Modern spatiality is based on an ideal of decluttering, highlighting the fluidity of spaces, continuities, or extensions between interior and exterior spaces. Storage conflicts with this ideal. Beyond this observation, the negative connotations associated with storage have become more acute in recent years in connection with a growing awareness of the ecological impact of overconsumption. A discourse has emerged on the need for healthier and sounder relationships with material possessions. The international best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up (2011) testifies to this. Its Japanese author, Marie Kondo, advises us to keep only objects that “spark joy.” Not engaging with the topic allows architects to avoid controversy.
In a 2018 study, Ademe, the French Agency for Ecological Transition, had diagnosed a very significant environmental impact related to the cluttering of our homes: they contain an average of 2.5 tons of accumulated objects which required 45 tons of raw materials for their fabrication.[4]

Advocates of home storage as a key to quality collective housing finally come against the difficulty of defining new tools for action without being prescriptive. Addressing the creation of built-in storage spaces from the design stage presents two challenges. First, aligning with cost constraints, which are often intangible. Second, the overdetermination of uses, which presents the risk of making the housing units unsuitable for a diversity of ways of dwelling. Shifting away from prescribing uses to guaranteeing potential seems to be an interesting concept to explore. In such a context, the responsibility of the architect would be to ensure the possibility of planning so that a fitting housing unit has sufficient storage. Though this might seem obvious, Idheal’s study[16] has shown that certain rooms, based on the analysis of these plans, are totally incapable of accommodating storage cabinets. The study also provides indicators that can be used to assess the livability of rooms beyond simple square meters. The “furnishable perimeter” indicator helps realize that possibilities for placing furniture against a wall are often limited. The “usable area” indicator further illustrates the fact that circulation areas all too often encroach on the ability to furnish and occupy one’s living room. Confronted with the risk of “unthought-of” hindrances, furniture placement plans are a useful tool that architects can and must use to prepare layouts for furniture arrangement in order to verify, from the very start of the design process, that the rooms can be furnished in a satisfactory manner—with a wardrobe in one bedroom, a cupboard in the entrance, a storage column in the bathroom, a pantry, etc. The simple analysis of a catalog from a large furniture chain is sufficient to observe the discrepancy between the plans that are drawn up by architects and the realities of a fully furnished room.
By projecting the placement of a comprehensive set of everyday furniture into the space at the outset, a floor plan with furniture placement can allow for testing out layouts and catching flawed placement of fixed items such as radiators or doors that would limit interior flexibility. This document can therefore provide a guarantee for the functionality of spaces. In addition, proposals for interior arrangement of the units could be shared with future residents. Including a furniture placement plan in addition to the standard sales documents illustrating different ways of fitting out the kitchen could form the basis for additional missions entrusted to architects. Suggesting built-in storage rather than standard furniture might also serve to shift back to a form of tailored advice, adapted to the configuration of each dwelling, leaving it up to the residents to later follow it or not.

Storage covers a highly material dimension related to functional qualities—that of being able to dispose of our possessions in our home while maintaining a peaceful living space with intact spatial qualities. But this theme also touches upon more personal and less tangible dimensions that are often embodied outside the dwelling itself, traditionally through places such as garages, cellars, or attics—indulging in home improvement and undertaking to repair objects thanks to a few stored tools and materials, preserving memories in their material thickness, or passing on photos or family heirlooms. The ability to store also takes on a certain flexibility, by allowing for the storage of furniture while moving out or taking a trip aboard, or following a separation, or for putting one’s belongings away when renting out one’s home. It is a source of adaptability to different lifestyles. Storage can meet one-off or fluctuating needs over the course of one’s lifetime. For instance, young parents might store away boxes of clothes from their first child for a few years until they can be handed down to a second child.
However, under the current conditions and constraints of the construction of collective housing, these qualities cannot always be offered within the housing unit itself. Faced with decreasing surfaces, it is obviously essential to advocate for making them more generous, but also for creating cellars or utility rooms on the landing—private extensions, just like garages and attics are for detached houses.
The sharing of spaces, on the scale of the building or the neighborhood, is another possibility that should be explored. We need to try to address our occasional needs for storage.
Most large cities are now experiencing a decrease in the use of private cars. Many storage spaces are being freed up from the vehicles they were originally intended for. The thousands of square meters once meant for cars can partly be put to use for “democratizing” the access to storage in urban contexts. The repurposing of a former parking lot on Rue du Grenier-Saint-Lazare in the 3^d arrondissement of Paris that is being pursued by Sogaris is one such example. It will accommodate storage spaces for neighborhood shops, but will also offer spaces for local residents, who will be able to temporarily reserve small spaces to store a few items there.
The “commons” might also be heavily leveraged to improve the circular economy. Consider, for example, that power drills are used on average for only a short ten minutes over their entire service life.[17] Faced with this reality, it seems relevant to offer, on the scale of a building or a neighborhood, the pooling of certain objects that are used only infrequently, such as DIY tools or a fondue set, as an alternative to purchase. The “commons” can be leveraged to foster awareness and facilitate giving, sharing, or second-hand purchases, under the form of a community-based resource recovery center or a “library of things” for example. They form a partial answer to the problems of excessive consumption mentioned earlier, as they can become a stepping stone towards an alternative form of consumption based on repair and second-hand use. This cannot be achieved without a dedicated storage capacity, however.
Ranging from shared facilities on the ground floor of buildings to community-based resource recovery centers and self-storage services, several models are emerging. In the first of these models, the residential real estate industry takes on the responsibility of meeting the storage needs of residents. In the second model, the responsibility of developing “libraries of things” is explored based on the model of the municipal library by the local government. If neither of these models comes into being or if they prove to be insufficient, then paid services will take over and address that need. And the self-storage sector is, in fact, booming. But doesn’t an organized dependence on a paid service imply a de facto discrimination in access?