How house size impacts type, combination and size of rooms: A floor plan study of New Zealand houses

Several sources indicate a recent increase in the average floor area of New Zealand houses, making these often much larger than their older counterparts, and a similar pattern can be seen in other developed countries. While building and living in large houses seem to have become accepted, the features of these large houses have been less investigated. In addition, there is limited knowledge of how the increase in houses size has affected the size and configuration of the internal spaces. Building larger houses also equates to using more natural resources, but to investigate this further, more detail on the layout of these houses is needed. To this end, floor plans of 287 New Zealand houses of varying ages were analysed using Auto Cad 2015-2016. Internal spaces were categorised and average floor areas of all types were calculated for each house size. The results were further analysed in SPSS using analysis of variance one-way and independent sample t-tests. These results were checked against those of a survey of 286 households. Both sets of results showed that as houses increased in size, so did the floor areas of similar room types. The investigation also revealed that larger houses have more multiple rooms of the same function, sanitary spaces, specialised rooms and living rooms. Additionally, the average floor area allocated to bedrooms in an 8-room house is 133% more than that of a 4-room house, whereas the comparable figures for sanitary and circulation spaces are 185% and 364%, respectively, meaning more of the additional floor area of large houses is going into spaces that may be seldom used and into circulation areas. These results should be considered against a background of falling household size, which is important when it comes to considering how efficiently resources are used in different sized houses.Several sources indicate a recent increase in the average floor area of New Zealand houses, making these often much larger than their older counterparts, and a similar pattern can be seen in other developed countries. While building and living in large houses seem to have become accepted, the features of these large houses have been less investigated. In addition, there is limited knowledge of how the increase in houses size has affected the size and configuration of the internal spaces. Building larger houses also equates to using more natural resources, but to investigate this further, more detail on the layout of these houses is needed. To this end, floor plans of 287 New Zealand houses of varying ages were analysed using Auto Cad 2015-2016. Internal spaces were categorised and average floor areas of all types were calculated for each house size. The results were further analysed in SPSS using analysis of variance one-way and independent sample t-tests. These results were checked against those of a survey of 286 households. Both sets of results showed that as houses increased in size, so did the floor areas of similar room types. The investigation also revealed that larger houses have more multiple rooms of the same function, sanitary spaces, specialised rooms and living rooms. Additionally, the average floor area allocated to bedrooms in an 8-room house is 133% more than that of a 4-room house, whereas the comparable figures for sanitary and circulation spaces are 185% and 364%, respectively, meaning more of the additional floor area of large houses is going into spaces that may be seldom used and into circulation areas. These results should be considered against a background of falling household size, which is important when it comes to considering how efficiently resources are used in different sized houses.