Housing and domicile construction in Illuminatia
Housing construction and the building and manufacture of other housing and domiciliary structures in Illuminatia is a regulated activity subject more heavily to determination of human need and societal demand and less heavily on commercial market influences. Construction of housing, as with any other type of occupied structure, is subject to building regulations relating to building safety, quality, cost, and effectiveness at addressing demand.
Housing stock in Illuminatia is highly dominated by multi-unit buildings, where multiple individuals and multiple family units occupy one building. Flats or apartments are the most popular type of housing in Illuminatia, followed distantly by rowhouse-style structures. Standalone housing is exceedingly rare and only found in certain types of cities.
City and urban planning in Illuminatia relies on dense housing and multi-use buildings to allow for highly functional city design in the human scale that encourages community and social cohesion. This style of dense development relies primarily on housing collocated in buildings also containing retail, offices, and other public spaces, putting residents close to amenities.
Standalone housing is strongly discouraged in Illuminatian planning and development policy because this type of development is known to be incredibly resource-inefficient, would result in higher living costs, and would result in an unsustainable and socially detrimental style of sprawling development that was popular throughout much of archaeomodern Western Earthly civilization and played a significant part in economic failure, environmental collapse, and resource depletion. Per Lucidus guidelines for habitation and development of Illuminatia, planning policy that might result in single-family housing and standalone housing structures was to be avoided due to the sprawling development patterns and lack of social cohesion that might result.
Illuminatian housing construction almost exclusively uses modular elements that can be conveniently disassembled in part or in while for inspection, repairs, reconfiguration, or upgrades, minimizing the cost of renovations and maintenance especially when conducted on otherwise hidden infrastructural elements such as cabling, wiring, plumbing, or thermal insulation. Walls, floors, and ceilings, for instance, are not nailed or plastered together in a permanent fashion, but are instead constructed of partially pre-constructed components such as panels that can be easily detached, removed, and reinstalled with minimal effort without destruction of the elements used for adhering these structural elements to the underlying framework of the home structure. Panels forming walls, floors, and ceilings, for instance, can be attached and detached using snaps, finger screws, low-profile clasps, and other simple re-fastenable fasteners.
As with nearly all building construction in Illuminatia, housing construction takes place on land that is communally owned. While personal ownership of a domicile—or in uncommon cases an entire housing building—is permissible and not unusual, personal ownership of land is not allowed for under the Illuminatian legal system. Those who are purchasing or building housing can acquire durable leases on the land on which the housing stands from the local tertiary government agency responsible for apportioning access to land, however the land itself—being a limited and finite resource—remains owned in common as a commonwealth of the Illuminatian civilization at large.
Unlike historical Earthly construction, home building in Illuminatia uses sustainable materials that can be repurposed, reused, or recycled with minimal investment of energy or material resources. This is in line with Bureau of Natural Resources (BNR) policy which limits resource extraction and maximizes reutilization of existing material resources. The Office of Mineral Resources (OMR) and Office of Resource Extraction (ORE) closely regulate the amount of natural resources extracted from the surface of the Neonisi planet for construction. Meanwhile, the Office of Resource Reclamation (ORR) ensures any construction materials that fall out of use are repurposed to the maximum extent. The Office of Landscape and Terrain (OLT) is known to regulate the character of housing development to ensure new construction does not unjustifiably alter the character of the terrain it inhabits.
Historical architectural styles favored for housing construction in Illuminatia have included Original Architecture and later Deconstruct Nouveau. It is less common but not unheard-of to find housing possessing the style of Fin de Mission or Science Deco, with the latter architectural styles enjoying some utility for multi-unit buildings.
Decisions regarding the construction of new housing or the mass reconfiguration of existing housing are made prioritizing the benefits and needs of the greater public good while minimally-prioritizing economic concerns, a system that ensures adequate housing availability and avoids economic pressures that would unsustainably impact housing costs, allowing the housing inventory in a local area to equitably expand and contract in response to population expansion and migration. Economically, it is highly unusual and strongly discouraged to build housing based on economic speculation.