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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
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Building Regulations and Standards: Room Size Rules

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorcereeve
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2010
     
    Hello, my memory has failed me!

    Post the 2nd world war new houses were being built. "Rules" were being used to define how much living space was required and therefore what size houses should be built. The "rules" were produced by a group or a couple of individuals. The rules were pushed aside from the '60's onwards and so rooms and houses were often built smaller. What is the name of the rules that were being used? I think it's something like "Barker-Mills" but, alas, both my memory and google has failed me....

    Any help greatfully recieved.

    Thanks,

    Chris
  2.  
    Parker-Morris. There was one prior to WW2, too, but I cannot remember the name. PM gave you (if I remember correctly) the ventilated food cupboard, which is often the reason for that 9 x 6 air brick that you can't see the reason for once the kitchen's been shifted round a few times!! PM was current right through 60s and 70s, generally (mainly in local auth stock). First non-PM LA stock in Sheffield was '79-'80ish
  3.  
    London recently considered new minimum space standards however I think at present they are guidelines not rules, and still in draft form.....
    http://www.london.gov.uk/archive/mayor/publications/2009/docs/housing-design.pdf

    Matt
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2010
     
    Homes for today and Tomorrow, 1961. Still got my 'Approved Document' of it - Space in the Home, Metric Edition 1968 HMSO 5s 0d. Admirable. Since WW1, 'Council houses' had been built to v high standard of quality, space and amenity, and anyone who got given one joined a sort of aristocracy, compared to the relative slums that still prevailed, and even to new private sector housing. After the 60s, that supremacy started to be cost-squeezed and tenants stigmatised. Mrs T completed the destruction, for idealogical reasons. Now we're almost entirely in the hands of the private sector. Hasn't it done us proud?
    • CommentAuthordelboy
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2010 edited
     
    I don't think there are any "rules" for new private housing. However RIBA have published a document saying that our dwelling sizes are crap - this is one such document and there may be others. http://www.architecture.com/Files/RIBAHoldings/PolicyAndInternationalRelations/Policy/Housingpolicy.pdf

    Developers will tell you that the reason for the small dwelling/room sizes is because "tough" planning laws prevent them from building on lots of other land. Make of that what you will.

    New social housing must meet certain size criteria as specified in the HCA's Housing Quality Indicators. HQIs don't give specific room sizes but do have a minimum dwelling size according to the amount of bedspaces, and also require that each room is sufficiently large to take a certain amount of furniture - ie a single bedroom must be able to contain a single bed, wardrobe, bedside table etc, as well as have room to move around in.

    (HQIs incidentally are fairly bureaucratic and in some regards insanely subjective eg "does the dwelling enhance the local environment?").

    Posted By: fostertomNow we're almost entirely in the hands of the private sector. Hasn't it done us proud?


    @Tom I don't fully understand what you mean by saying that we're in the hands of the private sector - most social housing is mainly funded by central government (in the form of the HCA) and developed by Housing Associations, which are generally (possibly always) charitable organisations.
    Private contractors and professionals erect them, but they are simply hired by the client - the Housing Association.
  6.  
    Delboy said: ''@Tom I don't fully understand what you mean by saying that we're in the hands of the private sector - most social housing is mainly funded by central government (in the form of the HCA) and developed by Housing Associations, which are generally (possibly always) charitable organisations.
    Private contractors and professionals erect them, but they are simply hired by the client - the Housing Association. ''

    Yes, but after the 1988 Housing Act HA grant dropped away dramatically, leaving HAs to raise mortgages for the balance. Trying to keep rents affordable (or should that read 'affordable'?) meant skimping on space standards, including squeezing more homes onto a site. I well remember, in the early 1990's, lying down on the floor of a new-build trying to persuade the prospective tenant that the 'cupboard' that they thought we were standing in was in fact bedroom 3!
    • CommentAuthordelboy
    • CommentTimeJun 16th 2010
     
    I'm the last person to defend the size of modern housing, but to apply the current facts to the arguement: new social housing, as I said, will only get funding if it meets the various criteria of the HQIs, and part of this is to ensure that rooms are not miniture.

    Presumably the HQIs are standards imposed in response to the cupboard / bedroom 3 scenario you describe.

    This doesn't mean that lots of modern housing is not crap. It is.
    • CommentAuthorcereeve
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     
    Many thanks for all the replies. As always the forum has delivered!

    Chris
    • CommentAuthorpmusgrove
    • CommentTimeJun 17th 2010
     
    But I can build three x 1 bedroomed flats for every two x 2 bedroomed flats that the HCA are insisting single older people need. That means that fewer people can live in nice new homes built for the 21st Century and continue to live on old, drafty, badly heated terraces that they cannot maintain. Our tenants believe that size of rooms is important; the number of bedrooms is not when you are living alone.
    • CommentAuthorrhamdu
    • CommentTimeJun 19th 2010
     
    We've been trying to sell a 1-bedroom retirement flat* since September 2009. Two-bedroom flats in the same block sell instantly, in fact there is a waiting list.

    People moving into retirement accommodation are often coming from much larger properties. They have a lot of hard-to-part-with possessions, and they are used to having plenty of space. If they are middle-class they probably have ample cash from the sale of their house. We are talking about a generation which did well out of the housing market.

    But the really important thing about 2-bed retirement units is that when your health finally goes, you can have a live-in carer. That's the big attraction: you don't have to go into a home.

    *if anyone is still interested, it's in Golders Green and it's on Rightmove - but I don't want to break forum advertising rules.
  11.  
    Isn't the reason why housing associations prefer 2 bed flats for older residents that it provides for a carer to stay overnight...?

    J

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