Importance of Lifespan Inclusion in Low Cost Apartment Design in Developing Countries

The rate of migration, urbanization and population growth resulted in urban land scarcity, urban slums, squatter settlements and a tremendous increase of housing needs as well as housing backlog especially in urban regions in developing countries. In alleviating the housing backlog, the development of apartment housing in urban areas proved to be a better solution for solving the urban problems compared to individual housing. Yet the apartment units appear not be designed by taking their functional lifespan into account. The number of inhabitants accommodated within the apartment units develops and changes frequently and accordingly do the functional needs for room. In this case, each unit should have the possibility to alter its function and dimension of the spaces according to user needs. Moreover building design and construction currently faces an increasing global pressure to meet the requirements for sustainable development. Our research aims at contributing to the determination of sustainable lifespan based - flexible modular- design alternatives for low cost apartment housing in humid tropic developing countries as well as alternatives for the individual unit components. This paper discusses an extensive literature study focused on the applicability of the existing methodologies to analyze the sustainability of building design and technologies for low cost apartment housing in humid tropic developing countries as well as on learning from successful developed and developing country experiences provided that the application of the methodology keeps referring to the local context.