Annals of the University of Bucharest: Geography Series (Dec 2017)
Modes d'appropriation de l'espace du logement social urbain a M'sila (Algérie)
Abstract
Social housing in Algeria has been in conflict with the cultural model of its inhabitants. This conflict highlights the intentions of the stifling referent of the master designers (Architects at the service of political decision-makers) and the legitimate reactions of the inhabitants. From a sample of 210 households in four neighbourhoods of the city of M'sila (1000 dwellings, 600 dwellings, 300 dwellings and 206 social rental housing) located in the newly created urban housing zone (ZHUN), in the 1980s, as a solution to housing problems, this article has developed methodological tools specific to the issue of the appropriation of space by its users, for which it was designed. It is translated by transformations-adaptations executed on the housing. The analysis made it possible to highlight the correlation of spatial practices with two variables, namely: space exiguity and urban maturity. The lessons learned from this analysis reveal that it is a new way of appropriating space resulting from the integration of the traditional way of living with that of the so-called modern. These precepts reveal that the ways of appropriation adopted by this population rather show convergences in the majority of the households surveyed than isolated attempts of appropriation. These are real renovation and innovation operations that simple repairs. The results of our analysis allowed us to draw the evolution of this Algerian population in terms of living in this type of housing; which allowed us to have a vision of things in order to progress in this type of housing. And this by reducing the gaps it presents with this new way of living.
