in the house, relationship, gender, educational level, income level, type of occupation of each one of the members, as well as the number of members who live in our outside the home. The level of ownership of the house is also determined; that is, whether the house is owned or rented, or if it belongs to some public or private institution. Also, an outline of the migratory position of the family was obtained. For that purpose, information was obtained about the length of residence in the house, where the family resided before and where they intended to migrate. Although internal migration has a strong tendency to move toward well-developed urban centers (larger cities, the national capital and even metropolis overseas), there is also another internal flow, albeit of secondary importance, that moves from one region to another, from province to province or from city to city. This internal migratory movement is very important since it allows the exchange of cultural, economic, and constructive patterns, a factor that contributes to the enrichment and reinforcement of traditions, especially when, in the family group that is emigrating, there are members who are dedicated to the construction of buildings. These immigrants take with them the skills and techniques they have acquired to the new region which, in combination with new ones, gives rise to new patterns and new models. We thus find elements that are characteristic of West Indian popular architecture in a small community in Neiba; houses, for example, with the type of bowed wrought iron works known as pecho de paloma [Pigeon’s breast], originally found in Montecristi, appearing in a remote area of Yamasá; or galleries with valances originally found in the circuit around Hoya del Lago Enriquillo, that have been found in the plains of Miches, on the other side of the country. Human Settlements: Typologies, Scale and Production. The need to get together and create a community is inherent in the human species. Man’s nature predisposes him to forming conglomerations, choosing places within the geography of the territory that make survival easier, implementing a group of material works which, combined with the available natural elements in the landscape of his choice, will establish guidelines for controlling that territory, thus creating an unlimited number of events capable of being recorded in time, forming a “timeline
of the continuity that is necessary for an understanding of the architectural and cultural tradition of a region”61. Due to this reality, the origin and evolution of popular architecture must be sought within the spatial structure of the settlement it represents and within the social structure of the group that stimulates it. Human settlements in the Dominican Republic can be differentiated, starting from the typology and the scale attained in the territory: I. Typology: We have not made any changes or modifications in the previously cited proposal on the different typologies of human settlements in the Dominican Republic, made by architects René Sánchez Córdoba and Juan Benito Zaragoza because, in spite of the time that has elapsed since it was first proposed, this classification continues to be almost constant in its general conception. These typologies are: nuclear settlements, settlements in rows, scattered settlements and isolated houses. We must avoid inferring from the foregoing that nuclear settlements and row settlements are more apt to be located in urban areas while scattered or isolated ones would be found in rural areas. All the typological determinants can be found in both rural and urban environments. What can be guaranteed is that certain typologies are more common in one environment than in the other; for example, scattered and isolated settlements are more typical in rural settings. In semi-rural or semi-urban areas, settlements in rows are more common while nuclear can define either an urban community or a rural community, although the first case is more common than the second. Nuclear settlements in our country are, for example, the provincial capitals: Santiago, Montecristi, Barahona, La Romana, San Juan de la Maguana, etc.; also the majority of the administrative centers of municipalities and municipal districts: Duvergé, Guayubín, Villa Trina, Tamayo, San José de Las Matas, Sánchez, Constanza, etc., while towns such as Laguna Salada, Arroyo Barril, Los Ríos, El Peñón, Nisibón, etc. are considered row settlements. Villa Altagracia and Navarrete still preserve the characteristics of the latter typology since, in both cases; their development was defined by interaction with the main thoroughfare (Autopista Duarte) which conditioned them from the time they began to take shape. These communities
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