To think U.K. houses and flats are not fit for purpose?

[Notcontent]

So - I know that there is a housing shortage - but I think too much forces is on getting houses and flats built no matter how small/inadequate, which can cause huge problems for the people living there.

The U.K. has some of the smallest houses in Europe. I am not saying people need huge houses - far from it actually. But homes should have:

• adequate heat and sound insulation
• rooms that are big enough for storage, etc
• somewhere for people to dry their clothes
• etc

I am not an architect but I am interested in this as I have lived in a few different countries, in different houses and flats, and have experienced first hand how small things in house design can make a huge difference to people’s quality of life.

I can't lie, I absolutely love the idea of a huge block of flats with shops and gardens and all the rest around it. I don't know why, I've never lived in one, can't even remember if I've ever been in one, I just love the thought of it!

Mind you, future dystopian fiction is my favourite so maybe that's why

@Andante57

We could build solid, spacious, generously proportioned apartment blocks with communal garden areas, laundries, gyms and services, as is more the norm and popular in many other cities around the world. It would be a much more effective use of land and home footprints could be much bigger. Perhaps too big an attitudinal change for too many people, though

I thought when tower blocks were all the rage in the 1960s and 70s they had communal gardens and laundries etc but you can’t blame people for not wanting to live in them.

The failure of high rise estates is more about social housing policy, how social housing allocation changed over time, the creation of ghettos, urban decay, lack of investment, poverty, marginalised people becoming further marginalised through the architecture etc rather than an inherent problem with apartment living in itself. Well designed communities with adequate investment and maintenance will be successful; badly designed ones where buildings and people are left to rot will fail regardless of how high off the ground your home is.

YANBU!

All the new builds we’ve looked at had no space for bin storage and the garages were too small to fit a car. One had no room for a fridge freezer in the kitchen and we were told we could just pay extra for a door into the adjoining garage to store it there!

@chaosrabbitland

yep , im in an end of bed terraced council house which i am of course extemely grateful for , i know it could be much worse , but its a 1950s build pretty small , but the garden is the size of a tennis court out back , its huge and i dont know what they were thinking when they built it , if only they had built the house out to the end of where the garden patio is id have just that wee bit more space a bigger kitchen ,as it is if two people are in in you cant move , my bedroom at the back would be better as it is i have 2 foot of space between the window and my bed , all the houses on my street are the same these huge gardens and not very big inside

The gardens were that large to provide large veggie beds. The 1930s house I grew up in was the same, but my df used it to grow enough veg for a family of 7, all year round.

I agree. I've never lived in a house built after 1935 and from what I've seen of friends' post-1935 houses I never will.

@ChiefWiggumsBoy

I can't lie, I absolutely love the idea of a huge block of flats with shops and gardens and all the rest around it. I don't know why, I've never lived in one, can't even remember if I've ever been in one, I just love the thought of it!

Mind you, future dystopian fiction is my favourite so maybe that's why

If you're ever near me, you're welcome to pop round to see for yourself! I absolutely LOVE my council estate. It's low rise (only six floors), but it was so well designed. 1, 2, & 3 bed flats/maisonettes, a huge green square in the middle with a huge community garden, off road parking & garages, tons of storage space in our house, and a parade of shops built into the fabric of our square. I've got a chemist, post office, cafe, chippy, laundrette, mini supermarket and two charity shops less than five minutes away. We have a lovely caretaker who keeps all of the communal areas clean & maintained, and people genuinely do feel proud to live here.

From the outside it looks absolutely grim (1960s concrete), but it's genuinely the only place I've ever lived in that feels like a community. They even organise day trips out for the estate

@Andante57

Insead of selling land to the highest bidder to developers that build cheap, poorly finished homes they should invest more in long lasting homes that are built to last

I agree and I don’t understand why there isn’t government legislation forcing developers to build decent homes.

House building companies donate a lot of money to the Conservatives, that might have something to do with it.

I have an average-sized 2-bed maisonette and my friends from Hong Kong visited and said their entire flat would fit inside my front room.
They have 2 kids too.

It's all relative.

One of the big issues we’re facing with bidding for housing on local social housing website is the number of new build properties that are 2 beds/max 3 occupants (1 double, 1 single). We’re a family of 4 with 2 same sex twins so can only bid on 2 bed properties but very few are currently being built for families of 4. The options seem to be 2 bed/3 occupants or 3 bed/5 occupants (2 doubles and a single). And it’s not just social housing, in local private developments that have rental properties the second bedroom is often no bigger than a small single bed and chest of drawers and the double rooms in a lot are 10ft x 7ft 9in (again minimal space for actual furniture!!)

And don’t get me started on the open plan living idea where you get a row of 3/4 cupboards, an oven and hob and a breakfast bar with a 10ftx15ft lounge diner attached and that’s the only living space downstairs - often with the staircase to one side. One I saw the floor plan for recently, had the front door with a small ‘Entrance hall’ and staircase then an angled door into the open plan living space with a wc halfway along the room and being used as the demarcation between lounge and kitchen/diner areas (carpet stopped at doorway to toilet and replaced by vinyl flooring and a breakfast bar the other side of the doorway). We dismissed it as a viable option immediately as I’d rather not be able to hear people in the loo while I’m sat having a meal at the breakfast bar (minimal space for an actual table and chairs!! Instead we’re in the process of applying to rent a 3 double bed ex 1960’s council house with separate lounge & dining rooms, small utility off the hall (some houses on the estate have made that a downstairs cloakroom) and an entrance hallway with space for a coat rack, shoe box and to leave the children’s double buggy inside. Plus it has doors so you can close a room you’re not in and keep the rest warm without having to heat the whole upstairs or downstairs!

@LadyinRead

I have an average-sized 2-bed maisonette and my friends from Hong Kong visited and said their entire flat would fit inside my front room. They have 2 kids too.

It's all relative.

The thread is about UK standards and expectations.

if you look at Japan the way they design the interiors of small properties is great, so space saving and convenient I love Japanese bathrooms, our homes are stuck in the 1800s.

Japanese housing is absolutely terrible.

There's a problem that hasn't been mentioned (or not that I saw anyway) that some sectors of the population are completely hung up on new and shiny. One of my DC and spouse nearly fell for it, "Oh we want a new build, everything is so clean and fresh!" Yeah, also over priced and tiny rooms. I persuaded them to go and look at a 1950s ex police house. It needs a bit of work, the two bathrooms needed doing up and some of the windows are less than perfect but it cost them 100k less than a smaller new build! They love it and say they are never moving again. There are loads of houses like that, flats too but you have to track them down. Another DC has bought a Victorian semi which again needs work but the bones of it are great, lovely original ceilings, good sized rooms and space to extend later if they want. They too were tempted by new builds until they saw the price difference!

British people can’t afford big housing in the places most want to live, that’s why houses have become smaller. Unlike most Europe countries we have far far more limited useable landspace and as such house prices are and will always be high. Add to this zero inflation for most industries for the past 20-30 years and you can see why developers are mostly only producing the small stuff. That doesn’t mean it’s bad - these newbuilds are designed with small families where both parents work. So limited garden space means limited maintenance. Access to schools and other amenities is important but can be a short drive away. Windows are small but that means less likely to get rot / mould / damp and waste heat. Internal spaces are more useable and so you don’t have 30 sqm wasted as corridor space in the middle of a house like some older places do. And older houses are rarely accessible unless you happen to own a mansion - newer builds have lowered wider doors / downstairs loos / potential to create good downstairs bedrooms while older houses were designed to hide the infirm away upstairs only to emerge again at the funeral.

I currently rent a new build 100sqm 2 bed flat and I'm quiet happy actually and would buy it if they actually held value after a decade! For the same price it was either a rodent infested with toilet paper thin wall flat or this new shiny luxury apartment that has a lift, private amenities including parking space. My bedroom is literally like a hotel room where it has a walk in wardrobe and en-suite. The flat is surrounded by floor to ceiling windows allowing as much light in as possible during a typical overcast London day. The flat is heat and sound insulated and after experiencing this kind of living, honestly I cannot believe the shit holes I've lived in paying the same money. Honestly every single brick that is standing upright in the UK needs to be demolished and rebuilt. 1930's, 1800's or whatever houses are also not fit for purpose unless you have spent thousands doing it up. It's like a ticking time bomb accident waiting to happen with its electrical, gas and crooked problems not to mention the wasted heating energy that doesn't heat.

Whenever my relatives visited from Germany, Netherlands and France to my parents home, I always used to feel embarrassed having them come over showing my tiny box room with a bunk that I shared with my sibling to my cousins which literally had a prison cell window whilst my cousins literally had a floor to themselves! Despite my parents being on similar incomes with them, my relatives lived in far better habitable conditions. It was always our home that seemed to be deprived from the normal stuff they had in their homes which was space, high ceilings, storage, large bathrooms, laundry rooms and a modern looking airy interior. We had carpets throughout ffs when they had underfloor heating this was something like 20-25 years ago lol

I once said, aged about 9 that architects should be forced to live in the houses they design.

The people designing and building houses/flats are not interested in people actually living.

Eg Japan has tiny one room apartments but the bathroom will have some sort or rail and a heater so you can use it to dry clothes.

I watch a lot of YouTube and one was about student housing in Finland, they were small apartments but there were communal areas, a laundry a sauna and some designated storage in the basement.

Part of the problem is the rental market, unless you can get a council / HA property you don't have any security. Even if you do the cost of renting is the same as buying so people are forced to buy.

If you could rent a decent sized property on a 10 year lease with strict laws for landlords to obey with regards to maintenance and rent control, renting would become a choice.

If you could rent a decent home for less than buying then young families would not feel the need to buy and when they did they would not be buying a shoe box because that is all they can afford.

DH and I bought a three bed 1930s semi with one bathroom and no utility. It was easily 50% bigger than the 2008 4-bed, 3-bathroom, detached house my parents bought.

We’ve also since added a massive wrap around extension and still have twice the garden and driveway of the new build.

When my parents bought their four bed new build, it was more expensive than the 6 bed Victorian villa that they were downsizing from (both equivalently nice areas about five mins apart). Where they live, everyone seems to favour the new build estates.

It's not just a density problem , they build the same way in Scotland, if Scotland had the same population density as England over 30 million people would live here not the current 5.5 million. Old tenements vary though some are huge spacious three beds in West end, some were poky single ends and everything in between

I also hate the fact that 3 bedroom often mean one of them is tiny.

that is so unpractical if you have children. the tiny room is often too small to take a double bed and the 'master' (another ridiculous concept imo) has an ensuite and walk in wardrobe. so you cannot easily swap so dc can get similar size rooms.

I live in forrin now and here a flat has to have outside space. either a balcony/roof terrace or access to a garden.

Yanbu. Our population density isnt much higher than germany yet our average new property is 76sqm, theirs is 109sqm. Its s massive difference

Germany is a significantly larger country.

@Giraffesandbottoms

Yanbu. Our population density isnt much higher than germany yet our average new property is 76sqm, theirs is 109sqm. Its s massive difference

Germany is a significantly larger country.

the term 'density' takes the country's size into account... and other countries like netherlands or belgium have an even higher density than uk but still manage to have bigger average properties.

the term 'density' takes the country's size into account...and other countries like netherlands or belgium have an even higher density than uk but still manage to have bigger average properties.

This....

Ex council 1950s semi here, and we’ve decent sized rooms, each bedroom can fit a double in it.

Extension plans are underfoot though to reconfigure, and maximise the living space downstairs.