MAGAZINE: Space – The Final Frontier?

With our desire to hibernate growing ever greater we look at how we make use of the space we have in our homes...
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Planning applications

Modern homes are only 92% of the recommended size. For an average three bedroom home, that’s eight square metres or the equivalent of a single bedroom less than experts say is ideal according to the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).

Regardless of the amount of space we have, the way we use the rooms in our homes has changed over the decades.

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Period homes were designed with set rooms for set activities - the kitchen was for preparing food, the dining room was for eating it. Now, we tend to demand more versatility in our spaces and need the rooms in our home to be more multi-functional.

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Planning applications

According to the latest research from new homewares and furniture brand, Heart of House, 36% of us now live in an either partially or completely open plan space. One in six of those people actively sought out an open plan home while 15% of those living in period homes admit to having knocked down walls to create more of an open plan, communal way of living.

Because of our demands for a more multi-functional way of living, the way we style and dress our space can make all the difference to how fit for purpose a room actually is. Whether it’s using sofas to segment a large open plan space or using versatile furniture with added storage – there are some ‘tricks of the trade’ that help us to make the most out of whatever space we have.

Watch the video as Kieran Long, Senior Curator of Contemporary Architecture at the Victoria & Albert Museum and host of BBC Two’s £100k House joins Matt Gaskin, Head of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University and Felicity Gough from Heart of House to investigate the space in our homes and ways in which we can use it more effectively.