The Design of Banyankole Traditional House: Power Dimensions, Hospitality and Bedroom Dynamics

Abstract

Culture plays an important role in achieving originality and aesthetic value considerations in the design and creativity field (Weggeman, Lammers, & Akkermans, 2007; European Commission, 2009). In fact, the European Commission (2009) argues that culture is the expression of humanity’s creativity that brings out meaning, knowledge, talents, civilization and values of individual groups. As the world becomes one block under globalization, we argue that cross cultural designs will be a required design characteristic before any product penetrates the global market and sustain its visibility there. The fact that production machinery and technology has globally been standardized, cultural uniqueness will be the most identifying character for any successful product. In addition, the emergence of several design approaches that have been recently developed to manipulate various design challenges, continue to narrow down the variety of design concepts on the market. Although contemporary designs are appealing to the user, users do not have any embedded attachment to the designs. Unlike the traditional designs which were based on well-studied frameworks and were part of the community values, contemporary designs are simply accepted on their face value. The case of Banyankole house design is one of such designs that were embedded with a lot of well-studied frameworks that highlighted community values and demonstrated a well-organized society.