Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: interesting article about Greek community housing design

[Brian Bartholomew (bartholomew.brian]

 > https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-15/the-design-history-of-athens-iconic-apartments

> That sort of vertical stratification inside a five-story building
> helped Athens to avoid horizontal stratification - there weren't
> really neighborhoods that were only rich or only poor.

> Not that these buildings were exclusively residential. The
> municipality of Athens only practiced zoning for heavy industry,
> leaving people free to set up shop in a polikatoikia. Even today,
> these buildings are often hives of activity, mixing offices, medical
> practices and even the odd workshop among homes. According to
> Dragonas, this was "a cancellation of all the problems of modern
> urban planning, just by mistake. No one had thought about it, but
> the result was a fantastic mix of uses within a small-scale
> building. That's why the streets of Athens have a wonderful level of
> life all day, all night and all week."

The resilient performance of this design is not accidental, instead it
is carefully thought out and arranged by the people who are living in
these units. This resilient performance appears everywhere it isn't
explicitly banned by modern urban planning.

Brian