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2 2 Planning in London

LIVE/WORK | FRANCES HOLLISS

Beyond live/work

Workhomes will pro b a b ly tra n s form the UK city, t own and village , while alsohelping to save the planet, s ays Frances Holliss.

Frances Holliss is anarchitect and seniorlecturer in theDepartment ofArchitecture andspatial designresearcher with theCities Institute, atLondon MetropolitanUniversity.

Frances Hollisscompleted a PhD on thearchitecture of home-based work titled ‘Theworkhome… a newbuilding type?’ in July2007, and is currentlywriting a book titled‘Beyond live/work: thearchitecture of home-based work’.

© Frances Holliss

The building type that combinesdwelling and workplace has existedfor hundreds, if not thousands, ofyears. It can be traced from medievallonghouse, through proto-industrialweaver’s house and nineteenthcentury artist’s house to thecontemporary ‘live/work’ unit. Untilthe industrial revolution, it was inalmost universal use and was called‘house’, with sub-sets of ale-house,bake-house etc. But through thetwentieth century ‘house’ graduallycame to mean a building in which wecook, eat, sleep, bathe and watch TV,nothing more. And as a result thebuilding that combines dwelling andworkplace became nameless… untilthe term ‘live/work’ was coined inthe 1970s.

This term was generated as partof a branding exercise, to market loftdevelopments in SoHo, New York. Itremains closely associated with theloft-style apartment and does not siteasily with the wide range of otherdual-use buildings such as the pub,the vicarage, the corner shop, theworkshop or office in the house or atthe bottom of the garden, or thestudio-house. These, and manyothers, tend to be ignored in discus-sions of ‘live/work’, which ismarketed as an innovatory buildingtype that facilitates an exciting newlifestyle. Nothing could be furtherfrom the truth; the live/work unit ismerely the latest incarnation of anage-old building type. Home-basedwork was the dominant workingpractice until the industrial revolu-tion and its recent rapid growth [thisworkforce doubled in size between1991 and 2001; it is estimated that25 per cent of the UK workingpopulation now lives at theirworkplace or works at or from homefor at least one day a week] suggeststhat ‘going out to work’ may, inyears to come, be viewed as atwentieth century aberration. Thereis currently, however, a movement

that is packaging ‘live/work’ as aproduct, prescribing its form andcalling for a specific planning UseClass to enable itsdevelopment. Thisarticle argues thatthis is misguidedand detrimental tothe growth andlegislative needs ofthe overall sector.

In the context ofa global economy,new information/t e l e c o m m u n i c a t i o ntechnologies andmore women in theworkforce than everbefore, this buildingtype has consider-able contemporaryrelevance andfuture potential.Home-based workhas been found tobe a popular,f a m i l y - f r i e n d l y ,e n v i r o n m e n t a l l ysustainable workingpractice that is goodfor the economyand contributes tothe creation ofbusier, and there-fore livelier, saferand more cohesive,neighbourhoods.

But the gover-nance of the builtenvironment in theUK is, maybe unwit-

tingly, obstructive to this workingpractice. The planning system hasstruggled to accommodate thelive/work phenomenon. Propertytaxes tend to penalise the home-based worker. In addition, tenancyagreements and lease conditionsoften discourage or prohibit home-based work, especially in socialhousing. As a result, the majority ofhome-based workers operatecovertly, either out of concern thatthey might be contravening aregulation, or because they are

In reality there is acontinuum, from thesocial housing tenant

making Christmascrackers on their kitchentable to the Queen ruling

the country fromBuckingham Palace.

Atelier Knot's 'House forVegetable Seller', Tokyo

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LIVE/WORK | FRANCES HOLLISS

actually contravening a regulation. Ignoring the whole issue of

‘live/work’ for a moment, a peek atthe underlying planning law shedslight on the overall field. In the UK,the lawful uses of a building can bemixed uses where there are two ormore primary uses, or where there isa primary use and an ancillary use. Inrecent research, a wide range ofdifferent sorts of buildings thatcombine dwelling and workplacewas found to be in use in the UK.They conformed to three basic types.Firstly, and most commonly, ‘home-dominated’, [primary use: dwelling-

house; ancillary use: B1 etc], forexample the BT manager who runs atrans-continental team from apurpose-designed office in hisdetached executive house. Secondly,‘work-dominated’, [primary use: B1or B2, A1, A3 etc; ancillary use:dwellinghouse], for example thecarpenter/ furniture-maker who livesat the back of his workshop in anindustrial building, or the residentmanager of a historic building. Andthirdly ‘equal-status’, [two primaryuses: dwellinghouse and B1 or B2,A1, A3 etc], for example the ruralbaker whose house is adjacent to his

bakery, or the urban architect whoseoffice at the bottom of the garden ofher Georgian terraced house has itsown entrance onto a mews. As themajority of dual-use buildingsencountered did not fit with thecommon understanding of a‘live/work’ building, a generic term[‘workhome’] was coined, anumbrella term to refer to all build-ings that combine dwelling andworkplace, in the same way as‘dwelling’ describes all buildings thatwe live in, and ‘workplace’ describesall buildings that we work in.

These three underlying types of

workhome were found to align withthe legal mixed uses. All the build-ings studied had either two or moreprimary uses, or a primary use andan ancillary use, indicating that theexisting legal framework has noproblem accommodating ‘live/work’.There has never been a problem. Thedifficulties experienced by theplanning system in relation to‘live/work’ stemmed largely from anout of date ideological investment inthe separation of dwelling andworkplace, compounded by thebranding process. Packaged as a newbuilding type, ‘live/work’ appeared to

2 4 Planning in London

require revisions to the planningsystem. The underlying planning lawseems to have been forgotten bypolicy makers.

Four factors have been found toinfluence the spatial organisation ofhome-based work: the nature ofoccupation and relations of produc-tion, the family context, the avail-able space and the personality of theindividual. These variables lead to awide range of possible workhomes.But we are not currently designingeither our buildings or our cities, ororganising our society, around thispractice. People have, as a result,generally been adapting whateverspace they have available to them toaccommodate the dual uses. The UKbuilt environment continues to bedesigned and governed around thespatiality of the industrial revolution,with an inherent and acceptedseparation of dwelling andworkplace.

This is a big issue. In Japanpolicies were put in place in 2007that aim to double the size of theirhome-based workforce from itscurrent 20 per cent, to 40 per cent,of the overall workforce, by 2010. Apolicy review aiming at this sort ofimpact is needed in the UK. Theenvironmental consequences aloneof such an intervention would makeit a major achievement. Japanesegovernance systems facilitate thedevelopment of workhomes. Forty-nine percent employment orbusiness use of the dwelling ispermitted in even the most strictlyregulated residential areas of Tokyo,and there is a substantial new-buildsector; half of leading architect KohKitayama’s workload comprisesworkhomes.

Home-based work is a growingreality across many parts of bothhousing and commercial sectors inthe UK. A major policy shift isneeded to recognise, legitimise andreap the full individual and social

benefits of this practice. MatthewTaylor’s recently published review ofRural Economy and AffordableHousing, ‘Living WorkingCountryside’, has taken importantfirst steps towards achieving this.Taylor has identified the need foradditional support for home-basedwork as a central issue in the devel-opment of sustainable rural commu-nities.

His review calls for the new PPS4[Planning for Sustainable EconomicDevelopment] to retain currentpolicy advice to local planningauthorities to “take account of thechanging spatial working patternsthat advances in information andcommunication technologies allow,such as live/work units or the use ofresidential properties for homeworking”. It also calls for the collec-tion of data on home-based workersto provide an evidence base toinform business support. In additionit calls for the new PPS to “encour-age local planning authorities to takea more supportive approach toplanning applications for workspaceextensions to the home”, and statesthat policy supporting home-basedwork should be incorporated intoLocal Development Frameworks.

The review suggests that theGovernment should recognise thegrowing opportunities home-based

work can provide for economicparticipation by affordable housingtenants, and calls for an end to theuse of tenancy agreements thatprohibit home-based working. FinallyTaylor calls for RegionalDevelopment Agencies and regionalplanning bodies to support thefurther development of both ruralenterprise hubs and live/work units.Although informed by a review ofthe rural economy and affordablehousing, the PPS will apply equally tothe urban economy.

Some confusion remains,however. In Taylor’s review‘live/work properties’ are defined as“buildings that are designed explic-itly for the dual purpose of living andworking”, with an underlyingassumption that houses shouldcontinue to be designed for residen-tial use alone and commercial/industrial buildings for work usealone. In reality there is a clear needfor all three types of workhome tobe purpose-designed, ie dwellingswith ancillary work use, employmentbuildings with ancillary residentialuse, and buildings with two primaryuses, one living, one working. Peopletend to get fixed ideas about home-based work; some focus on smallbusinesses, some on artists orcreative industries, some on piece-working manufacture. In reality there

is a continuum, from the socialhousing tenant making Christmascrackers on their kitchen table to theQueen ruling the country fromBuckingham Palace. Some plannersconsider that the ‘spare bedroom’approach is an acceptable spatialsolution, suggesting a profoundignorance of contemporary practice.Without a holistic social and archi-tectural understanding of thephenomenon it is difficult to makeeffective policy. The Taylor Reviewhas made a major contribution tothe development of this process.

Remaining governance issuesthat drive home-based work under-ground include the requirement thatBusiness Rates are paid in addition toCouncil Tax on many dual-use build-ings, and Capital Gains Tax on thesale of such properties. If theRevenue could see their way toironing out these issues, it seemsprobable that the UK could joinJapan in a meteoric rise in the size ofits home-based workforce with anassociated explosion in the provisionof workhomes. This would probablytransform the UK city, town andvillage, while also helping to save thep l a n e t .

LIVE/WORK | FRANCES HOLLISS

Atelier Bow Wow's home-based studio, Tokyo