Overcreowding is probably the word you are searching for. There are some studies but the idea is usually a refrence of this many square mts/ft per person and how kitchen and bathroom have to be if shared. WHO has it's own and many governments too. There is a cultural factor too for example Japanese ppl is much more accustomed to smaller spaces rather than US ppl living in suburbs.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Hugely subjective and you're right on cultural differences coming into play, as well as access to/existence of common areas. Are bathrooms communal? Are patios/balconies/outdoor spaces? Are there areas to congregate/socialize/eat nearby? This affects how much internal space is needed.
It becomes more of an urban planning, zoning, and building code exercise than one to be solved by developers, who will try to maximize revenue on any given plot when given the chance. The problem for developers (and accessible housing) is margin: unless gov heavily subsidizes low end residential, they will prefer to build more lucrative luxury apartments.
For contentedness, area per occupant would be the best bet. I'd expect an attempt to target median family sizes and working from there. Global household average is around 3.5 people.
Somewhere in the 20-55 square meter range per occupant is likely the sweet spot, depending on the above factors. You can get away with less space with more amenities nearby.
Mexico has "mini-casas" of ~325 square feet to provide housing for their working poor which residents had challenges with. Paris and Hong Kong have tiny apartments around 10 square meters, where residents spend a significant amount of time outside the home. But these were developer limitations, mostly, to cram as many units into a footprint as possible - not taking occupant satisfaction into account...
Short answer. No.
People vary too much, and have wildly different ideas about how much is 'enough.'
This line is from a novel, but there's a lot of truth in it. "If I was on my own, I could live in a pup tent. When I have to live with one other person I need a 30 room mansion."
Other people would be happy in a small place if they had access to different things; parks, gyms; museums; libraries; schools.
And, a world where all the hosues were similar size would look pretty boring.
There's lots of architectural guidance, building codes, etc. normally linked to number of people in the household. But it's all pretty damn relative, both culturally and individually.
When I lived in the city, I was pretty comfortable with a small appartment, because I spent a lot of time out of my home in cultural spaces. Now I live in the country, and in city-terms our house is gigantic for just the two of us. Netherthless, we're continuing to convert old out buildings into more space because the demands on our home are much higher and we have lots of unused space.
Not only do we live there, but we've got jobs that involve a lot of remote working, and it's also a building site/workshop as we renovate and make our own fixtures and furniture. Plus, because it's more remote, we want guest bedrooms and extra space so that guests can come and stay for a while without feeling cramped. Then we've got animals, who bring their own clutter, and we also want to create a guesthouse that we can rent to tourists. Even without those extra requirements, we choose to sleep in adjacent, but seperate, bedrooms because we have sleep issues. And I know that is a crazy luxury that we wouldn't have been able to afford in the city, but when space is cheap, there's no real reason not to.
I know that my example is pretty extreme, but everyone's needs are different. I have friends who basically live in one room and love that, because everything is within easy reach and they don't want to have guests. But I know it would be depressing and claustrophobic for others. Sharing an apartment with four adult strangers is a different experience from a family home with four children.
I think there can be rules (you can't claim something is a bedroom if it's smaller than 6sqm) but there isn't a one size fits all solution.
My house is 0.4 dam², and I find it cramped for one person. It would be more acceptable as an apartment, but as a house there’s no space to store tools for maintenance, let alone have a workshop for hobbies. I’d be able to use all of 1 dam², at least.
0.4 dam2 for a house sounds pretty small... does that only account for area-under-the-roof? Also, do you have a terrace?
It is quite small, much smaller than what would be legal to build under current regulations. It was originally built as a weekend retreat, not a full-time residence.
I have a terrace, and a reasonable parcel of land. My intention is to build a freestanding garage/workshop next to it, which would alleviate most of my space concerns. The house is built on a steep slope, with a sort of crawl space beneath it, and what is, quite frankly, a woefully inadequate foundation. Eventually, I’d like to jack the building up and build a proper basement.
I feared you would live in one of those highly populated cities in which extremely small and weirdly shaped lots are pretty common. Like, how do you build a house in a 4x10 m lot?
Anyway, thats the good thing with houses, you can always go up or sides... I mean it isn't cheap, but you are the owner of your lot.
On a sidenote, i always wanted to have a big garage that i could also use as a workshop. They aren't common in my country. If it helps in anyway, i like your plan and attitude.
My house is 90m², though the upstairs has a low ceiling and mostly just functions as a bedroom, so it's more like 60m² in practice. While I wouldn't want to raise a family here, I still find it perfectly sufficient for two people. It also comes with the additional benefits of having fewer rooms to heat, clean, and renovate. I also like that my yard feels a lot bigger due to the smaller footprint of the house itself.
That being said, I would prefer it to be slightly bigger. Maybe one extra room and a bigger-than-1.5m x 1.5m bathroom.
It is my obwervatoin that as houses approach 325m2 people start looking for more luxury in the space vs more. Beyond that more space isn't needed unless you are rich enough to win the cities largest mansion competition and so people who are rich but not rich enough to compete don't go bigger even though they could.
Live in a pup tent and you want a bigger one, but in a bigger tent you start thinking lights or a cot before bigger.
there is of course a lot of variation. you can be happy in anything - but you will want more anyway until you get to about 325
It's been my experience that the areas most often referred to as "bad parts of town" are the areas with the most people squeezed in without consideration for anything else. Small homes can be fine of there are other outlets in the area such as community centers, parks, libraries, stores, etc. Without those you just concentrate too much human suffering in one area.
I actually calculated this a while ago. I'm not going by just "essentials" but also taking in account that furniture will take up space. So you need just enough to not feel 'cramped', and to be comfortable.
In this one, I have a somewhat rectangular-shaped home in mind. Assume you need at least the following:
-
Bedroom: (bed + cabinet for clothes): 8 m₂
-
Dinner area (table and chairs) 10 m₂
-
Toilet and washing basin 2 m₂
-
Shower (including rack) 4 m₂
-
Kitchen (storage, sink, oven, hot plate, fridge, dishwasher, washing machine/washdryer/dryer, rubbish bin) 8 m₂
-
Living (couch, TV or whatever) 8 m₂
-
Extra space[1] (your niche) 8 m₂
-
Hallway (clothing rack, room access) 6 m₂
-
Optional [2] (outdoor) 10 m₂
[1] You could also distribute the extra space to the other rooms. Just consider it a sort of 'backup'. You could even distribute all the above around freely if you wanted so. Maybe you want a smaller dinner area but more of that garden, or bath.
[2] For this I count a garage, garden, or bicycle storage. But I consider it optional since not everyone has or strictly needs those for good comfort.
If you were especially efficient with the space, eg. having small tables and beds, merging living+dinner room, toilet and bathroom together, I suppose you could cram it down to 40 m₂. But that's gonna feel cramped a bit easily, unless if you're a student or live at a retirement home.
Altogether, you then get about 54-64 m₂ for an household of 1-2 adults (may include a small child or pet).
So a good fist rule might be 60 m₂, then add 20 m₂ for each extra person. Mostly due to additional bedrooms, storage usage, maybe an extra bathroom, larger garden, etc. So then you have:
1-2 people: 60 m₂
3 people: 80 m₂
4 people: 100 m₂
5 people: 120 m₂
and so on.
I don't think I'm leaning too far out this window when I say: no, there isn't an optimal size. It depends on so many factors. How many people? Is this urban or rural? What's there neighborhood like? Facilities, public transport, doctors, grocery stores, etc.? What's the crime rate like? How long is the commute to work? People have different priorities and make different choices as a result.
You'll probably want about 1/2-3/4 acres in which to build your family's home and have some ground to work.
You can put the hosue at the rear of your property.
Our house is ~100 m², but legally that doesn't count the cellar or finished attic. It feels small for a family of five. So maybe 20m² as a minimum, even counting communal bathrooms and galley and laundry.
I think there’s reasonable high and low bounds as you say, but i think there’s a lot of factors as others have said. Income, culture, and cost of living are big factors. If you live in the USA and basically need to do a weekly shop at Costco for a family of 4 you need a lot more space than a single person who is able to eat out for nearly every meal in a dense urban area with affordable and moderately healthy street food (so a tiny hot plate suffices as a kitchen). But a family of 4 living in an urban area with lots of shops might do the groceries on the way home from work several times a week and then the refrigerator doesn’t need to be enormous.
Lifestyle plays into it as well. If you have a serious hobby you need space for it - whether it’s sewing, machining, fitness, or gaming. If you live on a rural property, you need space to keep chickens and a lawn tractor and a lot more necessities than someone in a flat in London.
I think it greatly depends on how big the family is. If someone has six kids, they need rooms for those kids, and that would be too much for people with two or fewer kids. Even if you take away the dumb "girls need their own private locking space with two doors between them and any male in the house" rules.
Going to the other extreme, I've heard of prisons shut down and renovated as affordable housing. I think if you were going to make prison cells into housing for free people though, you would have to give those people control of the doors, and while I suppose a prison probably has a centralised location to cook for the entire population, you would probably want more local cooking on each housing unit, if it's a big one with more than one. And the doors would be opened by the residents, I'm thinking with RFID or NFC cards. You can run power to each room through the water closets, i.e. where the plumbing goes. But none of these would be good for families, only singles. This would be a better solution for homeless people who don't have anyone, and possibly for those who need help, as you could have social services, mental health type people go there instead of guards, to care for the people and their needs. Yes, almost like an insane asylum, but you give the residents full agency. No lockdowns or anything like that. Just people with basic living conditions being helped as needed, with conditions that are livable but would make anyone want to seek something better outside, anything, even if it's just a single-wide trailer in tornado alley, just for the room and the space.