Ensemble and master plan
Mixed use
mixed-use buildinghousing complexcity centerneighborhood planhotel
It is the mix of housing, work, retail and services in the same building, block or development.
What it solves
It shortens daily trips and keeps people on the street at different times of day. It makes the same land and infrastructure serve more people.
Today
Place uses that attract the public on the ground floor and housing above, with separate entrances and good control of noise and smells. Plan heights and structure that allow one use to be swapped for another over time.
Common mistake
Calling mixed use a cluster of residential towers with an enclosed shopping mall and its own parking.
Tomorrow
Neighborhoods where people live, work and shop within a few blocks depend less on the car and take better care of children and older people. Flexible floor plates allow a change from office to housing without demolition.
Where it comes from
- 1Ancient Rome Rome, Italy, 2nd century
The insula combined shops on the ground floor with several floors of housing above. - 2Shophouse Southeast Asia and southern China, 19th century
The same narrow, deep house had the business below and the family home above. - 3Athens Charter Congress aboard a ship in the Mediterranean, 1933
Modern urbanism separated housing, work and recreation into zones. The reaction against that separation restored value to the mix.
Masters
- Oscar Niemeyer Copan Building, São Paulo, Brazil, 1966
He brings together 1,160 apartments of different sizes above a ground floor with more than 70 shops. He shows how a single building can be a piece of city. - Le Corbusier Unité d’Habitation, Marseille, France, 1952
He takes a street of shops up to the third floor of a block of 337 homes and puts a school with a playground on the roof. It is an early experiment in mixing uses within a single building.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Ensemble and master plan
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.