This apartment renovation project is conceived as a prototype for micro-living in housing stock with constrained floor areas but traditionally generous ceiling heights. A study in materiality, transparency and enclosure, the project re-frames the debate about how quantity versus quality of space can be measured and valued, and what that means for future city living. 

The client approached us with a desire to transform a cramped one bedroom flat into an open plan arrangement filled with light and warmth. Poky and uncomfortable cellular rooms are replaced by a generous multi functional living space arranged around a translucent sleeping ‘pod’ inspired by Japanese Shoji screens. Offering a walk-in wardrobe, a king size bed, a generous kitchen with integrated appliances, a six-seat dining table you can walk around, a 1.5m long walk-in shower, a living space with a magnificent bay window, and dedicated loft storage, all in only 29 m2, a delightful apartment has been created. 

Period properties are typically underexploited when converted to smaller unit accommodation, showing little or no imagination in how constraints can be turned into opportunities. By cleverly stacking accommodation in a single height volume, additional floor area is conjured to provide a real sense of luxury and design quality in just 29 square metres. The resulting furniture object creates a ‘sleeping cocoon’ that animates the living space through different configurations, playfully exploring transparency, enclosure, and illumination whilst also providing an intimate and sensual retreat within. Open or closed, illuminated or opaque, surface and volume are brought to life in use, acting as both a lantern to the wider room, or a mezzanine with intimate views to the street. 

Good design can offer more with less. Building smaller increases affordability, reduces material resource and promotes innovation. Emerging technologies and changing social patterns are also facilitating compact living. The rise of sharing and digital economies reduce our demand for private physical space. A commitment to environmental sustainability is increasing the scrutiny of our lifestyle ‘footprint’. By designing compact, a greater attention is also directed towards material qualities. These tactile and emotive spatial opportunities are explored in the design of the Shoji Apartment. 

Walls and ceiling are finished in soft clay plaster to create a unifying sense of natural warmth to the space. Birch plywood was selected for kitchen and joinery elements, panelled from floor to ceiling to accentuate the height of the space. Both provide balance to the more clinical industrial finishes of the polycarbonate screens with powder coated aluminium framing that structures the sleeping pod. A linoleum acoustic floor is practical for spills, soft underfoot and ties into the natural palette. Acoustic insulation are added to floor and ceiling, and windows upgraded, to better insulate the apartment from the elements.