Housing is one of the most important buildings' typologies, by its universal nature and its relation to one of the most basic human needs, where “Home" reflects the “Human" socio-culture and lifestyle.
The issue for people who cannot afford buying their own homes is: “what kind of place they should live in" as their homes are determined by housing authorities, planners, architects, politicians, and social philanthropists, depending on universal and local standards. The standards used to define appropriate living spaces for a person impose significant constraints on personal choice, which would be reflected on housing projects, particularly in new cities, especially for middle- income and low-income families.
This paper considers the gap between the characteristics of residents' socio-culture and lifestyle on one hand, and the available residential units in the real estate market on the other hand, focusing on the housing of low-income families in Egypt. It presents an overview of universal and local standards, and reviews case study housing units according to design standards and residents' needs. Data is analysed and compared syntactically and statistically by using: “DepthmapX software" for the under-consideration models' syntactical analysis, and “SPSS software" for questionnaire statistical analysis. The results show that these models are not matching nor consistent as spatial structure, although all models represent Egyptian low-income housing typology, in addition to the residents' dissatisfaction with them. Accordingly, this paper results in some guidelines for a residential unit proposed design, while its syntactical and statistical analysis represent clear socio-culture and lifestyle manifests.