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Subscribe to RSSIn response to skyrocketing rents in New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed a challenge to the city's best architects: to design a space no bigger than 350 square feet into a comfortable and affordable micro-apartment. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.
New Yorkers are famous for their teeny apartments, but a new trend in dwelling seeks to transform those tiny spaces into big assets. They're called "micro apartments," and they make a few hundred square feet feel like over a thousand.
Fold-away beds, moveable walls, and coffee tables that expand to seat 10 for dinner are just a few of the clever touches that transform these shoe boxes into veritable mini-mansions.
"The main idea is to get double, triple, quadruple use from every space," Graham Hill, founder of the sustainable living site TreeHugger.com and the design company Life Edited, told Fair Companies in a video interview.
With rising costs of living and a desire to limit one's environmental impact at top of mind, living simpler, and smaller, has taken off in cities around the world, especially ones known for their high rents. San Francisco recently passed an ordinance allowing for apartments to be built to 220 square feet. And "micro units" have also long been a Tokyo and Hong Kong mainstay.
For his part, Hill bought a 420-square-foot studio in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood and renovated it into a concept lab for tiny living, with boutique hotel style appointments, a home theater, and a pair of drop-down bunk beds for guests.
Feeling more like 1,000+ square feet, it boasts a kitchen with top-loading fridge, freezer and dishwasher. The stove top is three induction burners stacked in a drawer. To boil a pot of water for pasta, for example, you pull the burners out and plug them in, then stow them away after the linguine is served.
Hill's design was one of 34 submitted to New York Mayor Bloomberg's adAPT NYC contest, which tasked teams with coming up with plans for 250-370 square foot apartments designed for 1-2 person households.
The young professionals who constitute the city's lifeblood often find themselves priced out of New York City altogether or living in an outer-borough garret. One-third of the city's households comprise of just one individual, a number projected to rise to 46 percent in Manhattan, where one-bedrooms routinely rent for north of $2,700 a month.
New York City Mayor's Office
A rendering of the "micro unit" apartment design that won New York Mayor Bloomberg's adAPT NYC contest Tuesday.
The winning design, announced Tuesday, will form the basis for a new apartment complex built in Kip's Bay at East 27th and 1st Avenue in Manhattan with 55 of the micro units. The apartments will be built prefabricated, and then stacked on top of each other and connected - structure, plumbing, electrical, and all - like LEGOs.
New York City Mayor's Office
The design is split up into a "toolbox" and "canvas" area, with essential living amenities in the first area, and a customizable living room/bedroom slot in the second.
Called "My Micro NY," the apartment's bedroom converts into the primary living space, and the hip, 10-foot ceiling design includes a 16-foot-long overhead loft space, Juliette balconies, a full-depth closet, full-height pull-out pantry, fridge and range.
The complex will include a garden, porch with picnic tables, lounge, laundry room, storage, bike room, and a small gym. Rents will be about $2,000 a month. Eleven of the 55 units will be reserved for households with incomes no greater than 80 percent of the area median income.
Undoubtedly there will be a waiting list to become one of the first to live in the tiny, mod apartments. If you want to see what one looks like right away though, you can visit the Museum of New York City where a model micro-apartment is currently on display in the exhibit, "Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers." You can walk around inside the unit and even try your hand at folding up and down the various pieces of hide-away furniture.
New York Mayor Bloomberg said Friday on WOR radio that he lived in an apartment for 10 years as small as the micro-units the city plans to build. His bed was a convertible couch, and he recalled it was a "pain" removing the pillows and making the bed, and not nearly as convenient as the sleek Murphy bed used in the design for the new units.
"New York’s ability to adapt with changing times is what made us the world’s greatest city – and it’s going to be what keeps us strong in the 21st Century," said Mayor Bloomberg in a press release.
The AP contributed to this report.
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lol, it is all a scam. Shoot living cleaner and simpler is suppose to be cheaper. Not more expensive than a average apartment. ha ha stupid people buy these things. Sure come on I'll give you a small space with some gimmicks and charge you your soul ha ha ha.
If you think it is a new concept , go to Cuba. Many lucky families had a home garage to make an apartment for their sons family.This is my wife case with her sister. Somebody asked to me to help him to do the design for a 5 feet width apartment. And I have a friend who lives with his girl friend in a closet. Somebody offered me an 1-1/2 room apartment and then, it was a room and a walking closet.
That's probably why the traffic between Cooba and Miami is mostly one way.
Wow, I have a 3 bdrm 1500sq foot house, with a garage on an acre. $850/month just outside Nashville. It's just me and my son. I cannot imagine why someone would live like that. Whatever blows your skirt up I guess.
Those secret, powerful, and unseen people who are running the world are still at it to make America more like Great Britain - a society of super rich who reside in vast castles, no middle class, and the super poor who are squeezed into closets.
Worry not, dear poor - God is watching them and they shall not endure.
Rejoice that he made you poor that you might be made wise.
I think during the past years from 1959 the Cubans developed the ability to look for these spaces. Many people converted a garage , in an apartment. It is less than 350 square feet,and live comfortable.
What's wrong with the "outer-boroughs" ? Many people actually prefer to live in the other four boroughs. More Space. More Freedom. Less Crime. More Safety. And a better place for a family.
(And this is a teenager saying this...)
Whats wrong with it in their opinion is that you burn too much gas and waste too many resources getting to and from work. They need all the good little slaves to live within walking distance of their jobs so the precious resources can be conserved for the super rich. The best part is that you will be too busy working your butt off so you can afford your shoebox apartment and be too busy to ever notice that there is a whole beautiful world out there beyond the bridges and tunnels of NYC.
First of all they stolethis idea from Gary Chang an architect that first developed this idea in Hong Kong and second these guys really should give credit where credit is due and not say they thought of this first because they stole this idea just like the wright bothers they were not the first ones tho fly it was a brazilian. Stop stealing from other and thin of your own @!$%#.
Beginning in 1947 Levitt & Sons began building slab-constructed one-story homes of between 500 – 800 sq ft. to house the returning GIs and their families. Levittowns, located in NY, PA, NJ and other states, became quite popular. They provided satisfactory living quarters for whole families. Some Levittown houses are still occupied by the original owners or descendents of them. Houses were not always as large as they are today. I imagine many New Yorkers would be quite happy with tiny apartments. One of the draws of NYC is that there is so much to do outside one’s own four walls. Not my cup of tea nor for many of you but different strokes for different folks.
If you're stupid enough to pay that tiny crap you deserve put to death
Put to death? It's that person's money and that person's choice of domicile. It doesn't impact you. Try to be more charitable, dear.
Sounds like you need to get rid of some hate.
Come on New York what is wrong with you? These so called apartments are a joke and the price to rent them will be outrageous. New Yorkers get wise and leave the Big Apple go the Southwest where you can actually have lots of space at affordable prices not roach boxes.
Isn't traffic bad enough in LA without inviting 10 million more people to live in the area? :)
TexMarine didn't mean LA. Los Angeles is not the Southwest, it is the Pacific Coast. He meant Arizona, NM and other places like that.
@Carla Pope,
I think Cleaning lady and others are right. Your son was renting a closet. When the movers were putting our furniture in our newly constructed building (10+years ago), one of the guys asked if he could he rent my walk-in closet. It is big enough for a twin bed and a night stand or single dresser to fit nicely. He laughed it off but.... Anyway, I have 3 bedrooms and 2baths. My master hold a kingsize bedroom set (not just the bed) and a bistro table for when we want to hide from the kids. The second bathroom is our ensuite and we have private parking. Maybe when I was single and childless, one of those apartments would have been nice but certainly not now. When at last we house shopped and I was so disappointed. I just began thanking God 'cause I didn't know we had it so good. By the time we found all the things we needed which were basically what we already have minus a fireplace, a private yard & private washer/dryer, the homes were so far from the city (were we work) and/or so expensive that it just wasn't worth it. Suddenly sharing a patio, laundry room and community room (that you can rent for private parties)didn't seem so bad even without the fireplace. Plus, there wouldn't be a maintenance man to call. Anyway, Yeah, Carla's son was renting a closet; poor baby. Remember, in NY it can't be legally considered a bedroom if it doesn't have a window and a closet.
I live in a small house around 500 sq feet. It can be done, but you don't have a lot of room for stuff. So you have to watch what you buy. This house has two room's and small kitchen and bathroom. In 7 year's it will be paid off.
The next big thing, for only $1500 a month you can rent a cot in your cubicle at work! Don't worry, your employer will deduct the cost straight from your paycheck so you will never even miss the money. The company cafeteria will supply all of your processed food needs, the cost of which will be deducted as well. Don't worry, you will have enough left in your paycheck to take a cab for your once a month visit with your spouse who lives at a different company a few miles away. It's much better this way, you have less fights and are actually happy to see each other!
where would bloomberg put his gun....@!$%#.....
I imagine the mayor lives in a somewhat larger place.
Good one... And theres not enough room for his Big Gulp...
Up his ass.
Give me the fresh air of mountains and forests. I would suffocate in something like that.
All of this politics aside. I don't know why it has to do with this article about micro apartments in NYC. But going to the point. I have lived in a small apartment such as the ones they'll be building in NYC. Its in another state and I only paid 400 a month in rent. My queen sized bed nearly took one third of the space. But I'm a minimalist and don't need a lot of things in that tiny space so it was fine for me. However, for the same square footage in NYC, I don't want to spend two grand for that? No way!
I dont like small apts. so i say we ban them...
That is just crazy! 2k a month for something that tiny, I will stay here in Alabama where I have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house that is 1200 sq not including the yard and only pay $428 mortgage for it. You can have NYC and it little cramped prison cells.
I live in a 300 "sq ft" apartment. Look up Monolithic Domes for an Idea of the size and design. It is all inclusive, water, gas and electric. It comes with covered parking and only cost me $480 a month. I have lived here 3 years and will never move. I think the Idea is good except the problem is for the space in NY you would probably have to pay 2 grand...
These tiny apartments will soon be just as expensive as the others are now. It is a vicious cycle. No end to any of it because of greed.
PJ, if you don't allow supply and demand to be what sets the prices then you'll have chaos because if they are free then everyone will be demanding they get to live in an apartment. So how then would you decide, fairly, who gets to live in it if everyone could afford it at zero cost?
What if the rent is forced to be $500 instead of $0? Anyone who can afford $500+ will still fight over it so how do you still fairly choose who gets to live in it? The point is that you have to let the laws of supply and demand set the prices in order to at least minimize the demand in order to equalize with the supply. We know that if people have to live in downtown NY or LA or SF that you can't always just keep building more (you can demolish and sometimes build higher but lack of space means you can't build outward) so supply is relatively static. That means the only thing that can change is the demand, hence why costs go up.
Supply and demand dictates who can get what based on if they can pay for the supply. It's not greed. It ensures chaos doesn't ensue and that people can fairly get what they want. Merely demanding it is not sufficient; that's a socialist society to demand something and then get it for free. You have to work for it and if you work you get paid. Then you can buy things with the money you get paid. The more you earn the more you can buy.
The money these building owners get from the rent isn't pure profit either. They have to buy insurance; pay the exorbitant property taxes; pay for building repairs when the renters, who don't care about where they live, destroy the place while living there; pay for the units to be cleaned when the people kill each other; etc. It's a business yes, but it isn't pure profit. This isn't price gouging. That may go on but just because prices are high, especially higher than *you* think they should be, doesn't mean there is price gouging.
And if it makes you feel any better, many local governments around the country are beginning to implement Agenda 21. The end goal of the UN's Agenda 21 is to depopulate the Earth by killing the majority of the population. That way the people who are remaining can be consolidated into these "sustainable developments" and told how much energy they are allowed to use, where they can go (without cars, because they pollute), how to live, etc. It will all happen so that the government can say they are protecting the Earth from the dirty, leeching humans. They will be willing to kill humans to save the Earth. So when all the people die to ensure there will be only a small subset of the population, then we'll all be able to fit into the city centers because there won't be that many people left to worry about. There will be no cars. We'll all be given shelter by the government and bicycles to transport us. Personal property will cease to exist. Food will be provided by the government so it can be rationed out. Remember, we won't be allowed to waste any more; it kills the planet. Have fun.
Brandon you are spot on!!! Very few people even know about agenda 21. I am glad you posted this!!
Nutjobs.
What about building and safety codes? These conversions will allow more heating, electrical, plumbing, and additional occupancy not designed for? Fire exits, ventilation, power grid, water pressure, to name a few.
It's what New York needs. I've lived there and paid an obscene amount for my 21/2 room apartment, of course with my parents help, this was after graduating from college. I had a good job but still needed help in paying the rent in Manhattan's Grammacy Park area. Currently live on the North Jersey shore and have visited my old building. I was paying 2,500 a month but now the same place is 5k, needless to say how many people make that kind of money to afford to pay that monthly. New York being a world class city it's very expensive and out of the box thinking in how to make stylish, livable and affordable residences has to be done. It's not uncommon to see Condo, or Co-op's for sale where the price tag is a million dollars add the taxes, maintenance, etc. one would have to be making much more than many of us make. I know I may have gotten off but it's not uncommon to see one bedroom apartments in the city going for 5k to about 10k a month, I haven't seen any less than 2k in a very, very long time.
So this is what Americans have to look forward to as we continue to be squeeze into ever closer quarters in order to be planet-friendly as mandated by the government at the cost of our own comfort? Who the hell is willing to do this just because they want to "reduce their environmental impact"? Humans are more important than this planet. Anyone who believes in Agenda 21 can live in these things but they shouldn't make everyone else live with them. "Sustainable settlements" my ass.
And this is new? NYC is overpriced and undersized anyway. But I still love to visit there!!!
I have a small "aparmetn".The first room is just the bed,tv and a tiny closet.The second room is 2 small closets a shower the restroom and the washer and drier.It was made for a laundry/storage room at first.Yet I would like to know if I can contract someone in Houston Texas to do a Micro-aparment so I can have more space.Thanks