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

The width of a standard parking space in Toronto is generally 2.6m. I say generally because it depends on a few other factors, such as whether it's "obstructed" or whether it's being accessed off a substandard drive aisle. But for the purposes of this post, let's agree that the width of a standard Toronto parking space is 2.6m.

The reason I mention this is because Onexn Architects has recently completed a 2.6m wide cafe in Shenzhen called Joys. Pictured above, the 9 square meter space used to house an air conditioner repair shop.

Now, some of you are probably looking at the photos and thinking that this maybe isn't such a big deal. But small spaces force you to be creative.

Look at the grey exterior paving that creates the impression that the cafe is spilling out onto the sidewalk. And look at how they used an illuminated 5 meter tall canopy to try and accentuate the space.

In some places and in cities, a retail space like this might easily become forgotten space. But here, it was something worth designing.

Photography by Li Jinhui via Dezeen

I love this article in Designlines Magazine about how Lawrence Blairs (owner of Atomic Design) has setup his 65 square meter one bedroom condo to serve as both a place to live and an art gallery.

The main living area is equipped with white vinyl screens that pull down to conceal the kitchen and other private areas, and make it feel like a white-walled gallery space. There’s naturally also a projector on the ceiling.

Supposedly it takes him about 30 minutes to prepare the space before an event. Here is a photo by Arash Moallemi via Designlines:

You don’t necessarily need a lot of space to do the things that you may want to do. You just need to be creative. Do you think that developers should offer more creative space solutions as part of their standard offering?