An Analysis of Arbitrary Housing in Post-War Iraq Housing Experience

In the post war societies, everyday lifestyle of the ordinary people can provide ideals for the ongoing reconstruction process. In Iraq, Arbitrary Housing (AH) is the most dominant phenomena within the post-war housing experience. It is a direct result for the changes in post-war Iraqi society. Moreover, it provides a good example for a built environment that reflects everyday lifestyle of the inhabitants. Based on the above, we developed the idea of Ethno-Typed Built Environment to describe that interaction between the social facts of the ordinary people and the architectural properties for their housing products. This paper is devoted to discuss the outcomes of the field work survey to the selected AH gatherings in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad. We extracted the social patterns of the inhabitants ethno-environment by documentary method analysis and relate them to the features of the architectural type hidden within these AH gatherings