Mapping a cramped living space (for a spaceship, bunker, etc.)

Michael Thayne · 04-05-2020, 01:01 PM

I've been looking at mapping some cramped living quarters for an adventure I'm trying to run, and while many GURPS supplements seem to have vague guidelines for such things, I'm having trouble translating that into exact dimensions. So I'm going to think out loud a bit about what dimensions are reasonable.

Vehicles gives the standard dimensions of a "cabin" as 500 cubic feet. Assuming an 8' ceiling, that's 62.5 square feet, probably something like 7'6" by 8'. That's tiny by the size of most apartments being built in the US today, but in theory you can cram a lot into a space like that. I once lived a few months in Seoul in a room roughly that size, maybe smaller, and it actually managed to include both a toilet and a shower by making you sit on the toilet to shower. It was a bit weird, but it worked. Actually you could probably assume some of the floor area Vehicles allocates for that room is actually a section of hallway—maybe a 6' by 8' room adjacent to a 6' by 2' section of hallway.

I'm scratching my head a bit more over how to lay out bunkrooms which, according to various GURPS sources, seem intended to have four times as many beds as a cabin and some minimum amount of shared non-bed amenities. Are we stacking the beds four high, so that you can't sit up in bed without hitting your head? Are the beds even smaller than the 30" by 75", the size of a "small single" in the United States? Is there only a foot of space between the two bunks? I'm really struggling to visualize it.

There's also the issue of what to do if considerations unrelated to bed and bathroom arrangement force you to use awkwardly-shaped rooms. What if your rooms need to be 5' by 10' or, worse, 4' by 8'? I'm kind of hoping someone here has more experience with architectural and furniture tetris than I do.

04-05-2020, 01:01 PM	#1
Michael Thayne Join Date: May 2010	Mapping a cramped living space (for a spaceship, bunker, etc.) I've been looking at mapping some cramped living quarters for an adventure I'm trying to run, and while many *GURPS* supplements seem to have vague guidelines for such things, I'm having trouble translating that into exact dimensions. So I'm going to think out loud a bit about what dimensions are reasonable. *Vehicles* gives the standard dimensions of a "cabin" as 500 cubic feet. Assuming an 8' ceiling, that's 62.5 square feet, probably something like 7'6" by 8'. That's tiny by the size of most apartments being built in the US today, but in theory you can cram a lot into a space like that. I once lived a few months in Seoul in a room roughly that size, maybe smaller, and it actually managed to include both a toilet and a shower by making you sit on the toilet to shower. It was a bit weird, but it worked. Actually you could probably assume some of the floor area *Vehicles* allocates for that room is actually a section of hallway—maybe a 6' by 8' room adjacent to a 6' by 2' section of hallway. I'm scratching my head a bit more over how to lay out bunkrooms which, according to various *GURPS* sources, seem intended to have four times as many beds as a cabin and some minimum amount of shared non-bed amenities. Are we stacking the beds four high, so that you can't sit up in bed without hitting your head? Are the beds even smaller than the 30" by 75", the size of a "small single" in the United States? Is there only a foot of space between the two bunks? I'm really struggling to visualize it. There's also the issue of what to do if considerations unrelated to bed and bathroom arrangement force you to use awkwardly-shaped rooms. What if your rooms need to be 5' by 10' or, worse, 4' by 8'? I'm kind of hoping someone here has more experience with architectural and furniture tetris than I do.