How big does a house have to be?
One of the main grievances about modern, mass-market homes is that they’ve become smaller over the years. As developers look to maximise their returns from expensive land costs, houses get crammed into ever tighter plots. These dwellings will have all the things that the focus groups have demanded – four bedrooms, an ensuite and nice kitchen worktops – but all packed into a tiny space. A typical three bed, semi-detached new build will have an internal floor area of around 90m². That is pretty compact, but people will still go ahead and buy them, particularly in the city.
It can be hard to judge the size of the property you need, especially off plans. My wife, Alison, said as the foundations of our self-build were being laid: “It doesn’t look very big, does it?” I wrote down her words with the date on a post-it note and stuck it on the fridge at home. I presented them back to her when our 210m² home was complete. She had to take them all back. Our house is no mansion, but no one would describe it as small.
However, I was stunned to read about a serious plan to attract workers to the centre of London with the promise of micro flats. The current minimum recommended floor area for a home in London is 37m², enough to give you a neat studio apartment. For comparison, that’s about the same size as a double garage.
Micro flats take this to a new level and shoehorn occupants into an area as little as 19m² – closer to the size of a single garage. Claustrophobics need not apply, and you can certainly forget pet ownership. There would be barely any space for you and a cat, let alone room to swing one.