I’m surprised I missed this earlier since I love this type of thing, but below is a nicely edited video from Gizmodo showing the 420 square feet apartment of TreeHugger.com CEO Graham Hill. It’s cool how they fit in the claimed 8 rooms using moving walls, floor-to-ceiling storage, and clever furniture and appliances: living room, office, bedroom, guest bedroom, dining room, bathroom, kitchen, and I guess they’re counting the closet as a room? You really have to see it to understand.
I like this concept, especially when efficient use of space allows you to be able to afford to live in the heart of a good city where you can do much of your “living” outside in parks, cafes, bars, and restaurants. I’ve seen the moving wall before inside this Hong Kong apartment (only 344 sf), and much of the furniture is from Resource Furniture (eek, that fancified murphy bed costs $12,000). Installing solar panels (on the window shades?) with battery storage is a nice touch, and I’d consider the portable induction burners and combo microwave/induction oven for my own place.
More on this apartment: LifeEdited, New York Times
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Well it’s very interesting and maybe I’d be up for this if I was really short on cash or a little younger. But personally I put a lot of value on not having to move walls around every day, not having to unstrap my bed, and not feeling like I’m in an airplane when I use the bathroom.
I think this makes more sense if you are the sort of person that is rarely home… then it gives you a great location to house all of your stuff, and you know you’ll be able to stretch out again in a bit.
While this is a neat concept, the problem is that to create an apt like this costs $$$$, which then defeats the purpose. If you can afford to build an apt like that, then you might as well buy a bigger apt for the same amount of money.
When this kind of concept becomes more popular and cost-efficient, then I think we can see real changes in the apts. So until prices come down, this is not for the masses.
For the young and healthy. If you find yourself needing crutches or a walker or a wheelchair you’re doomed.
I love it! I’d like to see a family of four with all the kids’ toys in one of these set-ups! Or perhaps I’ll just wait until my daughter is older 😉
I’m with David. As a student I used a sofa bed in my very small, very minimalist apartment. While converting it was simple, it did mean I had to pull out my comforter and pillows from a closet, and remove whatever was in front of the couch. Doing that on a daily basis gets old fast. In the end it usually stayed a bed. If I had to install burners every time I wanted to cook, I would never cook again!
That said, I love the projector screen and several other ‘now-and-then’ items. I wach TV once a month, if that, but it takes up very visible space in my living room 100% of the time. In the meantime I watch Netflix on my laptop 🙂
Even for someone who need a care taker, the small living place concept would enable the same space being leverage more…a.k.a split the place with care taker?
For the all the great thought and planning that went into this, how did they put the living room power receptacle in such an awful spot?
Thanks for sharing this video! It was fascinating. Gizmodo always has interesting stuff and I missed this video too. I have always enjoyed reading about micro-homes but I have never seen one that is so polished and perfected. Obviously this takes a lot of money, but it is what someone desires to do…more power to them. There were so many things in this video that I had never even heard of. Very informative and well-made.
Theres some nice designs in there. I think this is particuarly useful for places like NYC or Hong Kong or Tokyo where space is a high cost premium. It seems like in NYC a 800 sq ft apartment costs $1M so if you can manage to live within 400 sq ft then you could cut your housing costs by $500k. That makes spending $12k on a fancy bed more practical. Course I wouldn’t feel any need to do anything like this in the suburbs where a 1500 sq ft house costs $150k. The costs don’t justify cramming people in such small spaces.
When I was in college I had a 9×9 room and shared spaces. I’d have appreciated some better use of that 9×9 room. A murphy bed and a pull out desk would have been great.
Wow!! This apartment is amazing!! Graham even thought about sound reduction, which is super important when you want a private conversation and have company over. Though, I do love the concept, I agree with everyone else. This type of apartment seems to be better suited for young singles who are financially able to buy all the furniture that would be needed.
Thanks for sharing this along!
These are always amazing designs and look like awesome places to live. The main problems are that it would be incredibly expensive to do this to your existing apartment. Everything in there is custom and when you’re not buying off the shelf, you pay a heck of a lot more. Furthermore unless you own the apartment, you’ll have a really tough time taking it with you. What if you landlord changes or you get a job and have to relocate? That’s a lot of investment into a place that you could be leaving within a year. Finally, you have to consider if you’d be allowed to do such heavy modifications to your living space. Again, if you own the place that’s not a problem but often apartments have at least the normal kitchen appliances and they barely like you putting holes in walls for paintings.
Jesus how much did this apt cost?! Way to live in a small space for a cost of 50 or 100k!
City living the difference between a 350 and 500 sq foot place could easily be over 100 grand.
According to Zillow, in SoHo the average price per square foot is $1,651. The goal of this apartment was to “fit 650 ft of utility in 420”. So that’s a potential difference in purchase price of $380,000. This is just rough number.
Also, I’m sure if you put this sort of furniture in, you’d be able to recoup some part of it when you sell especially if you live in a trendy area like SoHo. I’m not saying you’ll get full value though, although this specific place does have a lot of publicity.
I did this in my apartment. However, i just slept on the floor. Well a yoga mat with a pillow. I made it for one year. It was great. Never had any issues. I just rolled up the”bed” each morning.
Met a girl. Fell in love. This monk life was for me. It just never let me become a father.
We live in a 930 SF apartment and we have to maximize every nook and cranny. We hardly have any unnecessary furniture to minimize the clutter.
I don’t mind it as much because it means that i have less to clean. The only bad thing is having to deal with neighbors (especially if you have bad neighbors like we do). Also, if the surrounding area you live in has alot of free parks, natural areas, free swimming pools, etc. That means a big difference!
I’m putting this on my Amazon wish list.
Cool vid but Horrible music!!