domestic architecture and the folly of size

Most program challenges in architecture can be solved by adding more space. Design ingenuity is admirable, but if something isn't big enough, it won't work, and it won't last. Unfortunately, the concept of "big enough" is not something that can be easily pinned down. A living room that is 11 feet by 16 feet is perfectly adequate in my opinion, and there are probably 40 million American houses that adhere to that proportion. Not many of them are new, however. Conventional wisdom might declare that such a size is a relic of the past and now only living rooms (now renamed "family rooms") must be a minimum of 20 feet by 20 feet. The cost to build that much more space is not overwhelming, and the maintenance costs of that extra space are not too burdensome, so why not? Yet some part of me finds more contentment with the smaller space. I suppose I am a relic.