Visual Rules for Socio-Spatial Analysis: Inferring a Grammar of Use in an Inhabited Climat de France

Climat de France, a modernist housing complex in Algiers, was built in the 1950s during the final years of French colonization. Over the years, its residents have modified the original design by the French architect Fernand Pouillon, based on use, lifestyles, and local resources. Utilizing archival and photographic documentation, videos, and interviews to identify, characterize, and classify the modifications on the outer façades, this paper infers visual rules as generative and formal tools to analyze the continuity and discontinuity between socio-cultural acts and idealized forms in mass-customized housing.