Approach for affordable housing research in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi environmental and socio-cultural contexts demand that affordable housing should not aim at merely providing shelters to lower income populations, it should also offer design solutions that are sensitive to the local context. Issues such as privacy, social cohesion, and perceptions on residential density, preferences, and the lifestyles of the target populations should be considered in providing desirable, affordable and sustainable housing. In the Arab world including Saudi Arabia, debates around housing of all types seem to have drifted into two domains that seldom meet: A) technical discussions about the problems of mass housing including land acquisition, services, credit, finance, and urban planning, or B) stylistic discussions of the cultural authenticity of housing production.