The Spatial Form of Houses Built by Italian Migrants in Post WWII Brisbane, Australia

Abstract

The literature reveals that despite the study of the relationship between human behavior, activities and built form has focused on physical spatial environments at any scale, ranging from built environment to built form, the investigation of micro-scale housing has been neglected in the past. Namely, regardless of the interest to this relationship, direct assessment of the extent to which migrants’ human behavior and activities influence and are also influenced by the spatial form of their houses is still rare in the field. This paper focuses on the exploration of the relationship between human behavior, activities and the spatial form of houses built by Italian migrants in post WWII Brisbane. The paper argues that the spatial form of migrants’ houses was influenced by two factors: the need to perform working and social activities dictated by culture as a way of life; urbanization patterns present in migrants’ native and host built environment.