Dear Esra and friends

What a wonderful thread which shows the power of cooperation over the web
and what it can bring to research efforts in a very short time. Reading the
various contributions till date I was drawn into the question myself since
having "retired" from teaching at NID after about 40 years of living near
or on the campus the campus at Paldi in Ahmedabad my wife, Aditi Ranjan
 and I had never bought a car in our life since we always walked to work
while the city of Ahmedabad grew in size around us by magnitudes that are
unimaginable a few years ago. Now we have had to look for a new home and we
could choose any city in India and our criteria had many specific demands
that were difficult to meet, particularly since the price of flats has sky
rocketed here in India that is growing while the West seems to be in
recession. So the last two years we spent looking around and exploring
possibilities we selected a place in Ahmedabad which has promise of good
public transportation unlike any other city in India and we have settled
down for a flat in the North of Ahmedabad that is well connected to the
Airport as well as the rest of the city and with promise of marked
development since the location lies on the axis between Ahmedabad and the
Capital city of Gujarat State, Gandhinagar. We now have a four bedroom flat
for the two of us and my mother and for all our books and few other
possessions while my daughter, Aparna Ranjan has moved to Bangalore to live
and work as a Graphic designer, but she has a room too for her use when she
would be with us.

Sitting in Jaipur this morning I was enthused to look up the question of
"Evolution of Housing in History" on Google and the following link came up
that as always on the button when you ask pointed questions to Google!!
<http://www.moyak.com/papers/history-housing.html>
The second link was more interesting since it looks at evolution of life
itself.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_life>

The "Evolution of Housing and Floor Plans Since the 1600s" by Moya K. Mason
(link above) gives a further link titled "Housing: Then, Now, and
Future" by Moya K. Mason which too may be a useful one for the questions
posed by you at the beginning of this thread and it provides a reading list
as well. Take a look
<http://www.moyak.com/papers/house-sizes.html>

I must now get back to my preparation for my lecture at the Indian
Institute of Crafts and Design this morning and through the day with the
Faculty of the school where we are looking back at the core of design
education and how it can be improved through our efforts today and tomorrow
at the conclave to discuss the design curriculum for the school going
forward. Here again the PhD -Design list would be a great place for
collecting conversations and with all its contradictions and
misunderstandings about what design could be and what should and could go
into design education which keeps reminding me of the torrential river that
divides us on the two banks, art and design and the other the science of
design banks, the reflections go on and the river remains turbulent as
ever. I did not want to get drawn into the conversations with Don Norman,
always provocative nor with Ken Friedman and Rosan, or with Terry or Gunnar
and so many other regular and interesting contributors on this list since
although I am "retired" I am working and travelling perhaps more than when
I was "working" at NID.... and my blog too suffers since the frequency of
my posts have tapered down with each month since I "retired" last year in
November, however I have posted my keynote lectures at numerous conferences
there at a special download section on the first page, which reminds me
that Esra should look at the work done at HfG Ulm on housing and you can
find the material in the HfG Ulm journals which can be downloaded from my
blog under the conference resources for "Look Back Look Forward: HfG Ulm
and Design Education in India" as an interactive DVD that contains the
digital versions of the journals.
<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>

The last time I visited Ulm for my research on the contributions by the
great German school on Indian design education I visited Stuttgart and had
an occasion to see the work of Mies at the Weissenhof and it was an
education for me after visiting Frei Ottos lab that showed shapes of things
still to come...

Thank you guys for all the stimulating conversations and do keep going and
some of us will continue to lurk and enjoy the exchanges in a very
"retired" mode.. I will be in Lucerne (13 to 16th November) and Barcelona
(17th to 20th November) this month and hope to see some of you there.... On
5th and 6th I am on the Jury of Design for Change at the Riverside School
although I was also required to be at the convocation of the IICD jaipur on
the same day. However I have to be with Kiran Bir Sethi, my former student
who won this years INDEX Award for her work on Design for Change and this
does show us that design is indeed different in many parts fo the world and
we are still discovering what it really is and whet it can indeed do for
all of us if we care to understand it deeply.
<http://dfcworld.com/>

With warm wishes

M P Ranjan
from my hotel at jaipur on tour to the IICD
3 November 2011 at 8.25 am IST

-------------------------------------------------------------
*Prof M P Ranjan*
*Design Thinker and author of blog -
www.Designforindia.com<http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/>
*
E8 Faculty Housing
National Institute of Design
Paldi
Ahmedabad 380 007 India

Tel: (res) 91 79 26610054
email: ranjanmp@g <[log in to unmask]>mail.com

<[log in to unmask]>web site: http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp
<http://homepage.mac.com/ranjanmp>web domain: http://www.ranjanmp.in
<http://www.ranjanmp.in/>blog: <http://www.design-for-india.blogspot.com>
education blog: <http://www.design-concepts-and-concerns.blogspot.com>
education blog: http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com
<http://www.visible-information-india.blogspot.com/>
------------------------------------------------------------

On 3 November 2011 02:53, Wang Lei <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Hi Esra,
> I think my research area is very close to yours. I ‘d like to share some
> of my book list, hope it can help you.
>
> About Chinese housing history, text book:
> Modern Urban Housing in China:1840-2000, Prestel, Peter G Rowe(Harvard
> University ), Lu Junhua, Zhang jie (Tsinghua University),ISBN 3-7913-2507-08
>
> About Finnish housing history :
> 1.Model House for Model Families:Gender, Ideology and the Modern Dwelling
> the type-planned houses of the 1940 of the 1940s in Finland, Kirsi
> Saarikangas,1993,ISBN 951891565-2
> 2.The Dwelling,Gender and the Aethetics of Cleanliness in Modern
> Architecture ,Kirsi Saarikangas, 2003 ISBN 951746309X
>
> About Japanese Housing history:
> 3.Housing in Postwar Japan - A Social History,Ann Waswo(Oxford
> University),Routledge 2002,ISBN 9780700715176
>
> 4.Witold Rybczynski’s Home-A short history of an idea is really good book,
> highly recommended, but it not especially targeting at housing.
>
> You mentioned that also want some ideas of rooms, so this might be
> interesting for you:
> 5. At Home- A Short History of Private Life, Bill Bryson, 2010-5,Doubleday
> Very thick book, it describes the history categorized by “rooms”, living
> room, bedroom drawing rooms etc, which might be useful for you.
>
> Besides that, an old book might also interesting:
> 6. A treatise on domestic economy: for the use of young ladies at home and
> at school, Catharine E. Beecher(1856),reprint by Kessinger Publishing
>
> A dissertation also good:
> 7. Couched in their own terms: What makes a living room?Talya
> B.Rechavi,2004 PhD dissertation of City University if New York
>
> Some milestones in housing history:
> Ancient Rome,Insula,5 floors, in Ostia (Fiume Tevere)area
> 1750, Bedford square,5floors terrace house, Britain
> Royal Crescent, designed by John Wood, in Bath, Britain
> 1927, Weissenhof Housing Settlement in Stuttgart, which is dominated by
> Mies van der Rohe
> 1952, The Unite d’habitation in Marseilles, designed by Le Corbusier
> 1953, China imported the housing plan from Soviet Union
> 1960s-70s， Housing standardization worldwide.
>
> Hope you can find something useful among those materials. Good luck for
> your research.
> BR
>
> Lei Wang
> PhD Candidate, Researcher
> School of Art and Design, Aalto University
> Hämeentie 135 C, Helsinki,00560,Finland
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Phone: +358417255230
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
> research in Design [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of esra bici [
> [log in to unmask]]
> Sent: 31 October 2011 14:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: The History of 'Modern Flat'
>
> Dear all,
> Hope you are all fine.
> I am looking for references about the history and the emergence of the
> 'modern flat'.
> In the worldwide, how did the first flats appear and how was the housing
> standardized into flats?
> And how did the idea of considering the human needs as 'living room',
> 'bedroom', 'deskroom', etc. and seperating so evolved?
> I am looking for the consequences of this story related with the social
> contexts.
>
> Cheers,
> Esra.
>



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