Table of Contents
In the book ‘Live-Work Planning and Design: Zero-Commute Housing’, Thomas Dolan has categorised workhomes into three types according to the proximity between live-work. It describes the degree of spatial separation of living and working that is, ‘live-with’, ‘live-adjacent’, and ‘live-nearby’.
Live-With
Here dwelling and work functions are contained within a single large space with a single entrance. According to Thomas Dolan, “a live/with unit is typically a single space, including a kitchen located below a mezzanine/sleeping space, which looks out over a large contiguous working space.” Generally it has an open plan where living and working are interweaved with each other having no physical separation. This kind of an arrangement provides the flexibility and the fewest interior partitions which allows the user to adapt it to many different layouts.
Live-Near
In live-near type dwelling is in a separate , adjacent compartment to workplace and may have a separate entrance. Live-Near also called as live-adjacent meets the needs of those who feel that the proximity afforded by live/work is important, but who would nevertheless would like some separation between living and working spaces. There is single divider between both and sometimes has a separate enterance. The work space is generally separated by a walls or a floor. Traditional houses of old city are an great example of this type.
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Live-Nearby
Here dwelling is detached and at a small distance from workplace, having a single entrance or two separate entrances. Generally a short walk separates the living and the work space– across a courtyard, to a converted garage or other accessory structure, or up or down an exterior staircase, for example. While this type may initially appear to be simply mixed use, classification as live/work may permit its existence in places where a residential or a commercial space alone might not be permitted.
Significance of Live-work
The traditional forms of live/work types maintained economic and social relationships that were connected to the family life itself. Even though the building houses families whose members work elsewhere, along with employees of shops who lives elsewhere, the street may bring them all together. There is a Continuum of relationships between the traditional, family house and the building with independent apartments and shops.
The Continuum exist because people new pair buildings in flexible ways ranging from their own use of a shop to the rental of am shop to the rental of dwelling space to maximize economic opportunity. This results in myriad architectural relationships between the dwelling and shop or workplace. Workhomes are occupied day and night. This reduces the tendency for residential areas to be empty during the day when people have ‘gone to work’, and for commercial and industrial areas to be deserted at night when people ‘go home’.
As emphasized by Jane Jacobs, this 24 hour inhabitation makes local neighbourhoods busier, and therefore livelier and safer, as watched streets are safe streets. Some people wish to run a business from home rather than from separate commercial premises designed for business use. The business may be the main income earner for a person or family or may be part-time way of earning extra income, perhaps started as a hobby.
While retail buildings need residential density nearby and exposure on streets wit pedestrians which the residential premises can fulfill. Even Christopher Alexander in A Pattern Language has highlighted upon the idea of mixed use buildings and streets. “….Prohibit large concetrations of work without family life around them. Prohitbit large concentrations of family life, without workplaces around them.” In the 9th pattern The scattered work he talks about how the segraregation of living and working leads to dead neighourhood.
‘Some workplaces are in homes; there are many opportunities for people to work from their homes or to take work home.’ Jane Jacobs and Alexander Christopher both have mentioned the importance of hybridity that workhomes provide on a unit as well as city level. The home-based work is growing rapidly all over the world as it is family-friendly, environmentally sustainable, good for the economy and good for the city.
