Living Over the Store: Architecture and Local Urban Life

by Howard Davis

The shop/house – the building combining commercial/retail uses and dwellings – appears over many periods of history in most cities in the world. This book combines architectural history, cross-cultural understandings and accounts of contemporary policy and building practice to provide a comprehensive account of this common but overlooked building. The merchant's house in northern European cities, the Asian shophouse, the apartment building on New York avenues, typical apartment buildings in Rome and in Paris – this variety of shop/houses along with the commonality of attributes that form them, mean that the hybrid phenomenon is as much a social and economic one as it is an architectural one. Professionals, city officials and developers are taking a new look at buildings that allow for higher densities and mixed-use. Describing exemplary contemporary projects and issues pertaining to their implementation as well as the background, cultural variety and urban attributes, this book will benefit designers dealing with mixed-use buildings as well as academics and students.

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 20, 2012

About the author

Howard Davis is an American writer and professor of architecture at the University of Oregon in Eugene. A native of New York City, he studied physics at Cooper Union and at Northwestern University and received a master's degree in architecture from the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked with Christopher Alexander. He has worked on projects in the Pacific Northwest, India, England, Mexico, and Israel.

He is known for his research into vernacular architecture and building history, published in the book The Culture of Building (1999, reprinted in paperback 2006). He also collaborated with Christopher Alexander on The Production of Houses (1985), an account of an innovative housing project in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. His current research is concerned with urban buildings that combine commercial and residential uses; museums and memorials to war; housing; and American architectural education. His latest book is Living Over the Store: Architecture and Local Urban Life. Davis was the founding co-editor of Buildings & Landscapes, the journal of the Vernacular Architecture Forum.

The Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture honored Davis with the ACSA Distinguished Professor Award in 2009.
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