ABSTRACT
Le Corbusier regarded the home as a functional machine with three basic roles. First, the inhabitants would use the machine to supply shelter, light, warmth, space and devices to ease existence. Corbusian ideas form a closely argued model, which is convincing as long as it remains untested against reality. Objective testing reveals the enormity of what is left out: the immense diversity of human individuality with a widely differing range of needs. There is the right to privacy with varying needs for solitude; freedom for people to be themselves and not mere cogs in a machine; scope for developing lifestyles that suit them; power to make their unique mark on the home environment, enabling both it and them to be individually recognised by others. This chapter looks, carefully and scientifically, in order to distinguish what is really good or bad in housing design, and this new approach incorporates several important components.
