‘A tiny, geometric shoebox’: housing crisis prompts debate on minimum apartment sizes in Australian cities

A 27-sq metre Melbourne CBD fringe apartment. Ben Glasson said living there felt ‘completely locked in’. Photograph: Ben Glasson

“It was like living in a tiny, geometric, sterile shoebox,” says Ben Glasson, a 46-year-old Melbourne academic who moved into a 28-square metre Melbourne city fringe apartment in October 2020.

“It was a very intense experience – you felt completely locked in, in terms of the architecture.”