What makes a flexible floor plan?

Flexibility in apartments is usually sold as a mechanism: a sliding wall, a fold-down bed, a room that converts. In our experience those get used for the first six months and then settle into one position.

Real flexibility is duller. It comes from three things. First, short circulation, so that the area saved goes into rooms rather than corridors. Second, rooms sized slightly above their functional minimum, so a different piece of furniture still fits. Third, doors and windows placed so there is more than one way to arrange the room.

A bedroom with a window centred on the wall has exactly one bed position. The same bedroom with the window offset has three. That is the whole trick, and it costs nothing.

We test every plan by furnishing it three different ways before it goes to construction. If two of the three feel compromised, the plan is not finished.