With the ridiculous increase in rental costs, especially for young, newly graduated individuals, I’m curious to see if anyone would genuinely consider a Japanese style flat.
More specifically the ones that are known as 1R or 1K int he link below
Apparently there’s a few companies in London considering these for low rents, even compared to flatshare/ houseshare
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I’ve been living in a 3LDK for about 10 years now. Tatami in one room. Two balconies. It’s doable, but an extra room would be nice.
So pretty much a studio flat?
Fuck no, not unless you want to also have Japanese style suicides
I’ve seen a lot on the rental market in Manchester, which is odd because there’s a building boom here and I would have thought apartments would be a bit bigger, especially in high rise.
The issue I’d have with 1R or 1K is where to put my stuff. There wouldn’t even be enough room for my books, let alone bigger stuff. Everything that could be digital would have to be (most is), but where everything else would go, I don’t know.
If I didn’t have any stuff apart from say, a few clothes, laptop, and phone, then yeah, I’d consider it. I’m in ~90 square metres at the moment, but only regularly use 40, if that.
I just can’t support this at all. It’s a way for people to continue to squeeze more money out of the smallest spaces. Let’s not kid around: this sounds cool under the guise of “Japanese style”, but it’s just pure marketing. People in Japan absolutely hate these spaces. Theres no way about this: we need more affordable housing. It just cannot go on like this. Putting people into smaller and smaller spaces while charging them more and more needs to stop. And if you think these spaces will remain affordable, think again. It’s just another strategy to normalise subpar living conditions and raise prices further per sq. metre.
We already have minimum space standards and we also have the smallest allowances in Europe. Reducing these further is simply a race to the bottom. We need to build more accommodation, not reduce the acceptable minimums. Otherwise everyone will just carve up spaces smaller and smaller until it becomes the new normal.
It’s marketing bollocks to make small flats sound more exotic.
1R is just a classic studio apartment and 1K is just a studio with a separate kitchen.
One day most normal people will live in tiny little box apartments like something out of Blade Runner or Black Mirror. Might as well get the ball rolling now.
Those are bigger than my current studio flat. My flat is around 4x5m, with a 1×1.5m bathroom. Bed takes up a quarter of the room and the kitchen takes up a big chunk
Rents cheap though
I’ve lived in and seen many studio flats smaller than these. Not saying it’s a good thing but it’s not like this is a new thing.
Looking at that picture and floorplan I’m guessing £2400 a month in London and £1000 in Birmingham?
I’ve lived in flats like that.
They’re nothing more than a coffin with windows in them, they’re awful.
It’s not healthy to live where you sleep.
not really living though are ye, feel like a pure hamster in one of them
This is pretty much what my wife and I lived in when we were still in London. Kitchen and Living room were one open plan space, and not much bigger than the first floor pan in that blog post, with one bedroom and a bathroom. I live in a decent sized house in the country now, and I couldn’t go back to living in such a small space.
I’ve lived in one and they’re absolutely terrible.