O apartamento feito para você

Resumen

Glossy brochures advertising a new project for an apartment building can be quite enticing. Similarly, a fully decorated model apartment, designed to give prospective buyers a tangible notion of their future living space, is also quite convenient. Yet, questions must be raised regarding how well this “ home for sale’' can meet these buyers' comfort needs and yearnings. Even after such an apartment is built - and becomes visible and tangible - it will only be effectively personalized and individualized when submitted to the everyday routine of its occupants. They will assign their values and lifestyles to their homes, shaping a hitherto standard housing unit into a unique home. Together, this personalization and the actual use of a residence embody the search to attend to a primary need: domestic comfort. Considering that one the chief requirements of a home is the wellness of its residents, this article deals with the planning of standard housing units aiming at their users' comfort. In order to achieve this, architects must take into consideration the subjective and personal nature of such residence and its inhabitants. Often times, domestic comfort has been wrongly taken to mean - by sellers and users - a mere article of commerce