There is no skirting around the topic I want to discuss: we need to talk about space standards in housing. And more specifically, to confront a controversial yet increasingly relevant question: should space standards apply to all new housing in the future?

This might seem contradictory to my usual advocacy for ‘quality not just quantity’, but as we move forward with the ‘Towards a New London Plan’ consultation, I feel that now is the time to interrogate how, as architects, we define quality and whether fixed space standards always support it.

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