Environment and Housing

The global environment, both natural and cultural, is the most precious property of human society. Society is, therefore, obliged to protect it from devastation and unreasonable usage. The culture of space management has become a significant measure of the cultural level of societies at the turn of the 21st century. The demographic boom and expansion of civilization resulted in the limitation of space at humanity's disposal. In the human environment, space is not only a biological but also a psychological need. Controlling one's own “territory” is one of life's most important factors to be provided for, whereas the deprivation of territory is generally one of the most endangering states. Irrational behavior in space management, both physical and cultural, has become a common occurrence. The most immediate examples of such environmentally detrimental behavior include the following:

• Entering space for a certain function without conducting prior well-grounded functional or technological tests
• Misjudgment of the usefulness of a place or space for a given function with destruction or loss of vital values of essential, historical space arrangement; material heritage from the past is not merely a testimony or a heritage for generations to come
• Inappropriate management and use of space; surroundings of low, even unaesthetic value in terms of architecture or landscape, such as uniform and chaotic, overcrowded, technically devastated, or disarranged and dirty

Dissolving ties in social relations, growing social disintegration and aggressiveness, and frequent criminal activities result in prevailing unnatural, disunited, and “hostile” surroundings. The omnipresence of such surroundings in our society asserts the need for introducing a new ecological category: the notion of aesthetic pollution.

Although human beings are highly adaptable to their surroundings, it does not necessarily mean that their present living conditions are optimal. As a result, they need to undergo reexamination and renewal of their environmental surroundings.