The current research topic attempts to look into the way by which people can create architecture, formal or vernacular, including the element of habitation. This insight is done through P.Bourdieu’s anthropological research and the structuralist theory as well as the works of H.Hertzberger. Habitation is the relationship of the user with space; an interactive relationship. This relationship, as it is analyzed, depends on the needs and demands of the user and the welcoming form of space, so that one finds these connections or meanings by which he can appropriate it.

In addition, the ways of rendering meaning by users to structures are presented, either during planning, by including forms that evoke meanings from the user in advance, or through construction, by elements that the user can form bonds with. These two cases of space appropriation lead to examining the case of planning “by representative” and the introduction of the term habitation “in waiting”.

Habitation “in waiting” is the sum of forms that give incentive to create new forms or relations with space, making it multifunctional and with multiple interpretations. These types of forms are presented through the examples of H.Hertzberger’s buildings and are organized in four categories: forms with multiple interpretations, forms as motives for contact between user and space, forms as context and forms that bring forth from the user a sense of duty for the space.

In conclusion, a reference is made on the matters that come up from the desire for habitation in conjunction with the alienation that prevails in society today, especially in the field of construction.