Space Management in Montreal’s Wartime Homes

Abstract

AbstractThe current quest for affordable housing in North America has focused on reducing the size of the housing lot and on downsizing the house itself The proponents of the small home maintain that given the diminished size of today’s family compared with the traditional and larger family household of the post-World War II era, the smaller home does not in fact represent a diminution in space standards. When one calculates available living space on a per-person basis, the smaller family inhabiting a smaller house belies the notion that affordable housing directly signifies any real reduction in living standards.This paper uses the wartime home as a research model to explore how people meet their spatial needs within a restricted housing space. As a paradigm of the small house (no larger than 1,000ft2), the wartime home is investigated as a prototype of affordable housing. Interviews were conducted with the owners of 25 wartime houses (whose original dimensions were not expanded), drawn from three areas ...