Housing Space Standards in Italy and England

Housing Space Standards in Italy and England was funded by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Education Trust in 2009.

Overview

The study compared the regulation of internal housing space in Italy - since the introduction of broad, generic standards in 1975 - with England, where there are no universal rules governing internal floor space.

Firstly the study traced the evolution of standards in both countries, from Italian public health legislation in the late 19th century to specific building and urban codes in Italy today, and a range of standards applied to some social housing in England. It then outlined the visible impacts of legal space minimums on the housing that is currently being built, before drawing on a series of interviews with key built environment professionals in the cities of Turin and Manchester, to unpack the 'conditions' of space standard regulation in both countries.

The purpose of the study was to explore the politics, practicalities, acceptability and impact of internal space regulation in Italy and England, and to ask why regulatory standards in Italy seem more palatable than they are in England and Wales: the only remaining part of the EU where legal minimum space standard for residential development remains absent.

People

Professor Nick Gallent
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Dr Manuela Madeddu
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Dr Alan Mace
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Outputs

A project report was published by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Education Trust in 2010. A more complete overview of the project was published in Progress in Planning. Other articles have appeared in professional journals:

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Internal Housing Space Standards in Italy and England: Comparing the “Conditions” of Regulation', in Findings in Built and Rural Environments (FiBRE), RICS Education Trust: London, 2010

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Internal Housing Space Standards in Italy and England', in Progress in Planning, 74 (1), (ISSN 0305-9006), 2010, pp. 1-52

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Room for Regulation', iSurv, 2010.

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Room to Move', in Residential Property Journal, (ISSN: 1754-9116), 2009, pp. 26-27

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Internal Housing Space: Lessons in Regulation from Italy?', in Town and Country Planning, (ISSN 0040-9960), 2009.

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Internal Housing Space: By Regulation or Negotiation?', at Association of European Schools of Planning (Aesop) 2010, Helsinki, 10 July 2010

Nick Gallent, Manuela Madeddu and Alan Mace, 'Minimum Housing Space Standards in Italy (and England)', at Aesop 2009, Liverpool, 16 July 2009 

Impact

A team from the Bartlett School of Planning was subsequently commissioned to review the evidence on space standards in England for the Commission for Architecture in the Built Environment (CABE), as part of its campaign to expand the coverage of a regulatory approach to floor space. This campaign was cut short by the change of government in 2010.