Women and LoW-income Housing TransformaTion in uganda

Abstract

The article explores the transformations low-income women make to appropriate their housing that often goes unnoticed. The aim is to document, acknowledge and make low-income women's efforts to appropriate their housing visible. Lessons learned are assumed to inform the Ugandan low-income housing discourse on design considerations that can contribute to the provision of housing designs that are conducive to low-income women. The study confines its investigation to the housing designs provided under the governmental low-income housing projects in Uganda. This article presents results from a case study on Masese Women Housing Project MWHP that targeted women as its main beneficiaries. Post Occupancy Evaluations POE methodology was utilised to collect data on the performance of the housing designs provided by the project and the transformations women make to increase their housing appropriateness. Open-ended interviews were carried out with women owners to investigate the transformations they apply to their houses. Results are documented through photography, sketches and measured drawings. Results are synthesised and analysed under outdoors and indoors transformations. The study confirmed the substantial contribution low-income women make to appropriate their housing. It argues for acknowledging and including women's efforts in the Ugandan low-income housing discourse to support the provision of housing designs that are more user-friendly to them. Design considerations that are essential to attain low-income women convenience with their housing are: its capacity to accommodate women's triple roles, their potential for incremental development and their ability for segmentation into autonomous housing units to allow for their flexible, economic and functional use. The study advocates for directing efforts to the development of traditional building technologies instead of introducing improved but alien ones as an alternative that is more favourable to women.