The Domestic Transformer Apartment

[livius drusus]

A Hong Kong architect created an incredibly complex sliding wall system to turn his 344 square foot apartment into 24 different rooms, all of them seriously fucking hot.

YouTube- A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms

I want his windows right now. Also the hammock viewing room which has to be the greatest idea of all time.

[LadyShea]

Very, very cool, but OMG 350 sf! I think that's roughly the size of my master suite.

[livius drusus]

I know, I'd feel a tad compressed, no doubt, but the soaker tub/guest bed behind the linen closet behind the bookshelves would chill me out.

[Ensign Steve]

My last apartment was 400 sq. ft. My living room there would fit into my bathroom at my new place, no joke. I do miss being able to completely clean my home in 20 minutes.

[wei yau]

When I visited HK a few years back, I saw just how small of an apartment I grew up in. It was currently being occupied by my uncle, just by himself, so at first I didn't get it.

But, then I realized that when I lived there, there were my HK grandparents, their three kids and me.

Seeing that place then and this vid now, makes me appreciate my HK grandparents taking me in.

[wildernesse]

I think that is a really neat living space, although I'm not sure how it is especially green.

I think it is interesting to think about how many, if not most, Americans have a great need for space that seems to have increased over the past couple of generations. My parents have increased the heated/cooled/enclosed square footage of the house I grew up in several times over the years, with the largest increase being when only the two of them live there. Yet originally my great-grandparents and their five children lived there quite happily, especially because they moved there from a three room house down the road that I would estimate as being no more than 500 square feet.

Why is that?

[LadyShea]

Thinking on it, it's really not that different from living full time in an RV or on a sailboat, both situations I have considered as "someday" scenarios.

One of my fave HGTV shows was Small Spaces Big Style because of the creativity required. This guy really takes the prize though.

[wei yau]

oh, our house is huge. Huger than anything we need, yet I cannot entertain the thought of living some place smaller. Certainly not by choice.

[LadyShea]

I think it is interesting to think about how many, if not most, Americans have a great need for space that seems to have increased over the past couple of generations.

Why is that?

I note that too. When I visit my grandma, I know that my dad and uncle shared the tiny bedroom and closet all through high school, and that 4 people shared the itty bitty bathroom, but I can't wrap my mind around it. I can only assume people had less shit.

Stuff seems to fill the whole house, including kid's stuff. His walk in closet is full, his very large bedroom is full, he has shit in the living room, dining room, and even my office. Our 800 sf of garage and shop is crammed floor to ceiling. I don't even know what the hell all of it is.

[Kael]

That is seriously cool. The smallest apartment I've stayed in was bigger than 400 sq. feet, but it felt quite cramped thanks to tight, turning corridors and low ceilings. It's pretty amazing the difference a few design changes can make to the feel of a space.

[livius drusus]

I think that is a really neat living space, although I'm not sure how it is especially green.
I'm not sure either, unless they mean just because it's small and therefore less prone to waste. The only thing they specifically mentioned as green is how the windows keep the house light without needing much in the way of electricity.

I think it is interesting to think about how many, if not most, Americans have a great need for space that seems to have increased over the past couple of generations. My parents have increased the heated/cooled/enclosed square footage of the house I grew up in several times over the years, with the largest increase being when only the two of them live there. Yet originally my great-grandparents and their five children lived there quite happily, especially because they moved there from a three room house down the road that I would estimate as being no more than 500 square feet.

Why is that?
Good question. White flight, the middle class boom, the dawn of suburbia are part of it; obviously you have a lot more room to spread out once you leave the city and house size, like lawns, is a class indicator.

There's a whole architectural movement advocating a return to smaller spaces. There was a great article (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/91feb/9102house.htm) in The Atlantic a few years back about it. Part two (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/91feb/9102house2.htm) addresses the "bulking out" of the American home.

Shea's experience is certainly on trend:

In a consumer society, houses not only shelter people but also are warehouses full of furniture, clothes, toys, sports equipment, and gadgets. It is a measure of the growth of consumerism that one of the things that immediately dates a house of the 1920s is how little storage space it has. In the 1920s a bedroom cupboard three feet wide was considered suffcient; today most bedrooms have a wall-to-wall closet, and master bedrooms are incomplete if they do not have an extended walk-in closet, often grandiloquently called a dressing room. There may be fewer people in the American house of the nineties, but there are a lot more things.

[LadyShea]

The funny thing is I CAN live with less shit, and I CAN live in a smaller space (I have done so), but I seem to have a tendency to fill the space I am in. I am like a goldfish

[wildernesse]

I am certainly in the too-big home, too. Our apartment is over 1000 sq ft for two people and two cats, and one bedroom and walk-in closet are used for storage of things we don't use regularly. We have a bathroom just for our cats. This was the case for our townhouse in NC, too, which was even larger.

I think I have made some posts about being a little bit overwhelmed about having so much stuff/need for storage space before, so this is something that I struggle with a lot. Is my life really better off because I have so many possessions (and in many ways, options and choices)?

I don't know, but I suspect not. And yet I don't want to not have what I have.

Anywho, in the spirit of the thread, here are some fun links that make me smile. I don't know if they have been posted here before. And, LadyShea, I would love to live in an RV--I love living out of a bike trailer or a backpack--but RA is SO not in line with this.

Tumbleweed Houses (http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/)
Ross Chapin designs (http://www.rosschapin.com/Plans/plans.html)

[Qingdai]

I lived in a 1951 500 square foot apartment, that had way more storage space than my 800 square foot space, built about 1970. It was hard to move in there.

It seems some older places have longer kitchen cabinets here.

We expand to whatever space we're in. If we have to be hunter gathers, we'll pare our stuff down.

I know I have a lot of stuff to store because I inherited a lot from my stuff collecting family. In one way our ancestors had it easier, because they got less stuff from their ancestors.

That apartment was pretty cool, all the reflective surfaces were probably the energy saver, plus not having to heat a larger area.

[beyelzu]

I think that is a really neat living space, although I'm not sure how it is especially green.
I'm not sure either, unless they mean just because it's small and therefore less prone to waste. The only thing they specifically mentioned as green is how the windows keep the house light without needing much in the way of electricity.

I think it is interesting to think about how many, if not most, Americans have a great need for space that seems to have increased over the past couple of generations. My parents have increased the heated/cooled/enclosed square footage of the house I grew up in several times over the years, with the largest increase being when only the two of them live there. Yet originally my great-grandparents and their five children lived there quite happily, especially because they moved there from a three room house down the road that I would estimate as being no more than 500 square feet.

Why is that?
Good question. White flight, the middle class boom, the dawn of suburbia are part of it; obviously you have a lot more room to spread out once you leave the city and house size, like lawns, is a class indicator.

There's a whole architectural movement advocating a return to smaller spaces. There was a great article (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/91feb/9102house.htm) in The Atlantic a few years back about it. Part two (http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/91feb/9102house2.htm) addresses the "bulking out" of the American home.

Shea's experience is certainly on trend:

In a consumer society, houses not only shelter people but also are warehouses full of furniture, clothes, toys, sports equipment, and gadgets. It is a measure of the growth of consumerism that one of the things that immediately dates a house of the 1920s is how little storage space it has. In the 1920s a bedroom cupboard three feet wide was considered suffcient; today most bedrooms have a wall-to-wall closet, and master bedrooms are incomplete if they do not have an extended walk-in closet, often grandiloquently called a dressing room. There may be fewer people in the American house of the nineties, but there are a lot more things.

Well the smaller space is going to be much cheaper to heat and cool then a larger space. Also the resources needed to create the larger space in the first place. I think the fact that it is a small space is what makes it green, not that it is a particularly green small space.

[livius drusus]

Yeah but every cubbyhole apartment in that whole tenement is green by that standard. The story implied that his modifications in particular were green.

[beyelzu]

Indeed, but if you make it so you don't want to move on to a bigger place. but yeah, it didn't look that green to me.

[Demimonde]

We live in an itty bitty bungalow which I love. Only 1000 square feet, which is tiny by Texas standards for sure. I love it though. Stuff accumulation is still some what of a challenge but being cheap makes it easier. We have only one bathroom to clean, two closets to clutter, but I am grateful for the tons of windows we have in every room which gives the house a very open feeling.

I know that some day I will have every room just right. It's like living in a puzzle box.

[Dingfod]

Inscrutable!

[Caligulette]

Yeah but every cubbyhole apartment in that whole tenement is green by that standard. The story implied that his modifications in particular were green.

Yes, this is what bothers me about it, I think. All those tracks and wheels, extra walls and etc - I am failing to see how it's green. Sleek, ok, but I question the green. Plus, of course, the "green" (or whatever various colors of HK money) involved really reduces the potential. This is not an apartment which could be mass produced, which cuts down on the green-ness of it. If everything has to be custom, you lose a lot of the advantage.

I love teensy spaces, and to be honest, we're having a bit of trouble adjusting to the suddenly huge space of this apartment (750 square feet). We've both been looking at wee tiny spaces for a while and really love them.

There's this one site (tinyapartment.com or somesuch) where they have contests for bets this and that and I remember initially liking this one apartment but then the interview with the guy (who'd bought a pile of books from which to make a coffee table, so you know he's on my list, or would be if I could remember his name) made me hate him and the previously cool apartment. I think what got me there was that rather than work with what he actually had and needed and letting the style grow organically, he opted to gather in yet another thing (and that it was books being viewed solely as objects is objectionable to me at my very core). There were no other books in the place.

[Qingdai]

Thanks to lovely Listing, I found this gem. Although it's got no attached bathrooms.

Free Spirit Spheres (http://tinyhouseblog.com/dome/free-spirit-spheres/)

[livius drusus]

OMG that is so, so, so cute. For camping.

[Qingdai]

Or rolling at giants.

[wildernesse]

OMG, WANT.

[LadyShea]

YouTube - Modern hobbit house: a tiny cob home

The people building this Cobb house seem to be pretty intelligent, I like this from the lady

I think we acquire things because we think they'll entertain us or improve the quality of our life, which is a mistake

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.