We consider a partition of the projective space PG(m + n - 1, K), with K any (commutative) field, into one space of dimension m - 1 while all other spaces of the partition have dimension n - 1. Characterizations of particular partitions of this type are given. This research is motivated by some interesting problems on translation generalized quadrangles. In the paper we apply our results to generalized ovoids and generalized quadrangles. Finally we give some ideas for further research.