Abstract
Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements; housing dimensions and functional characteristics are relevant issues, mainly considering population ageing and disability. The housing standards of nine European countries were compared to analyze their ability to satisfy new population need, in terms of size. The regulations were downloaded from the websites of the official channels of each country. A wide variability in room size was observed (e.g., single room: from 9 m2 in Italy to 7 m2 in France, to the absence of any limit in England and Wales, Germany-Hesse, and Denmark). Italian and French legislations define housing dimension considering the room destination and the number of people. The Swedish regulation provides performance requirements and functional indications but does not specify the minimum dimensions of habitable rooms. The rooms’ minimum heights vary between 2.70 m in Italy and Portugal and 2.60 m in the Netherlands, but no limits are established in England and Wales. A diverse approach among European countries regulations is observed: from a market-oriented logic one (e.g., England and Wales) in which room minimum dimensions are not defined to a prescriptive one (Italy) and one that is functionality-oriented (the Netherlands). However, considering the health, social, environmental, and economic trends, many of these standards should be revised.
Highlights
IntroductionModern housing units must meet new needs and requirements. These depend on various factors, such as the increase in average life expectancy of the population and the increase in people with related functional limitations, new social needs (foreign population, increase in separations and divorces, etc.) [1], new ways of working (e.g., remote working) and related technological needs, and the development of energy system requirements in response to climate change [2,3,4].According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the home, in terms of living space, must be large enough to comfortably accommodate people of different ages, must guarantee sufficient space to fulfill the privacy needs of the occupants, and must be accessible and usable for external users [5]
Today, modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements
The regulations of the State of Hessen were examined for this work: Hessische Bauordnung (HBO) 2012 [47]
Summary
Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements. These depend on various factors, such as the increase in average life expectancy of the population and the increase in people with related functional limitations, new social needs (foreign population, increase in separations and divorces, etc.) [1], new ways of working (e.g., remote working) and related technological needs, and the development of energy system requirements in response to climate change [2,3,4].According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the home, in terms of living space, must be large enough to comfortably accommodate people of different ages, must guarantee sufficient space to fulfill the privacy needs of the occupants, and must be accessible and usable for external users [5]. Modern housing units must meet new needs and requirements. These depend on various factors, such as the increase in average life expectancy of the population and the increase in people with related functional limitations, new social needs (foreign population, increase in separations and divorces, etc.) [1], new ways of working (e.g., remote working) and related technological needs, and the development of energy system requirements in response to climate change [2,3,4]. The availability of sufficient space in the home, which guarantees the these requirements, is a fundamental aspect in the evaluation of housing quality [6]. Several authors [6,7,8,9] have dealt with various aspects of the quality of affordable housing in different countries, the discussion on housing standards and space planning is still rather open and leaves room for some considerations [10,11,12]
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