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Nearly 9,800 homes are being built west of Kuwait City on plots of 200 square metres, compared with the 400-square-metre plots used at South Al-Mutlaa. Whether the Kuwaiti villa’s bedrooms, guest spaces, service quarters and privacy can survive that compression is becoming a significant design test, and one private project offers an eight-metre-wide comparison.
Masaken, a townhouse project by Kuwait practice HZMB, shows what that compression can look like in practice. Behind façades just eight metres wide, each villa accommodates seven bedrooms, four living spaces, service quarters, parking, terraces and a private courtyard with a swimming pool. It was not designed as a model for public housing, but it shows how a substantial Kuwaiti domestic programme can be reorganised when frontage and open land are limited. Masaken comes from a practice led by Hamed Zubaid, whose experience spans more than three decades across architecture, government project management, construction and development, and Mona Al-Baghli, who joined the firm in 2007 and became a partner in 2012.
Half the Plot, Nearly the Same Domestic Brief
That same spatial problem is now being tested at a radically different scale. Near the Salmi Road and Seventh Ring Road, the Public Authority for Housing Welfare (PAHW) is building the Affordable Housing Project on 200-square-metre plots, alongside 74 public buildings. The project’s six housing contracts cover approximately 9,800 homes, with full delivery targeted for January 2028. Originally planned as replacement housing for residents of Sulaibiya and Taima, it is a specific intervention rather than a reduction in plot sizes across Kuwait’s entire housing programme. Its scale, however, makes the design choices nationally significant.
The contrast with South Al-Mutlaa is stark. Kuwait’s largest housing project comprises approximately 28,363 residential units, with the standard plot size widely set at 400 square metres. At around 350 square metres of built area on 200 square metres of land, more of the house has to be stacked vertically and less of the plot can remain open.
A smaller plot does not necessarily mean a small household. IKEA’s Life at Home in Kuwait 2025 study puts the average local household at six people and identifies multiple living rooms, reception spaces and the diwaniya as recurring features of Kuwaiti homes. That means a smaller plot still has to accommodate a household culture built around family life, hospitality and spaces where guests can be received separately.
PAHW’s designs reflect those demands. The two base models include six bedrooms, two master suites, a separate dining room, an internal kitchen, domestic-help accommodation and covered parking. The plans are also intended to separate guest areas from private family life.
The question also lands in a housing market under pressure. Research published through the London School of Economics calculates that Kuwaiti homes trade at more than 22 times typical annual income. NBK, meanwhile, reported that the average transaction size fell 5.2 percent in 2025, which it said could indicate a shift towards smaller or lower-value units in outer areas. Those figures do not prove that the Kuwaiti villa is shrinking across the private market, but they reinforce why getting more function from less land is becoming a commercially relevant design problem.
The Test Comes After Families Move In
The comparison has limits. Masaken is a private townhouse development, not a template for public housing at this scale. Its eight-metre frontage nevertheless shows that a large Kuwaiti household programme can be reorganised within a narrow plan. The public project will test whether comparable attention to circulation, privacy and household services can be delivered consistently at city scale.
The 200-square-metre project will ultimately be judged after families move in. Its success will depend less on façade variation than on whether the plans protect privacy, separate guests and services from family life, and remain comfortable in daily use. Masaken offers one private example of how that compression can be handled. PAHW’s project will test the same spatial problem across nearly 9,800 homes.
