CPD - Designing for Small Spaces: Maximizing Functionality and Style

The demand for interior design is growing because of several factors, such as urbanisation, remote work settings, higher income, and a better understanding of making a home aesthetic and functional. Therefore, a good understanding of improving small spaces is needed to make people feel comfortable and maximise the existing areas. Doing so can help you make rooms look bigger and more expensive.

To do so, you can take a look at some references for the best layout for tiny rooms. However, with all the good things, you also need to understand that designing compact living aims to improve the functionality of a room, its aesthetic look, and its quality. To help you understand this, this CPD class can help you with the lessons.

What is the meaning of small spaces?

Small spaces are areas that have limited sizes and dimensions for rooms. In the UK, the size typically starts from 7 to 9 square metres for a single bedroom, with 7.5 square metres of minimum floor area and 2.15 metres for the width. These sizes typically fit a single bed, a wardrobe, and a small bedside table. 

With this in mind, the Housing Act 1985 creates standards for using compact rooms in a house. The rules aim to avoid overcrowding in all buildings in England and Wales. It considers the size of each room and the number of occupants. For example, a room with less than 50 square feet is not suitable for a bedroom. A room between 50 - 70 square feet is good for one child under ten years old. Meanwhile, if the room is between 70 - 90 square feet, it facilitates a room for one person over ten years old. A room over 90 square feet can be good for two people over ten years old.

With these standards, people can easily identify suitable sizes for their small spaces. This way, they can gain insights into developing the interior design of their places. For example, they can make a small room and find suitable furniture that fits there. Doing so can prevent them from having items that are unnecessary for a small space.

Principles of interior design for small spaces

There are several principles in designing the interior for small spaces, such as open floor plans, multifunctional spaces, balance scale and proportion, and better use of available area. These factors can guide you in making compact rooms more comfortable. Because of the small size, it doesn’t mean that designing one is easy. It also needs several steps and considerations. 

Therefore, these principles can help you with that. By following the standards, you can understand what furniture, lighting, and spaces are suitable for a small room. You can learn how to decorate them effectively. Carrying this out enables you to make the place more clean and spacious. To understand it better, below are the principles that you want to understand:

Open floor plans

Open floor plans mean open space for all rooms. It means that a kitchen, dining area, living room and study corner are all in one big space without any walls or barriers like a partition. This can help you make a room feel bigger and accessible for every part. This is a cheaper option as you don’t need to provide any divider that may cost you money to design small spaces.

Multifunctional spaces

When you live in a compact room, multifunctional spaces can be useful to make the room look bigger. This means that you can maximise space by adapting it to several needs and activities. For example, you can use the bedroom as your living room by using a sofa bed. During the day, you can make it as a sofa for the living room. At night, you can change it back to a bed for sleep. This can help you to create functional rooms in small spaces.

Balance scale and proportion

In designing tiny rooms, you need to balance the scale and proportion. It is important because you need to make sure the furniture or any elements you want to put in the room are fit. Doing so allows you to make the room look spacious. For instance, you can use multifunctional furniture, like sofa beds, storage, or folding tables, to avoid a cramped feel by utilising the area. 

Maximise available space

Living in small spaces encourages you to maximise every available corner so that it can be more functional. For example, you can use vertical space with shelves and cabinets for storage. You can also make the space look more minimalist and bigger by cleaning out unnecessary items and using light colours and mirrors.

Advantages of living in small spaces

There are a lot of advantages to living in small spaces, such as greater connection, easier maintenance, lower cost, and less carbon emissions. This is because of the size, which can only fit a few pieces of furniture and requires fewer materials to build. But this place is only suitable for individuals, couples, or smaller families. To understand it better, you can take a look at the list of the advantages of living in compact spaces below. They include:

1. Improve relationships: Having tiny rooms can make you get closer to your loved ones. This is because of the size that can create a sense of closeness. This can encourage more interaction and improve your relationships.
2. Easy to maintain: One of the main benefits of living in a compact place is that you can maintain the place easily. This is because of the size and a few pieces of furniture. With this, you can clean, organise, and declutter quickly.
3. Save money: It can save more money by using fewer materials and furnishings. This means that you live a minimalist life by only focusing on having what you need and value. This allows you to minimise expenses on unnecessary items.
4. Lower environmental impact: Small spaces can help you lower the environmental impact. This is because compact spaces use fewer materials for the structure, interior, or exterior needs, which can lead to lower carbon emissions.

Best ideas for small space layout

There are a lot of layout ideas for designing small spaces. Some of them include using vertical space, multifunctional furniture, mirrors, light and colour, natural elements, and more. These concepts vary based on space availability. However, in designing these areas, you may find problems like not enough storage, cluttered furniture, the wrong size of furniture, and poor lighting.

This course from the College of Contract Management gives you insights into how to avoid or handle challenges in designing tiny rooms and more important information regarding the topic. This course aims to help your learning journey. Therefore, the course contains comprehensive information that you can learn about in less than a day.

Course Synopsis

Designing tiny rooms can be challenging because it requires careful planning and creative solutions. It aims to maximise the space based on its functionality while maintaining comfort and making it look spacious. To do so, you can start by learning its principles and the techniques to use for designing a good room.

You can learn from the CPD - Designing for Small Spaces: Maximising Functionality and Style programme. This training will teach you strategies to make the best of a tiny space and identify the problems you may face in living in a small place. Once you have completed the course, you will get a completion certificate to prove your knowledge and skills in designing a confined area.

Learning Plan

The CPD - Designing for Small Spaces: Maximizing Functionality and Style programme explores several learning topics in designing a compact room. The topics include the principles, techniques, strategies, materials, and advantages. The speaker will give insights on exploring various partition options and their uses. By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• Learn the basic knowledge of interior design for small spaces
• Understand the principles of making a good interior for limited spaces
• Identify the advantages of compact room interior design
• Know the best layout to create a good interior design for maximising limited spaces
• Understand how to read and sketch on a floor plan for confined rooms

Entry Criteria

We created a course about CPD - Designing for Small Spaces: Maximizing Functionality and Style to help those who are struggling with designing their tiny room. Therefore, we welcome everyone from all backgrounds who are eager to learn about this topic. It doesn’t require any formal educational background or relevant work experience. Everyone can join the class with ease.

This CPD - Designing for Small Spaces: Maximizing Functionality and Style training provides you with learning topics to maximise tiny spaces. However, the course schedule will be announced accordingly. This is because we are currently working on arranging the speakers and materials. You can contact our team if you have any questions or need further assistance. We are ready to provide you with the best services.