Architecture by Measurement

Sammanfattning

This project investigates how planning regulations, measurement standards, and legal definitions of floor area actively shape residential architecture. As measurable area constitutes the basis of housing economics, these regulatory frameworks exert a decisive influence on how housing is planned, valued, and produced. In contemporary housing development, economic viability is typically defined by exploitation targets, while architectural quality is expected to adapt accordingly. This project challenges that division by treating measurement principles and regulations not as constraints, but as operative design tools. The work is grounded in an analysis of detailed development plans, legal practice, court rulings, and current Swedish measurement standards. Rather than starting from a predefined site, the project identifies specific plan typologies where limited exploitable area makes conventional development economically unviable, yet architecturally productive. A site in Strömma, Värmdö—characterised by former holiday homes transitioning into permanent housing—was selected as a consequence of these conditions. Through a series of design studies, the project explores how non-measurable spaces, height thresholds, and spatial differentiation can translate regulatory limitations into architectural value. The final proposal demonstrates how exploitation can be reinterpreted as a spatial resource, producing an architecture in which economic logic, legal frameworks, and spatial quality are structurally intertwined rather than opposed.