3 cities had a population of
  between 250,000 and 500,000

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Growth from 1970 to 1990

• The major factor in the growth was industrial
  expansion and increase in the provision of
  services and infrastructure to the citizens
• The increase was from both internal migration
  from villages to cities and also international
  migration with foreigners coming to work in the
  country
• By 1992, it is estimated that almost 40 of the
  population of the country is foreign in origin
  and most of these foreigners live in urban areas

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Growth from 1990 to Present

• Though the rate of growth of population has
  dropped to 3 within this period, Saudi Arabia
  has continued to expand in population
• The estimate of population from the 1992 census
  is about 13.2 million people in 2002 is 21.7
  million
• Urbanization levels was around 78-80 in 1990 and
  is estimated at 86.2 in 2000
• It is projected that 91 of the country will be
  living in urban areas in 2015, when the total
  population will be 31.7 million
• The population for 2025 is projected at 40.4
  Million

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Growth from 1990 to Present

• Cities are also expanding rapidly
• Riyadh had a population of 2.8 million in 1992
  and is estimated to have a population of about 6
  million now
• It is estimated that there may be more than 6
  cities with a population of a million and above
  in the country

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Growth from 1990 to Present

• Growth is now no more fueled by international
  migration or net internal migration
• Rather growth is fueled by Natural increase in
  the cities
• The fact that 43 of the population are below 15
  in 2000 points to the potential for large
  increase in population in the cities over the
  long run

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Housing Problems
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Housing Problem in Early Period

• Housing Situation
• People generally lived traditional lifestyles
  during this period and so had limited needs and
  wants.
• Housing Problem
• The major problem during the period was how to
  provide people with services and facilities and
  improve their living conditions
• The Hijar was an attempt to put people together
  so as to provide them with services and access to
  modern facilities

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Housing Problems (1930 - 1970)

• Housing Situation
• This was the a time of the beginning of housing
  problems in Saudi Arabia
• People rushed to cities but there were no
  housing to accommodate them and so make shift
  structures and poor quality neighborhoods sprang
  up

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Housing Problems (1930 - 1970)

• Housing Problems
• Acute shortage of housing
• Lack of income by people to afford housing
• Lack of capacity to service land
• Lack of an effective construction industry
• Emergence of poor quality neighborhoods

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Housing Problems (1970- 1990)

• Housing Situation
• This was the time of acute housing shortage in
  Saudi Arabia, despite the ability of a large
  segment of the population to afford housing
• Housing Problems
• The major problem was acute shortage
• Acute shortage was created by the lack of an
  effective construction industry to meet the
  increase in need for housing arising from growth
• Poor quality housing prevailed in many cities

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Housing Problems(1990-Present)

• Housing Situation
• Despite the trend of rapid urbanization in the
  country, Housing situation has significantly
  improve
• There have been substantial increases in stock
  and shortages do not exist
• In fact, it appears that In some cities, there
  are housing surpluses

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Housing Problems(1990-Present)

• Housing problems
• The major housing problem has to do with
  affordability and housing quality
• More and more people, especially young people,
  are finding it hard to afford housing on their
  income
• In certain areas of cities, Housing quality is in
  a very bad situation- These can be called islands
  of poverty in the midst of surplus

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Housing Problems(1990-Present)

• Housing Problems Continue
• The problem of land is also an issue- as more and
  more demand for single family housing is placing
  a stress on land availability and price and is
  also creating a huge bill for servicing land for
  housing
• Recently problems associated with the single
  family villa particularly the high cost of energy
  in maintaining it has become an issue

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Summary of Growth Patterns and Housing Problems

• Three important factors have influenced the Urban
  growth and urbanization trend in Saudi Arabia
• Demographic change- Increase in population growth
  due to access to better facilities and the
  movement of this population to the city
• Socio-economic progress- the availability of oil
  and resources from it spurred economic growth
  which led to change in the social structure of
  society
• Infrastructure development development of
  cities with large infrastructure

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What is the issue that is least clear to you from
the Lecture
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Housing and Land Policy In Saudi Arabia
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Outline of presentation

• Policy Setting
• Housing Policy
• Determinants of Housing Policy
• Objectives and Goals of H/Policy
• Policy Components
• Policy Intervention by Periods
• Achievements of H/Policy
• Future Direction of Housing Policies

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Policy Setting

• Two factors provide the cultural Setting for
  Saudi Housing Policy
• Islamic Norms
• Encourage private initiative and free market
• Requires efficient utilization of resources
• Desires an equitable access to income and wealth
  distribution
• Developmental Framework
• Desire to develop as contained in five year
  development plans starting from 1970 to the
  present

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Housing Policy Determinants

• Tremendous increase in wealth in the country
  created a huge increase in demand for housing
  largely because of the following
• In-migration of foreign labour
• Increase in net national net migration to urban
  areas
• Increase in the value of house as investment
• A rise in quality expectation of housing as
  living standards increase
• In ability of housing market to effectively
  respond to increase in demand due to factor
  input problems of sufficient service land,
  labor, building materials and capital

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H/Policy Goals Objectives

• The principal goal of the Saudi Housing policy is
  that every household should have a decent, safe,
  sanitary dwelling of a standard consistent with
  its level of income
• Other objectives include
• Ensure sufficient dwelling units for additional
  manpower needed to develop the plan
• Develop housing within an orderly urbanization
  pattern consistent with social, economic,
  environmental and residential needs
• Develop effective institutional framework to
  support continuing effort in housing development
  financial, legal etc

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Housing Policy Components

• Public Housing
• The government initiated programs of direct
  construction of housing to alleviate shortage,
  including the Rush housing project the General
  Housing Project and Sites and services program
• 4782 rushed dwelling units were constructed in
  Jeddah, Riyadh and Makkah, while over 17,000
  general housing projects were constructed in
  Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, and Khobar

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Housing Policy Components

• Real Estate Development Fund
• The real estate fund was created to provide
  capital for housing development in 1974
• Provides two kinds of loans private loans to
  individual citizens who own land, and loans for
  commercial housing projects
• Individual loans were between 200 and 300
  thousand riyals, while commercial loan had a
  ceiling of 15 million initially, later reduced to
  10 million, with all loans given as zero rate of
  interest

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Housing Policy Components

• Private Sector Support
• The private sector was offered different types of
  support to develop the construction industry
• The supports included
• Facilitation the importation of building
  materials and labor
• Investment in port expansion
• Encouragement of industrialization to improve
  production of building materials

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Housing Policy Components

• Land Policy
• The housing policy also included a land component
  aimed at expanding the supply of land
• Land supply was expanded, along with the program
  of servicing land with the necessary
  infrastructure
• Land grant programs was initiated along with the
  Real Estate Development fund program to meet the
  needs of lower income households
• The ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs was
  created to facilitate the land program of the
  government

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Housing Policy Intervention

• Early period to 1930
• During this period, the government did not have
  the institutional organization to act on problems
• There was minimal housing policy intervention,
  except in the case of the Hijar settlements
• 1930-1970
• Despite the rise of acute housing problems during
  this period, there was no government intervention
  through housing policy because of resource
  problems and also the lack of functioning
  government institutions.

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Housing Policy Intervention

• 1970-1990
• This was period of most pressing shortage in
  housing and also of initiation and active
  implementation of housing policy
• Ist Development Plan emphasis on infrastructure
• 2nd Development Specific Housing Goals and
  objectives
• 3rd Development plan Industrialization
• 4th Development plan Human Resource development

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Housing Policy Intervention

• Some of the actions taken during this period
  include
• Public Housing project in 1973
• Establishment of Real Estate fund in 1974
• Programs of industrialization and development
  1975-1980
• Establishment of MOMRA and land grant programs
  1975
• Temporary Program of rent control 1975-1983

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Housing Policy Intervention

• 1990- Present
• Government policy is shifting away from direct
  participation in Housing to enabling the housing
  process
• Focus is moving toward regulating housing
  development, while private sector takes the lead
  in providing housing
• Even program of funding through the Real Estate
  Development fund is being supplemented with
  private sector loans, as demand for funding
  exceeds the capacity of the government to provide
  it

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Housing Policy Achievements

• Housing shortage has effectively been done away
  with and now there is a condition of surplus in
  many Saudi Cities
• There has also been a dramatic increase in
  housing quality in almost all cities

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Future Directions of H/Policies

• The large segment of the citizen population below
  15 years old, means that there is a potential for
  dramatic increase in demand in the future
• Financing sources are being strained and new
  sources have to be exploited
• Low Income households need special consideration
  in any future housing policy
• Planning and design of housing communities need
  to be improved
• There is a need to reevaluate the design of the
  saudi dwelling to ensure that it is sustainable,
  with particular regards to climate and energy
  consumption.

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House Form and Design In Saudi Arabia
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Outline of Presentation

• Typology of House Form in Saudi Arabia
• The Traditional Courtyard House
• The form of the Courtyard house
• Factors influencing the form of the courtyard
  house
• Reasons for the rejection of the traditional
  house
• The Modern Saudi Villa
• The Modern Saudi Villa
• The form of the Saudi Villa
• Reasons for the Popularity of the Villa
• The traditional versus modern villa compared

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Typology of H/ Form in S/Arabia

• We have Several types of house forms in Saudi
  Arabia, but two of them are worth examining in
  detail because of their wide residential
  implications
• Traditional House Form
• This varies from locality to locality, but the
  most common form is the courtyard house
• The Modern Villa
• This has evolved as the contemporary most popular
  house form in Saudi Arabia in the last few years

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The Traditional courtyard House

• The traditional courtyard house was the most
  popular house form for all the urban areas of the
  Islamic world, including Saudi Arabia
• In Saudi Arabia, these houses survived up until
  around 1950 and after, when increasing affluence
  led to the abandonment of the courtyard house in
  favor of the villa
• Courtyard houses are attached units, usually of
  one or more courtyards and built of traditional
  materials

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The form of the Courtyard House

• The houses are in-ward looking presenting a blank
  elevation from the outside
• The houses are usually irregular in shape and
  densely parked together, and contribute in
  forming the identify of the Harah in Islamic
  cities
• The spaces in the house are flexible and could be
  used for different activities
• The spaces are arranged around a courtyard or
  courtyards
• Houses may be of one, two or more stories in
  height

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Form of the Courtyard House

• The courtyards provide climatically controlled
  private space within the house
• There is a separation of men's area from women's
  area
• Entrances are also sometimes separated
• Linking of houses allow the achievement of high
  density and leave minimal surface area for sun to
  heat houses

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The courtyard house has arrangements for privacy
and for meeting Islamic requirements of separation
Example of A courtyard House
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Kairawan, Tunisia
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Factors influencing the form of the courtyard
House

• Climate the house is attuned to climate through
  its design and use of material
• Socio-cultural factors the house is attuned to
  the Islamic requirements of separation and to the
  social lifestyle of people
• Flexibility The house provides a flexible
  system for expansion to accommodate increase in
  family size
• Convenience Interior courtyard spaces provide
  convenient environment for people to enjoy social
  activities together
• Visual and Social Harmony through the uniformity
  of houses

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Reasons for the Rejection of the courtyard House

• The introduction of the car, and the inability to
  use the cars in narrow lanes of the traditional
  city
• The high maintenance cost of houses built with
  the traditional materials compared to modern
  materials
• The lack of modern amenities such as bathrooms,
  drainage, electricity and water made traditional
  houses to appear substandard and backward
• The modern villa was on the other hand associated
  with modernity, progress and status

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The Modern Saudi Villa

• The villa has evolved as the most popular house
  form in Saudi Arabia and the single largest
  category of dwelling
• The villa also has the greatest influence on the
  built environment, because of its popularity
• The villa is built on a detached lot of area 400
  square meters to 2000 square meters, with
  majority built on land of about 400 to 900 square
  meters

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The Form of the Saudi Villa

• The villa as a housing type did not originate
  from Saudi Arabia but was rather imported and
  adapted to Saudi requirements
• The Saudi villa consist of a detached unit
  located on a fenced lot
• It is usually built by professional builders
• It is usually two stories high, though some may
  have a basement
• When there is a basement, it is used for shelter
  during periods of crisis

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The form of the Saudi Villa

• The ground floor usually has spaces for services
  spaces, as well as social spaces and spaces for
  entertaining visitors
• There are usually separate entrances for male and
  female and duplicated reception and entertainment
  spaces for males and females
• House helps may have living quarters nested in
  the service wing of the ground floor
• Guest rooms may also be available at the ground
  floors
• The upper floor is used as the sleeping quarters
• Many houses have roof decks used for auxiliary
  activities

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Spaces are zoned by level and by need for
proximity to parents
Typical Plan of a Modern Villa
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View of a Typical House
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Section of Typical Villa
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Reasons for Popularity of the villa

• Improvement in financial standing and need for
  new status in housing
• Improvement in the financial status of Saudi has
  made housing to evolve both as a status symbol
  and economic investment. The villa in this
  respect offers better investment prospect and
  status than the courtyard house that is seen as
  backwards
• System of financing housing
• The system of Real Estate fund financing
  generally favors the construction of individual
  free standing unit of housing such as villas

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Reasons for Popularity of the villa

• System of land Subdivision
• Land zone for residential development is either
  laid out by the municipal authority or it has to
  be approved by them if it is private
• Plots are laid out in rigid sizes of 15 x 75 or
  20 x 20, 25 or 30
• The rectangular nature of the plots limits the
  kind of buildings that you can put on it,
  considering the nature of the family sizes and
  religious requirements in house building
• The villa by enabling people to go up provides
  them a more efficient means of using these plots

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Reasons for Popularity of the villa

• Building Regulations
• Saudi building regulations require houses to
  have maximum building height of 8m elevations
  2m from boundary front elevation setback 1/5
  street width from boundary, up to 6m maximum
  ground and first floor in same vertical plan
  area of building not to exceed 60 of land
  coverage
• The regulations make it impossible to build
  traditional linked courtyard houses, almost
  specifies the form of the villa, and creates the
  existing form of the villa, including the 2m high
  privacy fence wall

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Impact of Building Regulations
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Villa and Courtyard house Compared
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Community and NeighborhoodDesign in Saudi Arabia
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Presentation Outline

• The Traditional Islamic Residential Quarter
• Organization of the Harah
• Factors influencing the form of the Harah
• The Modern Residential Neighborhood
• Organization of the modern Neighborhood
• Factors influencing the form of the modern
  Neighborhood

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Traditional Residential Quarter

• Organization of the Traditional Quarter
• The organization of residential quarters in the
  traditional Islamic city is based on the Harah
• These are residential neighborhoods based on
  family, clan, common village origin, ethnic or
  sectarian religious identity
• In some cases, the neighborhoods were
  strengthened by a common occupation
• Extended families are usually grouped around
  cul-de-sac, which is a private property
• Social classes were homogenous, as rich and poor
  live together

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Traditional Residential Quarter

• The residential quarters had their own markets
  and small mosque as the focus of community life
• The Quarter or Harah was of a unit of social
  organization
• The residential quarters are usually walled and
  gated and at night, the gates of the quarters
  could be closed
• The houses were clustered together
• There were narrow winding streets, providing
  human scale, shade and diversity of activities
• There was a hierarchy of streets from main, to
  local to cul-de-sac
• Houses looked inward presenting a blank elevation
  to the street

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Example of the organization of a harah
Damascus
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Tunis, Suq Zaytuna
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Traditional Residential Quarter

• Factors Influencing the Form of the Islamic
  quarter
• The climate of the area necessitates the use of
  narrow streets and the sharing of walls to
  protect from the climate
• Social factors including need to group by clans
  or craft specialization contributed in giving
  rise to the harah
• It was also attuned to the socio-cultural needs
  of people as it was develop over the centuries
  and has worked well for them
• It also has visual harmony and human scale
  resulting from the uniform treatment of houses
  and their inward looking nature

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The Modern Saudi Neighborhood

• Physical Organization
• The modern Saudi neighborhood is planned with
  rectangular lots of sizes ranging from 400 square
  meters to 900 square meters in a grid iron
  pattern
• Houses are arranged back to back facing streets
• Neighborhoods streets are linked to main arteries
  and also serve as through-ways
• Houses are fenced in with 2m high fences are are
  usually outward looking
• Community facilities are usually located at the
  center of the subdivision
• There are very minimal consideration of designing
  for community living in residential layouts

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A typical example of a housing layout Community
facilities are restricted to shops and
mosque There is no any provision for pedestrians
or to define the private boundaries of the
subdivision Streets are thoroughfares open to all
people to pass through
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Afully developed Neighborhood Malaz, Riyadh
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The Modern Neighborhood

• Factors in influencing the form of the modern
  neighborhood
• Municipal Subdivision of Land
• Residential areas are either laid out by the
  municipal or approved by them if it is private
• The only regulation governing subdivision is that
  a minimum of 33 of the land must be left for
  roads and community facilities
• The streets and plots are laid out first in a
  grid-iron pattern, and left over spaces is
  allocated for community facility
• There is no concept of community in design, and a
  poor sense of road hierarchy and privacy, with
  some residential areas serving as drive through
  thoroughfares
• Accommodation of the car

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Traditional and Modern Neighborhood Compared
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Summary

• There are very good positives aspects in the
  traditional house and neighborhood forms
• There are also problems with the modern house and
  neighborhood forms
• It is not the intention of this presentation to
  tell you to design using the tradition forms
• The message to take from this presentation is
  that whenever you are design housing and housing
  neighborhoods, take time to study the age old
  traditions that exist so that they can inform
  your design and lead to the design of more
  culturally and geographically appropriate house
  and neighborhood forms.

80
Conclusion and Review of Course
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Course Coverage

• The Nature of the Global Housing Problem
• The nature of the global housing problem and its
  linkage to global urbanization trends
• Housing Policy
• The nature of the housing market working on a
  demand and supply basis
• The role of governments in housing
• Components of housing policies
• Housing Design
• Housing design
• Neighbourhood design
• Housing in Saudi Arabia
• Housing Problems in Saudi Arabia
• Housing Policy in Saudi Arabia
• Housing and Neighborhood design in Saudi Arabia