Social space: a determinant of house architecture

Abstract. This paper is an attempt to define and apply a concept of space which is quite different from space as traditionally viewed in archaeology in terms of distributions on the plane. Here space is defined in terms of ordered relations within built environments. A concept of space as the organisational embodiment of pragmatic need and social or symbolic norms is applied to changes in domestic architecture in the country town of Sirsina in the west-central Nile Delta. The analysis reveals rules of spatial organization and transformational rules of architectural space. The rules express the orderly operation of pragmatic, social, and symbolic factors