Space Management in Montreal’s Wartime Homes

Abstract

The current quest for affordable housing in North America has focused on reducing the size of the housing lot and on downsizing the house itself The proponents of the small home maintain that given the diminished size of today’s family compared with the traditional and larger family household of the post-World War II era, the smaller home does not in fact represent a diminution in space standards. When one calculates available living space on a per-person basis, the smaller family inhabiting a smaller house belies the notion that affordable housing directly signifies any real reduction in living standards.

This paper uses the wartime home as a research model to explore how people meet their spatial needs within a restricted housing space. As a paradigm of the small house (no larger than 1,000ft²), the wartime home is investigated as a prototype of affordable housing. Interviews were conducted with the owners of 25 wartime houses (whose original dimensions were not expanded), drawn from three areas on the island of Montreal. The field study determined the types of spatial conflicts which arose in these homes and demonstrated how they were resolved. The study also reinforced the proposition that people are willing to make several trade-offs when choosing to live in a smaller home, and that as soon as household finances permit, the owners will modify the layout to suit their lifestyle requirements. The spaces in the wartime home that underwent the most significant degree of change during the household lifecycle (i.e., kitchen, bedrooms, and storage) indicate their critical status in the accommodation of users’ needs and suggest that they should therefore become central priorities in the teaching and design of future affordable housing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Avi Friedman

Avi Friedman is an Associate Professor and Director of the Affordable Homes Program at the McGill University School of Architecture in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Maria D. Pantelopoulos

Maria D. Pantelopoulos has recently completed her M. Arch, thesis at the McGill University School of Architecture and is currently working on further research into wartime housing in Montreal.