Monday, August 24, 2009

Living in a box

For those who think that the Japanese lifestyle must be cramped and uncomfortable, here are some figures that may make slightly uncomfortable reading.

Exhibit A: Here is some new data on new build house sizes in the UK and comparisons with some other countries. The UK average is 76 m2 per house.

Exhibit B: Japanese new build housing: 1.2 million houses with a total area of 105 million square meters = 88 m2 per house.

To be fair, though, the UK data is for the London area, and houses in the Tokyo area are a lot smaller than the national average, so I'm sure the UK wins out overall. But not by as much as one night have expected, in comparison to the country that invented the capsule hotel. And the Japanese are pretty adept at making efficient use of space. It's actually quite handy to be able to cook dinner, get a book to read off the bookshelf and a beer out of the fridge all while staying sitting on the sofa :-)

And finally:

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