This is something I’m curious about that is tied to housing shortages… As in, say a hypothetical government want to encourage real-estate develpers to build more housing to solve housing shortages. But said government still wants to make most of its citizens happy, instead of just cramming everyone in the smallest accommodations possible
As extreme examples:
- A shoebox studio (<= 10 m^2) is probably too small for almost any family
- On the contrary… a massive estate (>= 10,000 m^2) is probably too big for almost any family. At that point, upkeep of the house may need several full-time housekeepers, so you literally won’t have time to do it yourself
I’d imagine there might be some cultural differences regarding this as well…?
I actually calculated this a while ago. I’m not going by just “essentials” but also taking in account that furniture will take up space. So you need just enough to not feel ‘cramped’, and to be comfortable.
In this one, I have a somewhat rectangular-shaped home in mind. Assume you need at least the following:
Bedroom: (bed + cabinet for clothes): 8 m₂
Dinner area (table and chairs) 10 m₂
Toilet and washing basin 2 m₂
Shower (including rack) 4 m₂
Kitchen (storage, sink, oven, hot plate, fridge, dishwasher, washing machine/washdryer/dryer, rubbish bin) 8 m₂
Living (couch, TV or whatever) 8 m₂
Extra space[1] (your niche) 8 m₂
Hallway (clothing rack, room access) 6 m₂
Optional [2] (outdoor) 10 m₂
[1] You could also distribute the extra space to the other rooms. Just consider it a sort of ‘backup’. You could even distribute all the above around freely if you wanted so. Maybe you want a smaller dinner area but more of that garden, or bath.
[2] For this I count a garage, garden, or bicycle storage. But I consider it optional since not everyone has or strictly needs those for good comfort. (Some places have a collective garden instead, like a hof, or are very forested, and have communal storage places).
If you were especially efficient with the space, eg. having small tables and beds, merging living+dinner room, toilet and bathroom together, I suppose you could cram it down to 40 m₂. But that’s gonna feel cramped a bit easily, unless if you’re a student or live at a retirement home.
Altogether, you then get about 54-64 m₂ for an household of 1-2 adults (may include a small child or pet).
So a good fist rule might be 60 m₂, then add 20 m₂ for each extra person. Mostly due to additional bedrooms, storage usage, maybe an extra bathroom, larger garden, etc. So then you have:
1-2 people: 60 m₂
3 people: 80 m₂
4 people: 100 m₂
5 people: 120 m₂
and so on.
This seems decent reasoning, and it’d fit with a lot of the Victorian up to interwar, and frankly reconsruction era up until maybe the 60s 70s. Utilitarian housing built where i live for the working class. Of course people want more, but i think people can make do reasonably with this. Of course the victorians did slot in a couple of streets of mansions here or there for the upper middle sleazebags.