INFLUENCE OF BUILDING CODES AND SITE CONDITIONS ON THE ALTERATION OF A TYPICAL LOW-COST HOUSING DESIGN - CONSEQUENT ALTERATION OF CRIME RISK LEVELS

Abstract As a component of the process of rationalization, low-cost housing Institutions, as well as major investment companies, commonly reuse a typical design as a standard. The goal of this procedure is to obtain cheaper costs both in the construction and in the maintenance of an homogeneous lot of buildings. The paper shows that, nevertheless an identical design being proposed in different towns, the final results are buildings with a different aspect. This is mainly due to the influence of building codes of the urban plan of the specific town, and to the site conditions, such as street orientation, ground inclination and so on. As a result the paper offers the ability to manage the external factors on a standard design (with the afore said scale vantages) though the formal view looks different. This may be considered a further cheap vantage that aims to obtain a personalization in town design. A second, but not secondary result, comes from the evaluation of the different risk levels, under crime protection perspective, obtained by alteration of the original typical design. According to the type of alteration, crime risk levels may increase or decrease.