House as cultural heritage learning from the past - Adapting into future

Focusing on the socio-cultural values at present trend of globalization has a significant place in designing new houses around the globe. Air, food and shelter have been the three essential elements in human survival, yet, they were not the same type or quality in our planet earth. Invention of tools, hunting, fishing and agricultural capabilities of Homo Sapience and the environmental differences resulted in various types of food and shelter which gradually became part of the early human societies tradition. As the primitive societies grew bigger and more articulated, the primitive inventions gave way to progressive technologies and help them to use better materials to build environmentally efficient houses. A glance at the ancient city, the very cradle of human civilization, demonstrate generally the articulated and well placed houses and correlated people with common believes, attitudes, tastes and interests, in another word a common culture. Although we have witnessed the predominance of certain cultures during the history of human movements, battles and conquests, the house continued to preserve its main sociocultural values. The industrial revolution of mid 19th century, the use o materials and technologies, the expansion of networks and telecommunication, the unprecedented increase of population, etc. changed the whole civilized world along with a sharp change in housing, style and design. The modem style had prevailed fast all over the world neglecting in many parts the environmental, regional and socio-cultural issues. This paper tries to investigate the possibility of lending from the cultural heritage and adapt it into modem housing design. It does not intend to encourage traditional housing styles, nor it does intend to abandon the modem principals of technology, instead, it intends to formulate a theoretical and practical basis for utilization of the socio-cultural values in the modem housing design.