A Survey of Apartment Shophouses’ Conditions for Future Housing Adaptability Revitalization in Phnom Penh

Phnom Penh, Cambodia, has planned to be one of the liveable and sustainable cities. A city’s vision is to create a clean, green, and competitive city where social safety and living quality are promoted (Global Green Growth Institute 2019). The study also shows that new generations prefer a good quality home design responding to needs and lifestyles. Moreover, the rooms in housing stocks are spacious, but it is ineffectively used (Urbanland 2020). These address opportunities for pursuing living design solutions according to the policies, people’s preferences, and pain points of existing housing designs. A typical urban residential type in Phnom Penh is Apartment Shophouses. In the past, they were a row of two-story buildings located in city areas. The ground units were for business purposes, while the upper floors were for multi-family living accessing from a courtyard in the middle. Presently, the Apartment Shophouses have changed into a row of 5-6 story, diversified-use, and lively buildings. Nevertheless, they lack maintenance, poor daylight, and ventilation. However, they positively respond to Jacobs’ favours; diversity, lively neighbourhood, and mix-used building (Jacobs 1961). According to the policies and residents’ preferences, these challenges for the Apartment Shophouses revitalization into an adaptable, lively neighbourhood and good lifestyle building for the new generations. The study investigates the living and adaptive conditions of the Apartment Shophouses from the 40 residents via online questionnaires and 10 residents via interviews. The results show weak conditions and opportunities for building with quality improvement based on the Open Building approach.