The World

Low-rise urban housing

The Future of Social Housing: Urban Low-Rise, High-Density Developments

In most areas of the South Willamette Special Area Zone where apartments and condos are allowed, the height limit is between three and five stories. With that requirement, high-rise apartments are out-- we are looking at more low-rise, high-density buildings as described in The Future of Social Housing: Urban Low-Rise, High-Density Developments.

As cities around the world struggle with solutions to the housing shortage that faces many communities, one urban building typology has been floated for decades that might increase housing units without reducing quality of life: low-rise, high-density. Emerging in the 1960s and 70s as an antidote to the severe “tower in the park” model offered by Le Corbusier and others, this housing typology had the potential to overcome some of the downsides of massive urban renewal in its emphasis on livable scale and community context.
— Jack Hanly