
Hong Kong architect turns shoebox apartment into 24 rooms - newsit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-iFJ3ncIDo
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tibbon
The most difficult thing that I find about many of the really cool tiny
apartment layouts is that it is REALLY hard to replicate similar in poorly
laid out apartments. I could do wonders with a square 300sq/ft apartment, but
some of the apartments we have here in Boston have such weird layouts (pipes
in random places, poorly placed doors & windows, strange walls sticking out
randomly) that it makes it really hard to do.

This is highly inspirational however.

~~~
kaiuhl
This is a lie that I think is told in every IKEA showroom. 300 square feet is
rather functional given the space is well laid out i.e. long and narrow
without much obstructing the walls.

The trouble is, it's difficult to find an ideal small space. I've lived in
under 300 square feet for over two years in the past, half of the time with a
roommate. A single misplaced pipe or radiator can screw up the possibility of
a space entirely, and too square an area can produce too much walkway and less
"effective" square footage.

~~~
tibbon
Exactly. I've often thought at Ikea that I wish I could just live in one of
their showrooms.

The real irony here is that half of these poor layouts were
architects/builders/remodelers trying to be smart and fit as many people into
a space as possible and make it so that people would fit into less space.
However, due to them doing a really poor job at this when these places were
built (or redone) then you end up needing more square footage to live than you
would if it was properly laid out.

I'm totally happy living in less than 350sq/ft, yet I end up looking at
apartments closer to 600sq/ft generally due to poor layouts.

~~~
adnam
I don't think architects necessarily want to play 'room tetris', it's just
what happens when you have property developers on one side, and building
regulations on the other.

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theblackbox
"Autowash!?"

</Obligatory Fifth Element Quote!>

I highly recommend a hammock to anyone that is wanting to save space. I slept
in one for 2+ years, and haven't found anything as comfortable since. It takes
a little while to get used to, but it's great for your back - despite what you
may think.

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varjag
Also, with all that pushing and pulling it doubles as fitness center.

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philk
This is incredibly cool.

Of course, you'd have to put stuff back in its proper place every time
otherwise the system would quickly break down.

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metachris
Very cool indeed. Too bad you will need a lot of money to create a home like
that -- i imagine it'd cost at least 10 grand to renovate a home like that,
and countless hours of hardware hacking :)

~~~
philk
True. Although with HK property prices I imagine that it's quite a good deal.

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brown9-2
Here is a book by Gary Chang on the same topic, sounds like it touches on the
30 year history of the apartment itself:

 _Intriguing as it is brilliant, architect Gary Changs 30 year-long project
involves a continual experiment with his small apartment in a Hong Kong
building block. Partly biographical though the way that it documents specific
changes, needs and desires, it is also an ongoing study of what he calls the
extreme conditions of Tight-Space a global phenomenon in which increasingly
people live in high-density, hyper-urbanised environments. Photographs of
various stages of the apartment are presented throughout and accompanied by
plans, sketches, writings and observations._

[http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Chang-32m2-Apartment-
Transformati...](http://www.amazon.com/Gary-Chang-32m2-Apartment-
Transformation/dp/9889984261/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1272269769&sr=8-1)

~~~
GFischer
Hah... he thinks 32m2 is small? Try 16m2 (I'm sadly actually living in a 16m2
right now)

~~~
blasdel
He grew up in the same apartment with his parents, three sisters, _and a
tenant_.

~~~
GFischer
That's probably unbeatable :) (ok, short of India probably, and I don't want
to try and beat it).

~~~
stcredzero
The like and worse happens in the US all the time. Some migrant workers live
in higher densities.

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froo
Its definitely a great little place, although I think it would be unbelievably
cooler if the sliding rooms were automated/motorized in some way.

Just imagine it, you "leave" a room so it starts to pack itself up and
depending on which way you turn, it starts to unpack the other room, giving it
more of a organic freeflowing form.

~~~
philk
Yeah, although if it was motorized you'd go to sleep one night and wake up
sandwiched between the bathroom and the library the next morning thanks to a
bug in the software.

~~~
thomaspaine
A lot of libraries I've seen in universities have mechanized sliding shelves.
They have sensors to ensure that if something is in between them, they won't
close. Still though, it's easy to imagine someone getting crushed by their bed
because a sleepy programmer made an off-by-one error at 4am. Guess I should
probably go to bed...

~~~
eru
The systems they use for controlling the doors of trains and buses seem quite
forgiving. (At least in western Europe. Turkish door closers seem more
determined.)

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jcl
Commentary on the New York Times article posted last year:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=435034>

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khafra
Life imitates 1938 Disney--cool that someone finally got it right; I wonder if
he can modularize and sell his system.
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9p8iaKVOAw>).

~~~
eggoa
And Disney imitates 1920 Buster Keaton.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgpQ-K7n2uc>

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louislouis
This could only work for people living on their own. What's gona happen if one
person wants to watch tv and another wants to shower? Also the tinted windows
would get very annoying after like 1 day, they would make you feel sleepy.
Very cool design though.

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tbrooks
This is a great example of someone embracing constraints and thinking of
creative solutions.

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gnubardt
Article in the times this weekend about a similarly sized (though differently
decorated) apartment in manhattan.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/realestate/25habi.html>

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zoba
You would think they would choose a color other than yellow for the windows
since it just makes the Hong Kong haze look worse... Or perhaps the windows
aren't tinted...

~~~
rbanffy
It makes the HK have look good, actually.

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duck
Somewhat reminds me of the small house movement in the states:
<http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/>

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mixmax
It would be interesting to try this concept out on liveaboard boats. They have
much the same problems of not enough space.

~~~
tezmc
I think if you did that you might end up with problems with weight
distribution, depending on where the walls were. You could end up trying to
walk around a boat tilted over at 30 degrees from the weight :)

~~~
mixmax
That was my fist concern as well :-) It could probably be solved with proper
fasteners and thinking about weight distribution though. Moving heavy stuff
from port to starboard might be a problem but moving stuff from front to back
not so much.

~~~
jerf
Or possibly clever counterweighting under the floor, if you have the floor
space. Old-school mechanical linkage might not work very well (too complicated
to get right, probably), but a few sensors and actuators could do the job very
well, or I suppose as much as it offends my computer nature a manual level
somewhere could work too. (But _soooo_ much less cool.) I don't think this
could solve the entire problem, you'd still have to consider weight
distribution, but it would free you up a bit. Trying to do something like this
involves enough constraints as it is, anything you can do to relax them will
help.

~~~
epochwolf
Simple mechanical systems that solve interesting problems are far more elegant
in my mind than a computerized version. :)

~~~
lallysingh
Depends on how many things you'd want to link to a few counterweights. A few
rfids on some objects and a couple of readers for positioning could do all the
linking work you need.

~~~
gridspy
Four linked ballast water tanks (Port Aft, Port Front, Starboard Aft,
Starboard front) with pumps between them would probably be sufficient and
would be much easier to place and maintain than other moving counterweights.

~~~
lallysingh
Yeah, your idea is much cooler than mine.

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tzury
He redefines the IKEA zen.

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auston
Hey I just tweeted this the other day!

<http://twitter.com/bunsen/status/12555413021>

