People crowdsource everything these days: tweets to fill news articles, resources to put on events, money to produce crystal bacon. Until now, though, this hasn’t had much impact on the world of architecture: designs are still usually a compromise between architects and whoever commissioned the building.
One firm, however, has turned this model on its head in order to design the “ideal home”. Tham & Videgård Architecture analysed 2m clicks made by users on the popular Swedish property site Hemnet (think Zoopla or RightMove), in order to figure out what consumers actually wanted.
The architects then used this data to find the “country’s statistically most sought after home”, analysing the size, price, number of bedrooms, type of living space, and number of rooms and floors. Then, they designed it, as part of a promotion for Hemnet (of course).
The resulting structure has one double bedroom and one single, plus an open kitchen/living room, one bathroom, and a balcony/terrace. It comes in at €300,000. Here’s the floorplan of the two floors, plus the roof:
And here’s a cross section:
Ironically, the airy, double height living space is partly down to the awkwardness of averages: it turns out that Swedes wanted an average of 1.5 floors. The statistics also displayed the nation’s enthusiasms for balconys and open-plan kitchens.
Further inspiration for the structure came from two disparate Swedish housing styles: a cottage, which inspired the home’s wooden facade; and minimalist cube buildings, which inspired the shape and layout.
It doesn’t look likely that the house will actually be built any time soon – though if other architects in the country have any sense, we’re sure very similar styles will start appearing any day now.
