This picture on the right shows clearly the "standard building" form. A standard building is about 5 meters wide at the front. It may be any depth and have any number of floors. The front though is 5 meters. This form is applied everywhere. Even a building on a clear lot or out on a country road will be a long rectangle 5m wide at the front.I'm told this relates to two things, street addressing and taxes. Wider than 5 meters means the building has more than one address and more than one address means more taxes.
There's probably other reasons as well or maybe entirely different reasons. When I mentioned the taxes reason, given by one of my tour guides, to my finance she disputed it. She didn't have another explanation but didn't believe taxes are a cause for this design.
