How Small Would You Live? Making Room in NYC

How big is your current home?  How small do you think you could live?

My local NBC affiliate picked this piece up from WNBC last night and I had to share it. Last July, NYC major Michael Bloomburg announced a competition to design "micro-housing" called adAPT. Construction on the winning design will begin in Kipps Bay later this year.

A legal apartment in New York is 400 square feet. These micro-houses are 250-370 square feet and aren't legal, but per the reporter, that will be changed. The Museum of the City of New York has a demo of a unit on display right now and this WNYC reporter toured it:

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Here are some still shots from the demo unit. In the living space, a murphy bed comes out of the wall over the sofa and the TV wall slides open to reveal more storage.  The orange boxes on the right after filing cabinets and next to them is a desk that swings down from the storage unit.  More seating is nested inside the ottomon.

There's a small closet with a bar that swings down to a comfortable height.  The kitchen has a folding table that rolls out of the way.

The bathroom would be considered a nice one for almost any size apartment.

Want to see more?  Check out these pictures of the demo with people in it and this article about the adAPT competition. This article also shows some micro-housing in other cities.

Here's a fantastic (and long) piece about housing in NYC an why the "Making Room" exhibit is important.

How small would you go?

All photos by John Halpern