Living over the store: architecture and local urban life

摘要

Howard Davis once remarked that to write a book takes him numerous years. This is particularly evident in Living over the store, a book whose origins are rooted in his hometown where as a child he was able to witness the versatility of the shophouse - the principal focus of this book. In choosing the methods and tools necessary for performing a morphological analysis, Davis demonstrates a preference for the Italian school of urban morphology to define what a shophouse is: a building type that at its most basic level combines a first-floor dwelling with a ground-floor working space. As the author notes, this building type accommodates two of the most basic activities performed by human beings.