NYC Awards Micro Apartment Design

 

Apartment sizes are coming down all over the world as space shortages and increased demand for city living clash.  So, all of us involved in high density real estate needs to improve smaller living spaces to make future [micro] inner city apartments decent places to live.

Obviously, New York is a great example of the problem with estimates that there is a shortfall of at least 800,000 apartments right now.  So NYC ran a competition for better micro apartment design with the winner getting to design and build a 55 apartment tower on city-owned land composed entirely of micro-units.  Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says that it will be the first in a wave of tiny apartments aimed at addressing the city’s shortage of studio and one-bedroom apartments.

The winning team, a partnership between Monadnock Development, Brooklyn-based nARCHITECTS and a nonprofit that serves creative arts professionals, the Actors Fund Housing Development Corporation, created the design shown below.  Organisers said that 'small as it might be, the winning design was chosen for the way that it maximised light, airiness and storage space through the use of 9-foot-high ceilings, large windows, lofts and juliet balconies'.

You can read more about the competition and award in this New York Times article by Vivien Yee.


Francesco ...