The small boat owners are the wealthiest people in the settlement, and over time their houses have become larger and more developed. From one such dwelling, a new residential type has emerged. Organised around a courtyard, the house consists of two multifunctional rooms, a kitchen, store room, inner verandah, verandah, and toilet. The plan reflects a layering of domestic and economic life. While the husband works in the fishing occupation, the wife’s tailoring practice occupies one of the multifunctional rooms, where a sewing machine is placed as part of the everyday interior. Their two school-going children share the remaining spaces, which shift in use across the day.

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The house engages its surroundings in two contrasting ways. At the front, a built boundary wall marks a clear edge to the public lane, signalling both ownership and separation. And at the rear, a verandah opens towards the neighbouring house. This space functions as an informal social interface, where women gather in the afternoons, turning the narrow inter-house gap into a social space.

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Next to this house is the dwelling of an elderly woman and her family. Smaller in scale, it consists of a single multifunctional room, kitchen, inner verandah, verandah, and toilet. The inner verandah serves primarily as storage, absorbing functions that might otherwise spill outward. Here, boundaries are not constructed but implied. Unused fishing nets placed beside the house establish an invisible edge, defining territory through objects rather than walls. Together, the two houses illustrate how variations in occupation, wealth, and household structure are translated into spatial form, producing a fine-grained negotiation between enclosure, openness, and shared life within the settlement.