Small-scale living is on the rise. With rents soaring and affordable housing becoming increasingly scarce, many young people are turning to renting or buying smaller-than-average properties known as ‘micro-apartments’. A micro-apartment is, as the name suggests, a small living space comprising one or two rooms, usually between 14 and 32 square metres. In recent years, they’ve been touted as a solution for growing populations in urban areas, and are becoming common in London – little wonder, given that rent in the capital remains well above the national average, with demand for housing far outstripping supply.

“It felt super claustrophobic,” one young person, who lived in a small flat in Camden for a year, tells Dazed – the experience left them on such bad terms with their landlord that they asked not to be named. “You couldn’t open the fridge or freezer and use the kitchen at the same time, and you couldn’t even stand up straight in the bathroom.” This isn’t just happening in the UK, either: Sophie, 21, lived in a poky one-bed studio flat for two months while studying abroad in Paris. She describes a “suffocating small stairway up to the apartment” and “no proper space to do anything”. 

Some have turned living in micro-apartments into Marie Kondo-esque lifestyle choice – a rejection of capitalism’s never-ending insistence that people should always strive for more. Architectural media organisation Never Too Small has been showcasing small homes and micro-apartments on YouTube since 2017. From Argentina to Taiwan to the UK, Never Too Small features quirky and eclectic apartments from across the globe. Many of their videos highlight how design solutions can make living in a small space not only comfortable, but enjoyable. 

Its founder, Colin Chee, is a self-described “design nerd” who lives in a 40 square metre apartment with his partner in Melbourne. He feels passionately about small-space living, and sees micro-apartments as a possible solution to high living costs and growing urban populations. “I think we need to be open to new ideas. Micro-apartments are a little piece in a bigger puzzle,” he says. He also suggests that tenants or owners often don’t regard them as a permanent base, but as a stepping stone. “Life is fluid. It’s not like we build the perfect house and stay there forever.”

One Never Too Small video features a 24 square metre flat in Smithfield, London, and emphasises the importance of “functional homes that have a real, lasting legacy.” Another features a 13 square metre house in a converted minicab office (emphasis on mini) in Islington. In the video, co-designer Nina Tolstrup talks about small spaces as an alternative way of living: “It’s not that we think that people should necessarily live in 13 square metre [spaces], but it could show some ideas [and] inspiration for how we can get more out of smaller spaces.”

Kingston University architecture student Wanessa Jankowska, 19, worked on a project last year in which she had to convert a 6 square metre garage into a living space. “They’re preparing us for these difficulties and challenges that we’re going to have to face in the future,” she says. She acknowledges there’s a stark difference between small homes which people live in out of necessity, versus those which are more thoughtfully designed – “the luxurious side,” she calls it. For those who can afford to choose to live small, there’s also a sustainable side to converting spaces, like the minicab office shown on Never Too Small. “People are becoming more aware of the impact the construction industry has on the climate,” Jankowska says.

We’re being sold the idea that it’s trendy, but it isn’t actually practical. It’s a fucking nightmare

Celeste Bolte, 32, whose home also featured on Never Too Small, cites “crazy high property prices” as her reason for investing in her 46 square metre flat. Like Chee, Bolte describes her home as a “first stepping stone” – but after renovating it she and her partner found that “it really ticks so many boxes”. They feel that the downsides of living in a smaller space were worth it for keeping the life they had built in London. “We use every single centimetre of space and have renovated the layout so it’s incredibly practical,” she says.

But not everybody has the privilege of installing smart storage solutions and pumping thousands into designing their tiny living spaces. And besides: does the small home ‘trend’ just romanticise the housing crisis? Shouldn’t we be demanding more housing and better homes, instead of accepting the unacceptable status quo?

In 2015, the Nationally Described Space Standard stated that dwellings in the UK should be at least 37 square metres in size for a one-bed, one-person property. But research led by Professor Philip Hubbard at King’s College London suggests that the number of new-build flats which do not adhere to this standard has more than doubled, from 4 per cent of new homes to 10 per cent. Many are popping up in London and other “core cities” such as Manchester and Sheffield, largely aimed at “digital nomads” and young professionals, he says.

“People are trading floorspace to be in the right neighbourhoods,” he continues. King’s College London, the first university to research the micro-apartments trend, has identified a number of “hotspots”, including central London, Brent Cross and Croydon. What’s more, micro-apartments are typically worse value for money: on average, the cost of each square metre in a 70 square metre flat is about half that of a micro-apartment, according to Hubbard.

“There can be good uses of small spaces, but with micro-apartments comes a sense of space stigma and some real practical issues,” he says. These include overheating because of poor ventilation and a lack of adaptability due to space constraints. He also argues they are bad for communities thanks to their “stepping stone” nature, and, lacking the space for socialising, could even exacerbate the loneliness epidemic. This tracks with existing research which found there could be a correlation between deteriorating mental health and shrinking living spaces.  

“We’re being sold the idea that it’s trendy, but it isn’t actually practical. It’s a fucking nightmare,” Hubbard says. “If we end up with a London full of expensive microapartments we’ll end up with everyone having to commute or lodge.” He suggests we urgently need to build more well-sized, affordable housing in order to address the ongoing emergency. Ultimately, in an ideal world, anyone living in a micro-apartment would be doing so willingly, like Bolte and Chee – but in the meantime, amid an increasingly unaffordable housing market, for many young people, micro-apartments remain the only option.