Move ducts, pipes, lifts and escalators out of the building’s core onto its exterior, colour-code them, and let them become the architecture, leaving the interior free and making the plant easy to reach and replace.
A zone for work, beyond a green belt
Place industry and other large work places in their own zone, served by road and rail, near the housing but separated from it by a belt of green.
The Charter wanted journeys to work short but homes spared the smoke and noise of industry. The post-war industrial estate and, later, the landscaped business park by the motorway are its descendants: a precinct for work alone, reached by car, set in greenery.
Related rules
Span the whole depth of the building with the structure so that each floor is a single open plate, adaptable to uses that cannot be foreseen.
Pompidou: 48 m clear span between column lines, 13 bays of 12.8 m
The outward form of a building should arise from, and express, what the building does and how it is made, as the form of every living thing expresses its life.
Raise the main storey on slender columns so that the ground beneath flows under the building (for circulation, cars, gardens or public space) and the rooms are lifted into light, air and view.
Make the flat roof a garden and terrace, returning to the house the ground that the building has occupied.
House a whole community in one tall slab: stack duplex flats that run through the block with light on both sides, put shops and services on an interior street half-way up, and give the roof to everyone.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “A zone for work, beyond a green belt”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/athens-work-zone. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.