Architects beginning to think big
Rabbit hutch Britain: Densely packed terraced homes in Blackburn, as elsewhere in the north of England, often date from as far back as the Industrial Revolution
Britain's homes have long had the smallest rooms in Europe, now a new generation of town planners and architects is urging us to rethink the way we use our shrinking urban space. Oliver Bennett reports
In most things we welcome miniaturisation: computers, phones, cars. But not for our homes. Sadly, however, this is the situation that the British house-buying public faces. Homes in Britain have the smallest rooms in western Europe. The average floor space is almost a quarter smaller than in Denmark – western Europe's most spacious country – and we are becoming accustomed to living cheek by jowl in cramped, poky quarters.
It's not an impressive achievement, thinks Rebecca Roberts-Hughes, policy officer for the Royal Institute of British Architects (Riba), She believes it's time for British volume builders to start thinking big. "There have been new lifestyle advantages in many other ways, but new homes have failed to keep up," she says.
Residents of many flats and houses across the country don't have enough room for ironing boards, storage or even socialising, according to research last year from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (Cabe) – which is now under threat from the Coalition Government's bonfire of the quangos announced yesterday.
And as demographic shifts mean smaller individual households proliferate, the pressure on land and house prices is becoming worse. Take, for example, a much publicised house on Goldhawk Road in Shepherd's Bush, west London (pictured). Set over five levels, it was offered for £549,950 last year – despite only covering 1,000sq ft of space, measuring just 5ft 6in in width, and being hailed as the country's thinnest house. Meanwhile less salubrious areas of the capital, and swathes of the north of England, are still dominated by tiny flats and acre upon acre of miniscule terrace homes.
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May, 2012
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