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This paper reports on the strategies of appropriation of housing by people in Algiers and the types of approach they develop. The classification of types thus compiled established the framework of correspondence between the spatial arrangements of a building and the ways and conditions in which its occupants settle in it. The appropriation of the accommodation is envisaged as a process of arranging it to suit the individuals’ way of life. It is a process where they have to organize according to the specific context in which they find themselves, including the means by which the housing has been developed and constructed. The adaptations and rectifications carried out show exactly the size of the discrepancies between the spatial properties of their home and their sociocultural models. In this way, appropriation practices signal, on the one hand, the types of housing individuals find inadequate and therefore only temporary and, on the other, those that emerge as their most appreciated categories.