Small houses, alcoves and shelters: tiny places where the only big thing is the ambition. Temporary and multifunctional urban rooms, dreamy children refuges, mountain huts, and so on. When walls shrink, architects and designers take the challenge seriously, offering spaces that are more cozy and thrilling each time. Here a selection of ten projects that make a virtue of necessity.
Best of #small spaces
A selection of ten architecture and design projects in which large sizes aren’t necessarily better.
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- 05 November 2016
– The Norvegian studio KOKO architects designed Skåpet Mountain Lodges in Soddatjørn, featuring contemporary, easy to maintain and use ready-made factory modules.
– Introduced over ten years ago in Korea, the “glamping” concept fuses nature, ecological values, comfort and glamourous design. ArchiWorkshop reinterprets the formula in the pinewoods near Seoul.
– PHTAA studio designed a tiny tailor shop downtown Bangkok inspired by weaving textures, full of strategic openings to catch the attention of the passersby.
– The temporary meeting point, designed by Eriksen Skajaa Architects together with a group of local youths is the first of a series of temporary installations in Ski, Norway.
– Following their passion for kids, Mode:lina Architekci designed a café entirely dedicated to children and their parents, with hidden niches and strong acustic panels.
– In the London zone of Old Street, Shoreditch, Asif Khan has created what he, translating directly from the Japanese shinrin yoku, calls forest bathing.
– Architect Silvia Allori renewed a Seventies apartment in Florence, playing with rythms created by white volumes, niches and steps filled with decoration elements.
– Position Collective designed a tiny apartment in Budapest, aiming to create a light and highly customizable space, with maximum comfort for a short stay.
– Hidden in a forest near Bergen, Tubakuba is a wooden pavilion, a room with a view built by Bergen School of Architecture’ students lead by Espen Folgerø.
– OFIS architects and AKT II with thirteen students faced the challenges of designing an innovative yet practical shelter to meet the needs of the extreme alpine climate, also investigating the symbolic aspect of the bivouac.
Top: Asif Khan, MINI Living — your side of town, London Design Festival, 2016