Here's the topic for today - please share your thoughts in a comment!



I personally feel that it would save a LOT of space if cities used a standard apartment layout. It would bring a better economy of scale for construction and plumbing, wiring, etc. parts, and probably make it easier to design effective furnishings too. I know a lot of apartment buildings are already built to a certain spec, but more improvements would be good. It also could make it easier to do repairs and such if professionals always knew where to go to get to pipes/wires, and maybe they would even use less pipes and wires if utility placements were optimized.

Block housing and many apartment buildings are built to specific plans that are standardized from floor to floor. Apartment A is a studio that is identical floor to floor, Apartment K is a single bedroom and M a two bedroom that are identical floor to floor (though in taller buildings the dimensions are off by a few inches because tall buildings taper ever so slightly) The pipes and electrical wiring are the same running up the inside of the building, otherwise there'd be no way to fix it. I was a security guard in an apartment building for a few years and got familiar with all the stuff inside, residents don't see and it is very standardized and the building codes are pretty specific with routine inspections.

It is only when buildings not built as apartments are converted to apartments or apartments are made in condos that variation seeps in. Even then there is code and plans so one can find everything. Play with plumbing you better know where everything is and not go searching for pipes. Many homes today are also build cookie cutter, the same. There'll be a handful of standard models and they're the same wherever that developer is building. Goes back to the suburban building boom post World War II and all the Levittowns ( see The Fifties by David Halberstam)

Now taking it a step further might end up with Soviet style apartment living with rigidly controlled building by the central government. Every apartment is the same and they're all equally awful. Or maybe the housing projects of Johnsons's Great Society? Don't know, but every time they try government standardized housing it usually ends up badly.

But apartments and suburban sprawl are pretty standardized. You find a home that isn't it usually is a add-on to an older building. My house was built as a single story track house in the 1930s. It was added onto several times so it's a mess of additions with a crumbling foundation and rewired and new plumbing to keep up with new specifications. But standardized apartments and communities are pretty– standard.

Now taking it a step further might end up with Soviet style apartment living with rigidly controlled building by the central government. Every apartment is the same and they're all equally awful. Or maybe the housing projects of Johnsons's Great Society? Don't know, but every time they try government standardized housing it usually ends up badly.

It would be interesting to see if the emergence of additive-printing construction would make this less of a problem. To be sure, the internet would allow people to figure out the right way to build in a way that the Soviets simply couldn't do (even if they were trying).

It'll certainly make construction and furnishing so much easier. A mouse click on a floor plan and it's automatically printed up in your chosen/assigned space in your building. Be like modular construction is now but include everything.

I may not be fully getting the context here, but if you're talking about some kind of futuristic city where everybody lives in apartments, should they all be built exactly the same, then I'd say absolutely not. I don't see the point. You very likely would be marginally saving on some things, but those benefits don't outweigh the loss of individual choice, and in a futuristic city resources should be plentiful enough that people don't need to worry about marginal efficiencies anyway.

People generally don't want standardized clothing, or standardized vehicles, or standardized housing. Once you get beyond the Third World level of living, people want more than just the minimum that they need. The ability to express themselves and exercise some control over their environment, their attire, and the rest, all becomes very important to people. So you'd want more customization, not less. Would that be less efficient? Maybe. Harder to repair? Maybe, though I'm sure the repair bots can download blueprints. Ultimately you need to keep in mind that you're building a city for people to live in, not a storage facility.

Also, you need to be careful not to fall victim to the fallacy of averages. Even if you could computer generate the best “average” apartment layout that should meet the “average” citizen's needs, averages do not describe actual people. Most people are somewhere outside the average, which means you're guaranteeing that most people will be dissatisfied with their living space in some way. Different people have different needs and preferences, so by having different (and customizable) floor plans available, you can appeal to a much broader range of people.

I don't know the specifics of the future society you're describing, but if everyone has the same size apartment, then it sounds like it has something of a hammer-and-sickle flavor to it. But even in a place where everyone has the same income (or non monetary resources) available to them, it still doesn't make sense for everyone to have the same size apartment. Some people may prefer to spend less of their income on housing, while others prefer to spend more. Someone who travels a lot for business and is rarely home doesn't need as much apartment as someone who works from home and entertains a lot of guests and clients. I don't believe there is a such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution here, so it's an emphatic “no” from me on standardized housing.

The idea of standardisation is an old one.
I'm not sure when it started but I know that after the French revolution in the late 1700s there were moves towards that to make a better world for everyone… A universal, genderless uniform for men and women, standard homes etc.
In the 19th century in Britain there were some mill towns built by philanthropist businessmen for their workers: all standardised houses.

Whenever it's been a requirement to house a lot of people cheaply and fast standardisation has come to the rescue: The Nissen huts that were used for soldiers and later families during and after WW1 are a great example.

Currently the standard shipping container is used extensively as standardised housing for temporary population- for soldiers on remote bases and the workers in mining camps.

Like people have said: when you have a choice and the resources you tend to want to customise your place. Often your needs exceed what standardisation can give you.
BUT, this sort of thing is highly context dependant: Maybe the government or a company has to house a lot of people cheaply and fast? Is it prefabricated housing? Does it need to be transported a long distance? Maybe the housing is made from a standard 3D printing template?

I think the scenario I am trying to explore is one where in the future the current trend of standardized apartment blocks becomes the de facto standard at least in urban areas, and local governments adapt building codes to require them for all new construction. Floor plans are optimized for efficiency and then those living there furnish and color them to their preference; the apartments would be mostly “open concept” (probably?) to allow them to be easier to furnish.

There would be variations based on occupancy size and region, since needs will vary accordingly (two people need a bigger living room than one, etc, Alaska would want different windows than Hawaii, etc.)

The problem is that you haven't presented any convincing reasons for your proposal to offset all the reasons against. It has absolutely nothing going for it. Giving everyone the same standardized living space is not efficient; it's lazy. There is nothing efficient about allocating millions of people more living space than they want or need, while simultaneously allocating millions of people less space than they need. And on top of that, you need a powerful bureaucracy to administer and enforce this (because people WILL NOT abide by it if left to their own devices), which means you're shelling out billions of dollars in overhead to manage and maintain a wasteful and completely unnecessary housing regime. There is literally no upside. It doesn't make the citizens' lives better, and it doesn't make the government's job any easier. So why do it? What problem is this even solving?

sunseeker25 wrote:
There would be variations based on occupancy size and region, since needs will vary accordingly (two people need a bigger living room than one, etc, Alaska would want different windows than Hawaii, etc.)

This is actually a different question than what you initially asked. If you're now going to so generously allow people to have different types of floor plans, why have an expensive central bureaucracy inefficiently distribute them? Why not just let people decide what kind of home they want, what additions to make, and where and when to move? This is all a pointless exercise in micromanaging just for the sake of micromanaging.

But El Cid, you're forgetting how many developers projects already are standardized and how apartment buildings floor plans are already standardized. You can even get a pre-furnished apartment or house. It'll be modular homes made universal and it won't be done by the government, but by corporations as it is mostly done now. There'll be lots of inspectors and specifications that have to be met and maybe they're a little bit more stringent but so much of this is already in place.

Look at the 1786 Northwest Ordinance passed. The government pre-organized counties and districts down to where schools and churches were to be placed! Many states have layouts of little squares because growth was planned rather than organic.

It's just more of what has already been done. We could end up with Fifth Element type dwellings which are generic rooms with just a bed, a bath and a desk like some kind of berth in a ship.

You might want to take a look at cabin arrangements on cruise ships as well as hotel floor plans. They're already laid out like that. You have at most a half dozen choices of layout and that's it. People could be assigned housing like that.