Two days ago i picked up MJLBB (don't ask for the german title, it's a shame..). It's a nice book with a lot of useful information.
But one thing in the german version confused me: the room sizes of the various sample buildings - so i want to know if they are shall be so huge or if the german translation is just crap.

Here three examples:

1. Esprit Industries Apartment (don't know the exact english title): the main room is 10x10 meters, that's 30 by 30 feet.? the living room of the son is 8x6 meters or 24 by 18 feet. a little huge, i think.

2. Das Kutscher-Haus (maybe Kutscher-Building in english?): the living room is ok, but the sleeping room has 27 by 24 feet?

3. Mitsuhama Thaumaturgic Research FAcility (?): the personal bureaus are 9x12 meters or 27 by 36 feet...

it would be very nice if someone could post the sizes from the english version

Ok, thanks a lot.
So the original writers had some weird ideas of rooms, space and houses

I don't know about that. I've been in several houses and even apartments that are quite large ... maybe even bigger than those dimentions.

I live in a house which is one of the largest i know. We have a living space of 235 square meters, which is quite a lot here in germany. Our biggest room has 45 square meters and if _very_ huge.
So no, i don't think much bigger rooms are common or useful.

I've noticed this when I lived in Germany. Living spaces that germans consider quite adequate most americans find stifling, even claustrophobic. An, of course, vice versa. I'm pretty sure that the living space sizes in Mr. Johnson's little black book were for american quarters, set up for people used to larger lifing space. If you want to translate the spaces to more european ideals, just divide the numbers by 2 or 3, and it should work out about right.

Hm, never thought about that. Ok, when watching american movies one can see really huge apartments or houses - but hey, that are just movies! Usually they never express reality 100%, don't they?

Guess the US just have lot more space, it's such a wide-open country, so everything has to and can be bigger/ huge.

That's pretty much exactly what it is. My bedroom, for example, is almost 10 x 10 meters, and I am by no means wealthy.

Äh. Yes. Guess some things are just better in the US.
But at least we enjoy real good beer over here (helps of to forget the claustrophobic houses we're living in ).

I do. What I did neglect to mention was that my bedroom is a converted garage. It makes for a large bedrooom, but I've seen it happen in the suburbs often enough that I didn't think to make issue of it before.

Ahh - see THAT explains it nicely. =)

(I was gonna use the analogy of parking two-three cars in there...guess that would've been very approperiate)

Yes, that isn't too uncommon I guess (more so in europe, although not totally unheard of).

yeah, thats correct. i live in villa with approx. 350 squaremeters roomspace. thats quite a lot, and i have no friends that come even close to those sizes in germany.

it's pretty comon for young people to live in 30-40 squaremeter flat. that's tiny. conisdering that you have a kitchen, bathroom, sleeping room and you need to house all your belongings in there. think about that. all i say is: "close combat" and "gm: you see a small apartment. while you scan the tiny room for enemies you catch a glimpse of what looks like a detonator-wire and you follow the wire with your eyes until you see the half kilo of c4 stuffed under the bed."

just make sure you run as fast as you can

about houses actually looking like the movies? yeah, dude.
Im from Canada and I visisted some people in Kennet, Pennsylvania, and there was mansions EVERYWHERE. Every fragging person that lived there was rich enough to live in huge estates. There was surrounding commercial areas and a lower caste of housing, however.
But still a ridiculous amount of wealth in my opinion.
Wish I was in Germany.

For reference, BOCA lists 200 net square feet as one person for occupancy purposes in a residential building. The numbers above would thus be large, but not out of reason for the haves, IMO.

~J