There are so so so many things we could talk about in relation to these two topics...
Here are some ideas:
You could choose to talk about the smallest houses there exist:
you will be spoilt for choice on the Kirsten Dicksen's youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWaO5TJS00
Transformer Home in Hong Kong:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB2-2j9e4co
NYC "Swiss army knife" apartment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLwQHd0BYcc
etc. etc.
the narrowest houses:
The Keret's House from Warsaw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=259ZyGZruaA
the weirdest houses, the longest/shortests/widests/ the most colorful / or ikeas ones...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQjBrt9LriY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTN8EwVp7aA
or boat or container houses:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa2p_ux8ER0
in InsideOUT Upper-intermediate you will find a chapter entitled HOME.
The ideas for exercises below come from it:
1. ask students to define what "home" means for them (to help them get some inspiration, you can find some quotes online)
2. You can prepare two contrasting pictures of flats and ask students to figure out, based on what they can see, who lives in them - a man/woman, single/ with a family?, what is their character like? their job? their social status? income? It is a good opportunity to introduce vocabulary that describes furniture, but also accessories (eg. cushions, candles, ashtrays...)
or adjectives type - cluttered, crammed, plain...
You could divide this vocabulary into groups of words related to what we can put on the floor, on walls or in windows.
3. Get students complete sentences type:
The place where I currently live is ..............................
And my ideal home would be......................................
I wouldn't like to live in ...........................................
I know no one who lives in .................................;
(to elicit vocabulary connected with types of houses; detached, semi-detached, terraced house, cottage)
4. The exercise with filing in the sentences can be done in a majority of ways on majority of topics, obviously. A variation of this exercise can be to prepare a list of sentences which all start with "Find somebody who...." and ask students to walk around the class and... find the right match for each sentence.
Some examples? Here we go:
Find somebody who....
1. .... sleeps with their shutters open
2.......lives in a flat which is smaller than 20 square meters.
3....... lives on the 6th floor.
4........ doesn't have double glazed windows.
etc.
As for texts, because I have had enough of just reading a text and doing a vocabulary exercise, so, for a change, I thought of using a text in which each paragraph begins with a question:
(the text in my case talks about the Keret's House).
Student A is given a sheet of paper with all the questions, on which some of the answers are missing . Every second question is unanswered, as it is their neighbour (student B) who's got the answers, and vice versa; their neighbour is missing the answers that student A has got. Here is and example of how it works.
Student A
What is it?
Where is it?
Wedged into a sliver of space between two apartment blocks in a section of downtown Warsaw that was the Jewish ghetto during World War II, the house converts what was once a dead alleyway into a living space.
The designer, 38-year-old Polish architect Jakub Szczesny, became fascinated with the idea of building something there.
Who lives in it?
How big is it?
The semi-transparent, windowless structure’s widest point measures only 122 centimeters, and its narrowest point 72 centimeters its naturally lit interior doesn’t seem nearly as claustrophobic as one would think.
Why is it so small?
How was it built?
The house is built around a cantilevered steel frame. From the front, it looks like the spine of a narrow, glass-and-metal book sitting between two concrete neighbors. In back, a set of retractable steps cascades down to the street.
What's it like inside?
Student B
What is it?
The newly completed Keret House, at just a bit over 4 feet wide, is a temporary home for Israeli author Etgar Keret.
Where is it?
Who lives in it?
Officially classified as an art installation, the house was designed to be lived in and function as a sort of urban hermitage. The Keret House will serve indefinitely as a temporary home for traveling writers, starting with Israeli writer Etgar Keret.
How big is it?
Why is it so small?
The size alludes to the wartime experience of Mr. Keret's father, who survived the Holocaust and the Nazi occupation of Poland by hiding under the floor of another family's house.
How was it built?
What's it like inside?
The home has the dimensions of a small yacht or camper. A kitchenette and bathroom are on the raised first floor.
Up a ladder is a second-story sleeping loft and writing space. A window above the narrow bed looks out on the street dotted with dilapidated communist-era blocs.
The idea is for students to be able to express, in their own words, what they have read about so that the other person can fill in the missing pieces of information.
I use this exercise as an introduction to a video, which is a continuation of the Keret's House topic.