All Mod Cons

Irish Architecture Foundation / July - August 2021 / 10 sqm / Exhibition / AAI Awards Special Mention 2022

The minimum requirements for rented private dwellings in Ireland are set out in the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019. In it, the state also defines the basic amenities that should be provided for any tenant, which include a sink, hob, microwave, kitchen storage, fridge, radiator and separate bathroom. The physical manifestation of both this and previous versions of this law in Ireland has traditionally been the bedsit typology; a one-room studio apartment, often located within an existing house, where what was once a single room in a home becomes a single home in a room. 

This exhibition presented the results of one year of research conducted from August 2019 to August 2020, in which online property rental platforms were used to study the typology of bedsits in Dublin city. These platforms rarely (if ever) include plans of these spaces, and so the true size and layout of these rooms was identified by using our knowledge of the standardised sizes of things (beds, chairs, doors, ovens) to piece together the plans of 52 bedsits for rent in Dublin city that year.

One of these bedsits was reconstructed at full scale within the first floor gallery of the IAF. The bedsit and all of its furnishings were built entirely from paper with timber supports; in it we placed paper replicas of our own belongings as we tried to imagine how we would live in this room. The space totaled 10sqm in floor area and at the time of research was available for rent for €1000 per month.

The research for this project was supported by the Arts Council, Ireland.