Diagnosis of Transformation in Architecture and Construction of the Housing Stock in the Years 1848-2013 in Selected Cities of Upper Silesia

Abstract

Despite extensive and valuable literature and a series of activities over the past several years of scientific studies, there's lack of work presenting a comprehensive inventory of housing shaped over the centuries in terms of the assessment of the users' needs based on suitability and real modernisation. Such coverage of the subject, based largely on research methods using statistical reports on the changes carried out in the substance subject to research, would enable the assessment-As close to the reality as possible-of the housing stock and the potential associated with its further use. The subject of the work is the state of residential architecture resources of the period 1848-2013 in selected cities of Upper Silesia, changes carried out in the architecture and construction. Changes to the architecture and construction carried out in the housing stock subject to research constitute an important means of evaluation of the housing resources by their users. The changes occur three aspects: Technical, functional and aesthetic. The main objective of the work is the presentation of a detailed assessment and comprehensive picture of the state of the housing stock of selected cities in Upper Silesia, based on statistical tests, numerous spatial solutions in terms of the evolutionary development of forms of residential architecture in Upper Silesia. The premise of the work is on the one hand, the expansion of knowledge of housing resources in Upper Silesian cities. On the other hand, it is an attempt to formulate a method of the comprehensive assessment of the housing stock in general, using the elements of statistics, analysis of spatial solutions and macrosocial determinants that shape human residential space. For greater clarity and precision of the obtained information, the performed assessment is connected with a direct private space of a dwelling place. It discusses to a limited extent the modernisation and transformation of the neighbourhood or the so-called backyard area.