Beyond square metres: why a large home can feel small (and vice versa)

A family of four lives in 150 m² and feels that it is not enough; they are certain they need a larger home.

Another family, also of four and with similar habits, lives comfortably in 110 m².

What makes one hundred and ten square metres sufficient and one hundred and fifty insufficient? Of course, factors such as the children’s ages, family habits, the internal layout, time spent at home and so on directly influence the outcome.

To better understand the difference between these two families, we can use three concepts from environmental psychology: density/crowding, privacy and territoriality.

Density and crowding

In 1972, the American researcher Stokols first separated two concepts that are still often confused today: residential density and crowding.

Residential density is an objective, measurable parameter—a number—obtained from the ratio between the people who use a space and the available floor area; its inverse is the number of square metres available per person in that space.

Crowding, on the other hand, is a subjective feeling that arises when a person feels they need more space than is available—when, in other words, a space feels “cramped”.

It is possible to have low density with a strong feeling of crowding or, conversely, high density without experiencing crowding.

When crowding is experienced continuously, it carries a high social cost that often takes the form of widespread irritability—caused by the space itself but mistakenly attributed to stress or other factors. Its physiological effects are also negative and measurable: increased blood pressure, elevated cortisol, tension and signs of nervousness, and, over time, more serious symptoms such as reduced eye contact, distancing between people and fewer social interactions, even with loved ones, potentially leading to social isolation.

Within a family, where sharing space and overlapping activities in the same room are inevitable, the feeling of crowding intertwines with privacy, territoriality and micro-territories.

Privacy: regulating interactions

According to the social psychologist Altman, privacy is a dynamic process of regulating access to oneself: the ability to choose, from moment to moment, how open to be to interaction with others and how much to withdraw. A well-designed built environment can accommodate this variation.

Territoriality and personal spaces

Territoriality, by contrast, concerns the appropriation and regulation of places to which we attach meaning: how we come to feel that a space is ours and establish how to use and share it with others. For example, a desk can be “our place” even in a shared room. Altman defines the home as a “primary territory”: the space through which we build identity and a sense of security. Within a shared primary territory such as the home, each person feels the need to create and recognise their own sub-territories. These are present in every home: children’s bedrooms, the side of the bed where we always sleep, each family member’s seat at the table, a drawer or “our” side of a shared wardrobe, the armchair that remains “someone’s” even when it is empty.

Privacy and territoriality are connected, but they are not the same. Having a workstation recognised as one’s own—a sub-territory—does not guarantee being able to work without interruption, with privacy. Similarly, a shared room can allow moments of privacy through a combination of spatial organisation and agreements between its occupants.

From needs to design

For design, the implications of these three concepts are highly significant. First, it is worth emphasising that distinguishing between crowding, privacy and territoriality does not reduce the importance of minimum physical dimensions. Available floor area continues to play a fundamental role in interior architecture, but in this context, the ability to use spaces according to clients’ needs becomes equally important.

From a design perspective, a further distinction is necessary: defining an area and protecting an activity are different operations that may require different tools. Defining an area means making its function recognisable through boundaries; protecting an activity means creating the conditions for it to take place without interference. A rug and an armchair can identify a reading corner within a living room, making the use of that area clear, but they do not protect the activity: they do not prevent television noise or people passing through from disturbing the reader. Protecting that same activity requires other tools, such as increasing the distance from the main sound source, placing the seat away from circulation routes, or even introducing a physical element that interrupts the direct propagation of sound, alongside materials and textures that help absorb sound waves. Before deciding how to define a space, we therefore need to understand which need that boundary should address. In some cases, making an area recognisable will be enough; in others, it will need protection from views, noise or people passing through.

Design choices therefore always require an overall assessment of connection and separation, matching needs with boundaries. Depending on users’ needs, a design can incorporate sociopetal arrangements, which encourage conversation and interaction, and sociofugal arrangements, which allow greater distance from direct contact. Careful analysis of activities and relationships makes it possible to balance openness and separation and identify appropriate tools. The quality of interior design can also be measured by the opportunity it gives people to choose how to use space and regulate their participation in shared life.