Apartments Today Are 45% Smaller Than They Were 20 Years Ago. What Did We Give Up?
The rising costs of land and construction has put tremendous pressure on the amount of space we live in. We know our apartments are getting smaller, but by how much exactly? We dig into 28 condos in Singapore’s District 3 to find out…
If the above graphic is true, have we found a way to squeeze all our basic needs into half the amount of space? Across 28 years, the difference in 2-bedroom apartments is a sizeable 560sf. That is equivalent to 14 bathrooms or 6 small bedrooms… so the question is — what kind of space did we really give up over the years?
Our data source and comparison method
Let’s start by acknowledging that apartment sizes are heavily dependent on location, which is why we have limited our data points to Condos in Singapore’s District 03 only. We categorized them by the years they were built / will be built, in 5 year averages. Note that “Size Range” also excludes units that have penthouse or lofts designations since they are usually larger.
Three Major Layout Changes
After combing through the floor plans of 28 Condos, we identified 3 major changes that led to apartments being much smaller
- Enclosed kitchens to open kitchens
- No more yard or utility rooms
- No Corridors
Change 1: Enclosed to Open Kitchens
What changed: Kitchens used to be enclosed and open out to dining rooms. Today, with improved performance of kitchen hoods, kitchens are opening up and becoming part of the living and dining space. The most efficient layout combines circulation space with kitchen counter (See The Landmark’s floor plan below)
What improved: Combining living, dining and kitchen makes the open space feels much bigger. If you compare The Regency’s kitchen with The Landmark’s, the “feels like” area of a kitchen is much bigger for the latter even though it takes up significantly less space (in orange). This also makes cooking more social as people can mingle with others in the dining area when cooking.
What we gave up: Enjoying cooking — bad news if you do a lot of cooking at home and cannot deal with small kitchens that have minimum counter space, 2-burners instead of 4-burners. If you have no idea what this all means, then you don’t have to worry because you definitely don’t cook enough. Watch out for half-sinks however, they make washing up really difficult, even if you are only washing a saucepan.
Change 2: No More Yard/Utility Rooms
What changed: Kitchens used to come with yards and utility rooms. Yards are for washing/drying of clothes while utility rooms are commonly designed as household shelters or storage rooms.
What improved: With electric washer/dryers now, we no longer need to dedicate space for this activity.
What we gave up: Not much, yards used to be a space for households to dry their clothes. We also gave up a lot of storage space or potentially a helper’s room. But with easy access to shops now, there is not really a need to store that many things.
Change 3: No corridors
What changed: Bedrooms used to open out to quiet corridors but now open directly into living rooms.
What improved: Less corridor or dead space in an apartment.
What we gave up: Privacy for bedrooms from noisier living rooms (acoustically and visually). Though arguably, there is more acoustical separation between bedrooms when no one is in the living room. There is also less transition space between rooms, psychologically making apartments feel smaller.
Final note…
It is also worth pointing out that over time we have given up spacious living rooms that used to be a place for hosting friends and family. This is the actual size difference we are seeing in floor plans.
