This evening in French class we discussed a Parisian apartment type called the chambre de bonne. The direct translation is "maid's room", and it's exactly what it sounds like. A small one-room apartment that is found on the top floor of bourgeoisie apartment buildings. Indeed, nearly one-third of Paris' entire supply of chambres de bonne are in the wealthy 16th arrondissement.
Their original function was to house servants. The reason they were on the penthouse floor is because, when they emerged in Paris in the 1830s, the elevator hadn't yet been invented. And so this was the least desirable floor. The people staying in these rooms typically worked for the people living on the lowest floors in the same building. That's where you wanted to be. Fewer stairs.
Fast forward to today, and it is estimated that Paris has somewhere around 114,000 chambres be bonne (also known as chambres de service). They are also occupied by a broad cross section of different people:
But it means living small. The smallest allowable size for an apartment in Paris is 9 m2 (area) or 20 m3 (volume). Meaning, even if the surface area is under the 9 m2 threshold, it might still be able to pass as livable if the ceilings are tall enough. But under these figures, and the place can't be rented. And supposedly, about half of Paris' chambres de bonne do not meet these minimum thresholds.
These requirements are immediately interesting to me -- not only because they're much smaller than what we allow in Toronto -- but because most people don't think of real estate in terms of volumes. Ceiling heights, yes. But when have you ever seen or measured the volume of an apartment? It's clearly appropriate in this instance given that many of these apartments sit under sloping rooflines.
But the most interesting question, I think, is whether this housing type is functionally obsolete. On the one hand, Paris is an expensive city, and these apartments represent what is likely the most affordable housing option. Go on YouTube and you'll find lots of students giving tours of their compact room-apartments. On the other hand, census data shows that occupancy within his housing type has been steadily declining since at least the 1960s:
Based on these figures from 2011, only about 17,300 chambres de bonne are occupied as a principal residence. This doesn't seem like a lot for a big city like Paris. (It's around 1.25% of its entire housing supply based on my rough math.) The rest of these apartments appear to be vacant, ineligible for renting, or serving as a secondary space for owners in the same building.
This represents an ~85% vacancy rate, which begs the question: Is there something more productive that Paris could be doing with all of this under-utilized penthouse space? Though perhaps it's helpful to start with: would you live in 9 square meters or 97 square feet? This is smaller than the minimum size of a parking space in Toronto.
Photo by Matt Boitor on Unsplash; Charts: Atelier Parisien d'Urbanisme
There’s a lot of interest right now in micro apartments. Here is a recent example from New York City. Generally speaking the model is driven by a need to increase housing affordability: shrink the apartments; lower the prices.
To compensate for these smaller units, the buildings are often equipped with larger shared spaces and a desire to create a sense of community.
The below TED talk by architect Grace Kim is an interesting case study of a project that started, first, with a desire for cohabitation. Her thesis is that cohousing can make us happier, less lonely, and more socially connected.
The cohousing community that she profiles is one that she both designed and developed and one that she now lives in and practices architecture out of.
If you can’t see the video below, click here. It’s only 10 minutes. After you’ve watched it, let us know in the comment section below if this is a community you could see yourself being a part of.
https://embed.ted.com/talks/grace_kim_how_cohousing_can_make_us_happier_and_live_longer
The New York Times posted an interesting article today talking about how roommates in the city are dividing and conquering expensive rentals using temporary walls. This is obviously not a new practice. But it’s a good case study in what people will do in order to make living in a specific location affordable – in this case, Manhattan.
The first example is a one bedroom apartment that was converted to a 4-person apartment. Here is the floor plan (from the New York Times):
The living/dining room was divided up using a T-shaped partition wall – which is required to stop 2 feet shy of the ceiling – to create two additional bedrooms. The original bedroom is then shared via two twin beds. Et voilà. Now you have an apartment where the $3,750 per month rent becomes less than $1,000 per person.
Probably the most annoying thing about this setup would be the lack of acoustic privacy. Since the partition walls don’t go all the way up to the ceiling (photo here), you’d obviously hear everything. One person in the article described it as living in the same room as all of your roommates, but not being able to see anyone.
Of course, there’s also a space consideration:
Mr. Meyer, 23, has the smallest room by far. “It kind of feels like you’re living in Harry Potter’s cupboard,” said Mr. Meyer, who is in his freshman year at Columbia after serving for three years in the Israel Defense Forces.
The roommates, three of whom grew up together in Toronto, don’t mind the close quarters or the lack of privacy. “It’s definitely not for everyone,” Mr. Meyer said. “When you live with your best friends, it couldn’t be better. We hardly spend time in our rooms.”
I saw a lot of this here in Toronto while I was in undergrad. 55 Charles Street West was always a great candidate for these sorts of hacks because the units are large and because the building is filled with solariums. Inevitably, they became additional bedrooms.
(Sidebar: My understanding is that there was a period of time in Toronto where solariums were excluded from gross floor area calculations. So developers used to always put them in to capture more area. That’s why buildings of a certain vintage always seem to have them.)
In any event, the above certainly makes the case for more micro units and co-living arranagements. Many people seem willing to deal with a variety of living situations in order to live where they want to live. Urban affordability is certainly a global concern.