How does a house influence its neighborhood?

Human beings are social animals. We cannot exist in isolation, so our house. Each of our life is so dependent on the context, the immediate neighborhood, ecology and society. Its hard to alienate a house from its neighborhood and vice versa. While physical boundaries give a certain level of clarity on ownership, there are several natural and social factors which are beyond these physical boundaries.

Huge compound walls and gates, isolate a particular land from the rest of neighborhood and this can result in alienation of people and loss of quality relationships. We cannot deny our neighbors right for path, right for view, right for air, right for wind and right for light. Its very important each of our design reflect positively on all boundaries, rather than looking at the street edge alone.

Character of a house, its visual significance, size and the way the mass responds to the streets, etc will largely influence the comfortability factor of using the street and hence the behavior of a pedestrian. The psychological identity of a location are to a large extent depended on the urban fabric of the place, which requires a certain degree of harmony among the built forms. When there is a need to contrast or to add to an already conflicting built context, its important to do so by responding positively in the way the contradiction is brought in.

Essentially good architecture can bring a lot of positive effects on a neighborhood and vice versa. This can affect not only the human behavior, but also the ecology, local climate and environment. Though houses are meant for a family to live in, whenever we built on earth, we have a larger responsibility to look into.