Approaches for creative design of affordable and livable housing neighborhoods

Most modern Arab cities are resorting to gridiron sub-divisions, whereby governmentplanners have departed from traditional planning approaches and did not create an urbanplanning paradigm suited for the local population and environment. Schemes incorporatinggridiron pattern and individual dwelling units mainly the villa gave unlimited access of space,creating problems with respect to privacy, accessibility and climate. In search for newapproaches of neighborhood planning to overcome such concerns there is a need to provideresidents with a suitable atmosphere and the necessary privacy, so as to create a social affinitybetween the inhabitants.This paper introduces approaches towards creative designs of affordable and livablehousing neighborhood in the non-gated communities. These approaches aimed at achievinginclude effective clustering methods of housing units to create livable environments for theresidents; progressive hierarchy of spaces in the neighborhood; pedestrian access within theentire neighborhood without interruptions by vehicles movement; adaptable housing design toaccommodate future expansions; and privacy for the individual housing units and security forpublic spaces. Three design prototypes that achieved the above criteria and developed by seniorarchitecture students under the supervision of the author are presented in this paper.