Less wasted space. More room for life.

Begin with an ordinary day.

Before comparing floor areas, describe a day at home. Where do the groceries arrive? Where do you work while someone else rests? What changes when guests visit? These situations may reveal more about a plan than a list of rooms.

A well-used space does not have to do everything at once. Sometimes it needs a direct connection; at other times, a door, a retreat or a visual boundary.

Read the routes, then the views.

Trace the journey between the entrance, kitchen, dining table, workspace and bedrooms. Notice where routes meet and where one activity interrupts another. Circulation is not always wasted space: it can offer a view, a transition or access to a courtyard.

The M22 photographs show connections between the kitchen, living spaces and garden. They offer an example of spatial relationships to read within a project, not evidence of an ideal minimum floor area for every household.

Compact does not mean cramped.

Test a proposed reduction against furniture, use and the possibility of adapting a room. Keeping storage or a natural route through the house can matter more than removing the last few centimetres from a drawing.

The right plan emerges from agreed priorities and compared options. This is not a formula for floor area: dimensions and applicable requirements need to be checked for each project.

References and context

Project material supplied for M22: original photographs and the design folio. Design document page 14.

This is an editorial draft. It has not been attributed to an approved author or recorded as a published technical opinion.

M22 — photographs and context