One-room homes are for medieval peasants, not for millennials
Behind every bad policy, there is nearly always a story of unintended consequences. Take British Standard 8213-1:2004 for the cleaning of windows. Just one of the thousands of minutely detailed planning regulations that determine how new homes are built, it states that all windows must be cleanable from within by women aged 64-75, without the use of ladders or longhandled cleaning devices, and without stretching.
No one could doubt the good intentions of whoever formulated BS 8213-1:2004. The aim was to stop little old ladies plunging to their death while polishing their windows. But the consequence was bad architecture. Windows in new-builds have become smaller and lower (to prevent perilous stretching). They are depressing from the inside, because they let in less light, and hideous from the outside.
I mention BS 8213-1:2004 because it might help us understand the seemingly eccentric ideas of Patrik Schumacher. The German architect took over Zaha Hadid’s practice after her death – and immediately started making headlines. He gave a speech arguing that, in order to ease London’s housing crisis, all social housing should be scrapped, public spaces privatised and half of Hyde Park sold off to developers. Some of his fellow architects were so aghast that they called for him to be noplatformed.
Undeterred, he’s at it again. In a paper published this week, Schumacher argued that millennials don’t need living rooms. The current minimum size for a new-build flat is 38 square metres. This, says Schumacher, is far more space than a childless professional actually needs. It has had the unintended consequence of pushing new developments out into the suburbs, where land is cheaper. Scrapping the size restriction would make it possible to build what millennials really need: “small, clean, private hotel-room sized [flats]”, at affordable prices, in central locations nearer their jobs.
It’s a depressing answer to a depressing situation. The last time significant numbers of Britons lived in tiny one-room dwellings, we were medieval peasants.
But it’s no good shooting the messenger. The housing crisis is not of Schumacher’s making. His wild ideas are born of frustration: with planners; with the thicket of regulations that are supposed to improve quality but have ended up stifling imagination; with the good intentions that so often lead to hopeless outcomes. His fury is understandable – if, I suspect, pointless. Bad bureaucracy works like a boa constrictor: the tighter it squeezes, the more you struggle; and the more you struggle, the tighter it squeezes.
Two months ago in these pages, I issued a plea to tech companies. A report had warned that voice-recognition gadgets were teaching children bad manners. Barking out orders to Siri and Alexa, without having to say please or thank you, was getting them into imperious habits. And whereas the report suggested that parents should lead by example, it seemed to me that the onus should be on manufacturers to correct their mistake. Why not tweak the algorithm to make Alexa a stickler for manners?
This week, Amazon unveiled a “Kids Edition” of its voice recognition speaker, which rewards children for saying please and thank you. You can – sometimes – get what you want. As long as you ask nicely.