Solving under-occupancy with ‘adjustable housing’

One of the best ways to save energy is to move to a smaller house. Heating a larger house takes a larger amount of energy – floor area accounts for 70% of variation in space heating demand, as modelled by the CHM [1]. According to the Bedroom Standard (see below), 4.4% of homes are over-crowded but 69% are under-occupied [2]. If you allow one spare room then that number reduces to about 36% but that is still a lot! If everyone lived in a home the right size, we would overall need less heating energy. Obviously this is a hopeless ideal – but could we get some of the way there?

Barriers to right sizing.

In the first place the ‘right size’ is rather subjective. Many households probably feel they need the extra space. However even when you do feel you would benefit from down-sizing you may not choose to move. Moving is expensive in money, time and stress levels. Or you may not want to move because you particularly like your current home – perhaps you have already put a lot of effort into customising it for your needs and preferences; perhaps it has nice views, or you get on really well with your neighbours. 

Adjustable housing.

What if it were possible to give up part of your home only? What if it were possible to upsize by acquiring a bit of a neighbour’s space instead? What if this sort of move was low-cost, low-stress and quick to achieve? 

This is the presumption behind a housing design game called ‘Rightsize’, published in the journal Buildings and Cities [3]. At first I thought – this is ridiculous. However, it is always good to keep an open mind for ‘out of the box’ thinking. Possibly it is workable for housing associations with blocks of apartments, probably specially built. We don’t have many of them now but we used to have a lot more social housing.

The Rightsize game.

The article describes a framework for a game that could be used to test out different policies. If the policy is ineffective or has unintended consequences, these will hopefully be revealed as the game is played.

The game board has tiles representing building units which players can rent for a monthly charge. Players roll dice to determine their initial ’age’ and household size and they start with an appropriately sized dwelling. After that, at each turn, players pick up cards representing life events, (such as children arriving or leaving, or a change in income) with probability dependent on their ‘age’. They can negotiate with their neighbours to adjust their home accordingly. The policy to be tested is embedded in the rules and the final test result is the overall balance of over-occupancy years and over-crowding. This diagram shows the stages of the game, starting from the left.

The Rightsize game, image from [3]. Click to view the full size version.

 

Potential benefits of adjustable housing. 

Do you think something like this could work? It would be great if it did because there is a lot of potential for savings and for overcrowding to be corrected.

Homes are likely to be under-occupied (with more than 1 spare bedroom) in:

• 45% of homes where all residents are economically inactive (i.e. neither employed nor seeking work), 
• 55% of homes where all residents are 65 or over; 40% where there are mixed working age and older.
• 30% of terraced, 40% of semi-detached and 65% of detached houses.

Homes are likely to be over-crowded in

• 25% of homes with children and adults including elders
• 4% of couples and 7% of lone parents with dependent children

All figures are from [2].

The Bedroom Standard.

The bedroom standard determines how many bedrooms a household needs and compares this with the actual number. If the home has fewer bedrooms than are needed it is over-crowded, if more then it is under-occupied. You need a bedroom for:

• An adult couple.
• Two males or two females with compatible ages.
• Two children (9 years or under) regardless of sex.
• A left-over adult or child.

There is more detail in the source article [2].

I find this standard rather mean, which is why I have chosen to allow one spare bedroom in the sizing.

[1] The Cambridge Housing Model, developed and maintained by Cambridge Architectural Research, incorporates housing data from the English Housing Survey and applies a model based on SAP which is the one used to prepare EPCs. The version I have used incorporates EHS data from 2020.

[2] Overcrowding and under-occupancy by household characteristics, England and Wales: Census 2021 (www.gov.uk)

[3] Graham, P., Nourian, P.,Warwick, E., & Gath-Morad, M. ‘Rightsize’: a housing design game for spatial and energy sufficiency (Buildings and Cities) 2024