Comprehensive approach to housing legislation: with reference to housing in Libya

Demographic pressures have led to a remarkable expansion and physical growth of most cities of developing countries, and Libya is one of them. The tension created by the need to meet pressing housing demand whilst also accommodating wider functional, social and spiritual needs is one which current Libyan planning and building legislation has yet to resolve. The motivation behind this research emerges from observing the consequence of modern Libyan public housing and its failure to embrace and transform the cultural values and people's needs in their specific context. The study aims to build a body of knowledge which will lead to the reform of Libyan housing legislation. New legislation is needed to deal with the everyday needs of people in a social and climatic sense as well as natural for the future development and transformation of the society. The study focus is on planning and building legislation and its impact on the housing production from the neighbourhood layouts to the design of the house itself, in addition to examining the location of the housing projects from the point of view of their integration and segregation with the whole of Tripoli city. This research therefore adopted a broad methodology to achieve the aims and goals of producing legislation. The nature of the topic is such that the methodology that was suggested to deal with the problems comes from different approaches and has been selected to gain as much feedback from the different theories as is possible. The research method adopted started from familiarising the reader with the context of Libya and estates of housing and legislation followed by two parts: the deductive part which consists of two sections: A - general theories which come from housing, legislation and B - specific theories, which look at space syntax, sustainability and human needs. The second approach of the research method is the inductive (the empirical) gaining knowledge and experience and insight about legislation from knowing practically all the problems that come from the case studies, the questionnaire and the interviews and then followed by the findings and application. In the research findings, the results of Part One and the deductive part are merged with the inductive part to produce a framework that can help the legislators in terms of how to formulate comprehensive housing legislation. This is followed by application of the framework in the case studies, to illustrate the practical application of some research findings to public housing. In the conclusion, the problem is established and further research areas are suggested supporting the framework within the Libyan context. The outcome of the research is expected to help designers, planners, and authorities to be more aware of the needs and the criteria for a suitable housing legislation.