Abstract
This research is concerned with Yoruba traditional habitation using the community of
Iseyin as a case study. The traditional compound (agbo -ile) of the Yoruba of south-western
Nigeria is the tangible product of the ingenuity of the people, which evolved from their indigenous
technical knowledge. Its design, production, regulation, management and administration were,
to a large extent, handled on a co- operative or communal basis. The virtues of the traditional
compound have sustained the people throughout the land until recently when modern houses
began to replace the traditional compound. The methods of building and the planning and use of
houses have changed in response to the demands of Westernization, modern technology,
migration, urbanization, architects' craze for complex designs and preference for non -local
building materials, and the Christianization and Islamization of the society, and government's
planning and physical development policies. Agbo ile no longer appeals to the affluent and those
already exposed to Western ideas, resulting in the decay, collapse and complete ruin of the age -
long courtyard mud houses.
