
One Room Configured 24 Ways - kalvin
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/garden/15hongkong.html
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iseff
Did anyone else look at that collection of CDs and think, "I could fit those
in a couple inches on a hard drive?"

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misterbwong
I noticed that too but the article addressed it by saying:

"Mr. Chang, a technophile who checks on his apartment with a Web cam while
traveling, refuses to switch to MP3 files because he loves CD cases and
liners."

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akd
It's why I keep my old vinyl even though I've downloaded the albums on FLAC.
The old album art is incredibly detailed at 12x12 inches and an album cover
like "Blue," a patchouli-infused sleeve ("Like a Prayer"), or a working zipper
to Mick Jagger's leather pants ("Sticky Fingers") are all fun parts of the
experience of owning a historical artifact.

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jcl
Reminds me of the fold-away apartment Bruce Willis occupies in "The Fifth
Element".

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raamdev
The first thing that came to mind when I read the title were the movies Cube
and Hyper Cube.

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kqr2
The architect in the article Gary Chang has also written a book on his
reconfigurable apartment:

[http://www.mccmcreations.com/books/architecture/my%2032m%20a...](http://www.mccmcreations.com/books/architecture/my%2032m%20apartment/main.htm)

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gibsonf1
It is a great concept, but the negative is that it is fantastically expensive,
probably at the top end of per s.f. costs anywhere.

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jerf
Yes, but this is the sort of thing a market would be good at, finding some
optimal tradeoffs between cost and flexibility... if a market could be
created. I don't know inner cities well enough to know whether that is true.

If we're going to cite problems, mine would be that the concept probably only
works with one person. With any more, everybody has to coordinate what "rooms"
are available and the dependency graphs could be quite odd. Can I cook
breakfast if you're sleeping in? Can I get to the shower if you're watching a
movie? I would expect that even two people would be significantly
inconvenienced and three might just lock up due to contention. Smaller,
dedicated rooms may suck, but at least they are reasonably independent.

But hey, for one guy, awesome. It's certainly in the running for "ultimate
bachelor pad".

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hollerith
Yeah, but you can put two of these multi-use spaces next to each other. His
and hers :)

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gravitycop
This is important. If this were motorized, it might enable software-
controllable living- and working- spaces with random, dynamic
reconfigurability.

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diN0bot
haha. i can imagine the fights kids would get into trying to get the largest
room or move the bear over the middle line (a la the movie brazil).

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jaytee_clone
Brilliant. Borrowing storage idea from book/CD inventories I have have seen.

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rokhayakebe
377 square feet. I still cannot understand why some people get 5k square feet
for a family of 4.

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patio11
377 sq feet is luxurious.

My apartment is smaller and my friends who live in Nagoya refer to it as
Castle Patrick. (Half a decade of living in ~120 sq feet will alter your
perceptions a bit.)

(P.S. And they wonder why I won't move to Nagoya.)

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rokhayakebe
This goes out to show that we always take more than we need. I never lived in
120 sq feet apartment but I am sure I could manage.I hope in a near future we
will live in smaller places designed to fit our needs. But I must admit that I
would not mind being surrounded by acres of grass.

