Summary of Interviews

We interview 3 people who live in small spaces in Singapore. Our intention is to get a new perspective on the troubles of living in small spaces and to hear out their personal experience there. For this reason, we choose people from different age groups; the first is a senior citizen, the second is a mother, and the third is a college student.

Here is a summary of the interviews we conducted. We will analyse the result and it will help us in our design stage.

Senior Citizen (Anonymous, 70 years old - When asked for an interview, she asked to disclose her identity)

In general, her opinion in living small spaces has a lot of positive comments. Considering her old age, she told us that she prefers to live in small space as it requires her to move around less when she needs to take something or move to another room. She also said that she has no rights to choose her living space for now, as she is living with her married daughter. However, she is satisfied with her living space. If she has to move to a smaller living space, she hopes the government will help to input railings around the house and make the distance to the toilet less as she has frequent toilet visits that are made difficult by her age.

Mother of one (Siti Nazurah, 28 years old, married)

Nazurah shared that she is living in a 4-room flat together with her husband’s family, consisting of his parents and grandparents. She felt that she needs a bigger living space, complaining that there is no privacy in the house. There is not enough space for her to cater a room for her baby that she has to squeeze the crib into her master bedroom. There is also a lot of clutter since her in-laws who do catering business, are leaving many things around the house. She feels that it is not healthy for both the baby and herself as she suffers from asthma. Considering that there are elderly people living with her too, she is worried about the clutter being dangerous. She strongly encourages the government to help improve the flats with more built in storage for easy keeping, preventing house injuries.

Student (Hong Yifeng, 22 years old, studying at Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts)

Hong stated that he personally would choose to live in a bigger space. He said that he prefers to work in a bigger space and that he has a lot of stuffs in his room. He thinks that safety and health is most important and feels strongly about the connection between the house and the people who live in it. He believes that the house will affect the human body, and for that reason cleanliness and tidiness is very important for him in regards to living space. H is satisfied with her living space for now and is reluctant if asked to move. However, he will consider living in smaller spaces if the government will apply good design to the rooms to make it feel big.