An example of a row of shophouses in the town of Rasa, Selangor.

A shophouse is a vernacular architectural building type that is both native and unique to urban Southeast Asia. This hybrid building form characterises the historical centres of most towns and cities in the region. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 459 pixelsFull resolution (2216 × 1271 pixel, file size: 898 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 459 pixelsFull resolution (2216 × 1271 pixel, file size: 898 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Rasa is a main town in Selangor, Malaysia. ... State motto: Dipelihara Allah State anthem: Duli Yang Maha Mulia Capital Shah Alam Royal capital Klang Ruling party Barisan Nasional  - Sultan Sultan Sharafuddin  - Menteri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo History    - Federated into FMS 1895   - Japanese occupation 1942   - Accession into Federation of Malaya 1948  Area  - Total 7,956 km² Population  - 2005... Vernacular architecture is a term used to categorize a method of construction which uses locally available resources to address local needs. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The word typology literally means the study of types. ... Crowded Shibuya, Tokyo shopping district An urban area is an area with an increased density of human-created structures in comparison to the areas surrounding it. ... Location of Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is a subregion of Asia. ... // This article is about a biological term. ...

Design and features

Multi-functional

Several pre-war terraced houses in Kuala Lumpur were refurbished into trendy restaurants and bars such as these located along Tengkat Tong Shin in Bukit Bintang.

As its name suggests, a shophouse often contains a shop with separate residential spaces. More generally, space occupied by the former contains a semi-public function. While this usually is, and historically usually was, a shop, it could just as easily be a food and beverage outlet (e.g. coffeeshop or bar), a service provider (e.g. clinic or barber), an industrial activity (e.g. cottage industry or auto workshop) or a community space (e.g. a school or clan association). Residential spaces are meant to accommodate one or more families, or serve as a dormitory for single workers. Popular belief holds that shophouses were initially occupied by single families, with their private living areas in one space and the more public family business in another. However, it is possible that the two spaces were always usually used by unrelated persons or groups, who may be tenants or resident owners. The position of the shop and residential space depends on the number of floors of the shophouse: A single storey shophouse tends to include residential space behind the shop, while residential spaces in shophouses of two or more storeys are typically located above the shop. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 959 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1280x960, 959 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Nickname: Motto: Maju dan makmur (Malay: Progress and Prosper) Location in Malaysia Coordinates: , Country State Establishment 1857 Granted city status 1974 Government  - Mayor (Datuk Bandar) Datuk Abdul Hakim Borhan From 14 December 2006 Area  - City 243. ... A view from outside Sungai Wang showing the Bukit Bintang monorail station and Lot 10. ... A residential area is a type of land use where the predominant use is residential. ... F&B is a common abbreviation in the Commonwealth countries, including Hong Kong. ... A typical American college dorm room Another typical not-so-clean college dorm room Watterson Towers, Illinois State University Potomac Hall, second-largest dormitory at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. ...

Low rise

Shophouses may nominally stretch as high as three floors in densely populated locations. Depicted here is a row of mid 20th century, three storey shophouses in Chinatown, Singapore of both traditional and art deco styles.

Shophouses are generally low rise buildings. They have a minimum of one floor, but shophouses with two storeys are abundant, while three storey shophouses are typically present in more prosperous and densely built up central areas. However, shophouses of five or more storeys are not unknown, and are more common among newer counterparts. Heights were constrained by building technology and levels of prosperity. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1600x1200, 507 KB) Summary Teo Hong Road. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1600x1200, 507 KB) Summary Teo Hong Road. ... The Chinatown Heritage Centre at Pagoda Street occupies three shophouses in Chinatown, newly restored to house memories and untold stories of Singapore’s early forefathers. ... Asheville City Hall. ...

Narrow fronts, deep rears

Shophouses have narrow street frontages, but may extend backwards to great depths, in some cases extending all the way to the rear street. A number of reasons have been given for the narrow widths of these buildings. One reason relates to taxes, i.e. the idea that buildings were historically taxed according to street frontage rather than total area, thereby creating an economic motivation to build narrow and deeply. Another reason is building technology: the timber beams that carried the roof and floor loads of these structures were supported by masonry party walls. The extent of frontage was therefore affected by the structural span of the timber used. While all shophouses appear, visually, to have similarly narrow widths, these are not uniform and minor variations are the rule, especially when comparing buildings built at different times, by different owners and with different materials or technologies.

Terraced building

A terraced layout allows a row of shophouses to extend as long as a city block permits, as examplified by this long row of double storey shophouses in George Town, Penang.

Shophouses are urban terraced buildings, i.e. standing right next to each other along a street, with no gap or space in between buildings (in similar vein as a terraced house). Frequently, a single wall separates the shophouses on either side of it. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1632 × 1224 pixel, file size: 864 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) George Town on Penang island, Malaysia created by Daniel Berthold File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1632 × 1224 pixel, file size: 864 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) George Town on Penang island, Malaysia created by Daniel Berthold File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that... City Blocks are a part of the fictional universe recounted in the Judge Dredd series that appears in the UK comic book 2000 AD. // Overview Also known as starscrapers or stratoscrapers (compare skyscraper), they are the most common form of mass-housing in Mega-City One, averaging a population of... George Town is the capital city of the state of Penang in Malaysia. ... Look up terrace in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A street of British Victorian/Edwardian terraced homes. ...

Internal Courtyards

Internal courtyards provide open ventilated voids to allow circulation; such as the presence of natural light and air.

One of the most important features of the shophouse is the use of a variety of open-to-sky spaces to admit natural daylight as well as natural air. These open-to-sky spaces may be back yards, small airwells and most commonly, internal courtyards. Depending on their size, these courtyards may be landscaped spaces for quiet reflection, places to dry laundry, vents for cooking fumes or toilet odours or spaces for any number of household activities. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 400 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2592 × 3888 pixel, file size: 3. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 400 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (2592 × 3888 pixel, file size: 3. ... A court or courtyard is an enclosed area, often a space enclosed by a building that is open to the sky. ...

Party walls

The party walls that separate most shophouses from their neighbours are generally constructed out of masonry (usually locally manufactured baked clay bricks) and they are structural, load-bearing walls, i.e. they transfer the weight of the roof and upper floors down to the ground. Party walls marked a major shift from traditional timber post-and-beam frame construction of pre-colonial Southeast Asia. Masonry was used to bear the heavy loads, to provide privacy and security and, importantly, to serve as a barrier to the spread of fire in a crowded urban settlement. Modern shophouses use reinforced concrete party walls.

Roofs

Shophouses are roofed using orange clay roof tiles. Again, this marks an important shift away from the use of more organic coconut frond thatch (called 'attap') in traditional architecture. The added cost of clay tiles was borne due to their greater durability and especially their resistance to fire. The roofs of Olomouc, Czech Republic. ...

Floors and beams

Traditionally shophouses were built with structural (i.e. load bearing) timber beams which carried the weight of the roof and floors. Floor were similarly made of timber planks, often with narrow gaps in between them to allow air to filter through and to help the building (and its inhabitants) to 'breathe' better. The use of timber beams and floor boards was very much in line with local building traditions. Modern shophouses, on the other hand, use reinforced concrete beams and slabs.

Facade colours

A row of double storied late 19th century shophouses in Geylang, Singapore are seen with facades in varied shades of colours.

Tourists often enjoy visiting and walking around shophouse districts because of the variety of colours used in their facade decoration. Traditionally, many shophouses would have been plastered an off-white colour. Other popular early colours were indigo and ochre, given the range of available pigments. By the mid-20th century, pastel colours (rose pink, baby blue, light yellow, etc) became popular, and they remain the colours that most people most strongly associate with these buildings. However, many contemporary or restored shophouses have now taken to using very bold colours, including deep reds, black, silver, gold, purple, etc. Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 450 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Row of late 19th century shophouses along Geylang Road, Republic of Singapore. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (1280 × 960 pixel, file size: 450 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Row of late 19th century shophouses along Geylang Road, Republic of Singapore. ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Facade ornamentation

Traditional shophouse facade ornamentation draws inspiration from the Malay, Chinese and European traditions. European neo-classical motiffs include egg-and-dart mouldings and ionic or corinthian capitals on decorative pillasters. From the Malay building tradition, elaborate woodwork has been borrowed in the form of carved panels. fascia boards, louvres, screens and fretwork. Finally, from the Chinese tradition comes mythological motifs like phoenixes. Other traditions include the use of Peranakan pastel coloured glazed tiles, often with floral or geometric motifs. Peranakan, Baba-Nyonya () and Straits Chinese (; named after the Straits Settlements) are terms used for the descendants of the very early Chinese immigrants to the Nusantara region, including both the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java among other places, who have partially adopted Malay...

In comparison to traditional shophouses, modern variations through the 1960s to 1980s were devoid of ornamental decorations and are more often designed for utilitarian purposes. Beginning the 1990s, the buildings began to adopt postmodern and revival styles. 1000 de La Gauchetière, with ornamented and strongly defined top, middle and bottom. ...

History and use

This building type evolved from the late 18th century during the colonial era. After the colonial era, shophouses became old and dilapidated, leading to a fraction of them abandoned or razed (by demolition work or, on occasions, fire). Others are now undergone a revival of sorts, with some restored and renovated to house theatres, budget hotels and tea houses.

Variants

Chophouse

Main article: Chophouse (building)

It has been suggested that Chophouse (building) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

A chophouse, a pun of the term "shophouse", is a distinctive Singaporean building style based on the shophouse. Like a shophouse, the chophouse is a building of similar design consisting of a a shop front on the ground floor and accommodation on the first floor. However, the chophouse was intended to hold a larger density of residents, some as much as 200 people. Because of their high number of occupants, the living conditions of chophouses were often claustrophobic and suffered from poor sanitation. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Shophouse. ... Image File history File links Mergefrom. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Shophouse. ... E. Coli bacteria under magnification Sanitation is the hygienic disposal or recycling of waste, as well as the policy and practice of protecting health through hygienic measures. ...

The building style was common during years before Singapore's independence and the early years after its independence, but the country's later rehousing efforts saw most chophouses demolished, with few remaining in the country.

Shopoffice

Modern Shopoffices in Malacca, Malaysia.

The term shopoffice^{[citation needed]} is used to refer to a building of virtually the same design as a shophouse, but is occupied in full for commercial use on both the ground floor and floors above. During the early-twentieth century, the style of building was common in major urban centers closer to commercial districts, and is often utillised for larger businesses, where large-scale operations needed a large amount of space. A shopoffice may also adopt dual commercial-residential use, so long as the building has necessary amenities (i.e. proper plumbing). Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 533 pixelsFull resolution (3888 × 2592 pixel, file size: 12. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 800 × 533 pixelsFull resolution (3888 × 2592 pixel, file size: 12. ... State motto: Bersatu Teguh State anthem: Melaka Maju Jaya Capital Malacca Ruling party Barisan Nasional  - Yang di-Pertua Negeri Mohd Khalil Yaakob  - Ketua Menteri Mohd Ali Mohd Rustam History    - Malacca Sultanate 13th century   - Portuguese control 24 August 1511   - Dutch control 14 January 1641   - British control 17 March 1824   - Japanese occupation...

The building style is still common in Malaysia, where rows of identical shopoffices are still constructed in large numbers through the late-twentieth century to present in both urban and suburban areas. Poor planning and a glut of commercial spaces created a sizable number of under-occupied or abandoned shopoffice projects in the country.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Lingnan culture

Lingnan culture (嶺南文化) refers to the culture of Guangdong and the nearby provinces in , and southeastern China. ...

Further reading

• Lee Ho Yin, "The Singapore Shophouse: An Anglo-Chinese Urban Vernacular," in Asia's Old Dwellings: Tradition, Resilience, and Change, ed. Ronald G. Knapp (New York: Oxford University Press), 2003, 115-134.

External links

• The Shophouse: A Characteristic Singaporean Architectural Form