Dwelling
Open plan
office school library retail housing
It is a plan without interior load-bearing walls, because columns and slabs support the building. Partitions are put up, taken down or moved according to use.
What it solves
It allows offices, classrooms or homes to be reorganized without touching the structure and lets air cross from facade to facade. It extends the building’s life because it adapts to new uses.
Today
Concentrate cores, ducts and services to leave the rest free and use a regular column grid. Plan light partitions, accessible ceilings and windows on opposite faces.
Common mistake
Opening up the plan without thinking about noise, light or privacy, which leaves noisy rooms where no one can concentrate.
Tomorrow
An open-plan building can go from office to housing or classrooms with little waste. Demountable partitions of timber or recycled boards can be reused at each change.
Where it comes from
- 1Traditional Japanese house Kyoto, Japan, between the 14th and 16th centuries
On timber posts and beams and with non-bearing walls, its sliding panels (fusuma) change the layout according to the occasion. - 2Modern Movement Stuttgart, Germany, 1927
Le Corbusier’s Five Points of a New Architecture propose columns instead of load-bearing walls to design the plan freely. - 3Office landscape Hamburg, Germany, 1958
The office landscape (Bürolandschaft) removed doors and walls to bring all staff together on a single open floor.
Masters
- Le Corbusier Villa Savoye, Poissy, France, 1931
He rests the house on slender columns and frees walls and windows from the task of bearing loads. It is the work that best shows his idea of the free plan. - Mies van der Rohe Crown Hall, Chicago, United States, 1956
He hangs the roof from four steel beams spanning 37 meters to leave the main hall free of columns. It is his first universal space, suitable for many uses.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Dwelling
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.