The case for queering housing design standards

What began as a well-intentioned and much-needed initiative to establish minimum quality, the housing standards have, through a series of unintended negative consequences, led to a rigid and prescriptive approach to volume housing design. These dictate specific outcomes, leaving little or no room for flexibility or adaptation, tying the hands of the designer and the developer alike.

No large volume housing developer wants to pursue an alternative to the standards for fear of causing friction through the planning process, and architects often lack the agency to challenge this due to limited time, scope, and fees, especially when there’s no requirement nor incentive to innovate.

Following the housing standards ultimately means you have to design to one 2b4p (70m²) apartment layout, which prescribes one way of living and leaves little or no room for improvement or alternative.

This way of living is based on heteronormative ideology – a monogamous couple who sleep together in one double bed, with one or two children, or two adult couples sharing. This is an outdated model and does not represent the way modern society works, nor how contemporary relationships evolve, and certainly does not reflect the way in which queer communities might wish to live together.

Queer communities are inherently diverse and within the community itself there are many differences and intersections. And, just like wider society, one size does not fit all.

Queer relationships often break away from conventional heteronormative ideals of monogamy, navigating more diverse and fluid structures. Consensual non-monogamy (CNM) can mean different things to different people and includes open relationships, throuples, polyamory, and polycules (a network of interconnected polyamorous relationships). A recent study in the US found that about 77 per cent of bisexual and gay men and 56 per cent of bisexual and lesbian women have been in a CNM relationship.

Transgender individuals and relationships influenced by gender diversity further expand the understanding of what relationships can look like. These evolving relationship models require more flexible and inclusive architectural solutions to support the distinct ways in which people live and connect with each other.

These relationships are, of course, not exclusive to queer people; long-term monogamous heterosexual relationships often deviate from the ideal of single-partner exclusivity. Indeed, a recent article in The Guardian reported that a third of heterosexual men and 11 per cent of women in the UK were open to having more than one spouse or long-term partner. That equates to about 11.4 million people.

And this is not only about emotional or romantic openness; sometimes simple practicality demands flexibility. What about a couple needing space apart after an argument, or if someone has a cold? What about the changes during pregnancy that affect sleeping arrangements? We all require adaptability in our living arrangements at different points in our lives.

The notion of lifelong, exclusive monogamy, where two people sleep together, side-by-side, in the same double bed, night after night, forever, is simply unrealistic and ignores the reality of the diverse and evolving nature of all relationships. If our homes are to reflect who we are and the way we live, housing design must move away the rigid and fixed idea of what an apartment is, and how people live within it, embracing greater flexibility and adaptability.

A flexible design could accommodate varying cultural identities around cooking, eating, sleeping and washing, allowing for variations in relationship models, creating more inclusive and dynamic living environments.

So what could this look like in practical terms? It might simply mean incorporating more open-plan layouts, movable partitions, or adaptable wall systems that allow residents to easily reconfigure their living spaces as their needs and lifestyles evolve.

And a new flexible 2b4b layout in the housing standards would not be a replacement for the existing standard, but an additional option that would allow the developer, the design team and the planning authority to provide greater flexibility in the offer, ultimately allowing people to decide what might be right for them when they look at where they want to live.

In 2024, my practice, Feix&Merlin, and IF_DO co-led a think-tank design module at the London School of Architecture looking at housing through the lens of queer identities. Seven talented students took the subject through a detailed process of research, from analysing the housing standards to inheritance laws, creating a manifesto for change which led us onto a mini design proposal for a multi-generational, queer affirming, housing design proposal in Waltham Forest.

The culmination of this work has led to thinking about how we can pursue a positive change in the way in which volume housing is delivered in this country. Why do many of the large housing developments end up looking very similar? And why do most new-build apartments follow the same conventional layout?

To truly embrace the diverse and evolving ways in which people live today, the UK housing industry must break free from the one-size-fits-all constraints of outdated standards. By queering housing design – challenging heteronormative assumptions and rigid layouts – we can create spaces that celebrate flexibility, inclusivity and the rich diversity of human relationships and lifestyles.

Tarek Merlin is Director and Co-Founder of Feix&Merlin Architects