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Posts Tagged ‘Tiny’

Multimodal Micro-Homes: Tiny Dwellings Travel by Truck & Rail

13 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

ship modular multimodal dwelling

Designed around an aging shipyard and its crosscrossing maze of leftover railroad tracks, these series of expandable little dwellings can be rearranged or even moved entirely on demand. Each unit is small enough to fit multiple on a standard cargo truck, then undergoes a simple expansion once deployed on rails to create more living space.

shipyard compact kitchen chair

shipyard portable micro homes

Polish architecture students Tomasz Zablotny and Pawla Maszota are following in the footsteps of other great designers and speculators. The idea of a city on rails has origins both in conceptual architecture as well as science fiction, with authors like China Mieville imagining an entire world made up of ever-moving trains (Railsea).

shipyard site plan

shipyard modular units

shipyard expanding box home

Designed for a specific site in Gda?sk, Poland, the project could of course be expanded to other places, but begins with a real location that could use a productive urban intervention. The ease of mobility inherent in these units makes it possible to reconfigure them for events, creating clusters that in turn leave open spaces for gatherings, festivals or exhibitions.

shipyard plan section

shipyard expanding home

In the past two decades, the number of workers along the docks has dropped by 90%, from 20,000 to just 2,000, leaving plenty of space for such an influx of new inhabitation and activity.

shipyard exploded axon drawing

shipyard bathroom space

There are still some issues yet to be resolved, like indoor plumbing and electrical connections, but some of these (like showers) have already been considered, with auxiliary buildings to be created around this community. Should more permanent transformations ever be called for, the entire place essentially be packed up and moved along, traveling along the tracks or closed up and put back on trucks.

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Tiny Apartment Tricks: 13 Ideas for Ultra-Compact Spaces

16 Apr

[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

tiny apartment hammock 2

If you want to live in a tiny apartment without murdering your significant other or feeling like your home is a jail cell, you might want to employ a few of these clever small-space tricks, like roll-away closets, double-duty room dividers and multi-level built-ins. These organization ideas include everything from IKEA hacks to full-on remodels and even a hammock that takes up the entire second level of a studio space.

How to Fit An Apartment Into 182 Square Feet
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How do you cram an entire apartment worth of stuff, including two bicycles, into a 182-square-foot basement – making it comfortable enough for a 6’2” occupant? Engineer Steve Sauer took inspiration from boats when he designed the layout for his personal space, noting that the most important aspect of making it work is ensuring that everything has its place. Sauer split the space vertically in thirds to create a seated lounge area, an office and a lofted bedroom.

Studio with a Crawl-In Library

tiny apartments library

crawl in library

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Think you don’t have room for a library in your apartment? This imaginative remodel shows that pretty much anything is possible, even when you’re living in 240 square feet. Inspired by the cabinetry of furniture maker George Nakashima, the wood-paneled addition is built over the kitchen and includes a crawl-in, cubby-like library beside the bed.

Bed Nooks, Built-Ins and a Second-Floor Hammock

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Two students designed this 33-square-meter apartment to be as functional as possible with a few fun and unexpected tricks: a series of rolling modules in the living space that can be rolled together or apart to create custom couches, lounge areas or beds, and a hammock stretching across the space leading to the awkwardly shaped upper level. The slanted ceiling didn’t leave much room for furniture, so the hammock makes the space usable.

Lego-Like Tetran Cubes

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tiny apartments tetran cubes 1

Put your living space together like a set of Lego blocks, assembling just the right shapes to fit your home and lifestyle, with modules by Tetran. These storage cubes can be stacked and assembled in all sorts of ways to form the basis of couches, beds, side tables, desks, bookcases and practically any other kind of furniture you need.

Bed Stows Away Under the Kitchen Floor

tiny apartment roll away bed 3

Architects Marc Baillargeon and Julie Nabucet collaborated to convert what was once the master bedroom of a larger living space into a micro-apartment measuring just 130 square feet. The kitchen is elevated onto a platform that hides a roll-away bed, which can be partially pulled out for use as a couch. A coffee table hides under a counter when not in use, and the steps double as storage.

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Tiny Apartment Tricks 13 Ideas For Ultra Compact Spaces

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[ By Steph in Design & Fixtures & Interiors. ]

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Put a Miniature Diorama On It: Amazing Tiny Ring Box Art

12 Mar

[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

ring box art 1

A vendor at a market in Paris handed artist Talwst an antique ring box and said, ‘I want to see you do something with this.’ From that chance encounter has sprung an entire collection of tiny miniature scenes that fit inside these compact little containers, with minuscule figurines and painted backdrops replacing the expected jewels when you open the lids.

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The Toronto-based artist depicts everything from surreal scenes, like a couple and a snake on the moon in ‘Space Family Rothschild,’ to historic current events like the death of Michael Brown, in which a group of police officers shoot off their guns with cotton smoke.

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The humorous ‘Banksy Is Your Gran’ (top image) reveals the true identity of England’s most famous anonymous street artist, while ‘Errrbody loves McDonalds’ shows a horse and cart in the foreground with an incongruous fast food sign visible within the trees.

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ring box art 6

“I like to capture memories and fleeting moments,” says Tawlst. “They feel all the more moving because of their fugitive nature. I want the viewer to open the box and feel they have been transported to another world.”

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Herringbone House: Tiny Tokyo Residence Split into 7 Levels

29 Nov

[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

tiny house japan 1

Measuring just 280 square feet, this tiny house in Tokyo by architecture firm Flathouse includes a public biscuit shop on the first level and manages to fit a lot of function into an irregularly shaped footprint by taking advantage of vertical space. Built on a system of parallelograms that create a herringbone pattern both inside and out, the home has no interior walls, dividing the rooms with a series of staggered platforms instead.

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For privacy-obsessed Westerners, this may seem like a strange move, but interior walls aren’t seen as a necessary part of a home in many areas of Japan. In this case, eliminating these dividers keeps a small space open and encourages rapid movement from one area of the home to the next. The shop owner can quickly move from the personal areas of the home to serve a customer on the first floor, and back again.

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All levels are connected by a central staircase. The dining room, living area and private rooms are all set on small platforms with barely enough room for the furniture required in each. The shop and bathroom are tucked into a concrete basement level, while the rest of the home is lined in a light and airy larch plywood.

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This approach uses the full available height of the property, creating a comfortable space despite the restrictive dimensions of the plot, a common architectural challenge in Tokyo.

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Tiny Flip Books Filled with Secret Slots & Negative Spaces

19 Nov

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

flip book negative space

Pushing the limits of the traditional printing craft, these stunning little Japanese flip books illustrate the power of slicing, splicing, zooming and panning, all to create a series of vertigo-inducing effects and dizzying optical illusions.

gif dizzying flip books

Flipping through the pages of these creations of artist Mou Hitotsu reveals a series of hidden surprises, including embedded objects and stories that unfold in the negative space cut out progressively in sequential sheets of each volume.

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Some of these play into abstract and surreal short stories about planetary systems or biological processes while others are simply used to convey holiday-themed wishes.

flip book secret surprise

Via Colossal and spotted by Travelry during a book convention, there are a number of works in this series from JP Books, each one playfully using similar devices to tell different tales as the pages unfold.

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Bike in a Backpack Folds Up Tiny & Weighs Just 11 Pounds

15 Nov

[ By Steph in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

bike in a backpack 1

Dubbed ‘Impossible’ for its ability to pull off the seemingly unreachable goal of folding down so tiny it can fit inside a backpack, this electric bicycle can be carried virtually anywhere. The design is based around circles instead of a single horizontal girder to spread weight equally across the frame. While there are plenty of folding bike designs, few of them are quite as small and lightweight as the Impossible, which weighs in at less than 11 pounds.

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The seat and handlebars are set at similar heights so the front and rear wheels do equal work to bear the weight of the rider. Nearly the entire bike is made of carbon fiber to keep the weight as low as it can be, with a steel connecting box in the center of the frame ensuring that it’s strong enough to withstand everyday use and carry a rider weighing up to 180 pounds.

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The riding saddle doubles as the carrying case, keeping the electric charger clean, dry and ready for use. The bike will ultimately be up to 60% customizable with options like colored removable covers. Folding and unfolding the Impossible is achieved in four simple steps. The bike features ten 3.6V batteries and a DC motor enabling it to travel up to 12.4 mph for 45 minutes, or at normal speed for up to 15.6 miles per charge. No pedaling necessary – the bike does all the work.

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Beijing-based Impossible Technology is currently raising funds for the project on Kickstarter, with backers pledging $ 430 CAD or more receiving an all-white Impossible bike from the first production run. Additional designs and accessories will be available in the future.

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Tiny fps1000 high-speed camera boasts 18,500fps

09 Oct

Graham Rowan of Hertfordshire, UK has created a small camera dubbed the “fps1000”, and as its name suggests, it is designed solely to record high-frame-rate videos. The goal is to open up high-speed shooting to a wider market by offering a relatively inexpensive product that is highly portable. Learn more

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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365 Postcards for Ants: Impossibly Tiny Daily Illustrations

04 Oct

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

paintings for ants 1

The most minuscule details of a floral bouquet, an old-fashioned camera, a jockey on a horse or a VW bus are rendered with incredibly fine paintbrushes to create paintings smaller than a quarter in artist Lorraine Loots’ series, 365 Postcards for Ants. Loots has been creating a new tiny painting every single day since January 1st, 2013, posting each one on Instagram and engaging fans by allowing them to book sentimental dates and request specific images.

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The Cape Town-based artist accumulated a year worth of paintings, nearly all of which pre-sold as they were released, and put them on display in Cape Town and Johannesburg, South Africa, before distributing them to their new owners.

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“I’ve always had a love for detail and I think that little square space, that little piece of fabric, gives me a place to make something that I feel is close to perfect.”

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Follow the ’365 Postcards for Ants’ series on Instagram @LorraineLoots, and check out the archive of nearly two years’ worth of daily paintings over at Tumblr.

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Roaming Homes: 15 DIY RVs, Converted Buses & Tiny Houses

16 Sep

[ By Steph in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

DIY Mobile Homes Neverwas Haul 1

Japanese tea houses spring from the roofs of ordinary-looking trucks, ornate handcrafted cabins are tacked onto school buses and fire trucks are converted into monster off-road RVs when industrious and determined DIYers decide to take on building their own mobile homes. One tiny house on wheels even has a back deck with a full-sized hot tub, and an incredibly fun two-story Victorian house on wheels makes its way around the desert.

The Neverwas Haul: A Steampunk Mobile Home

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DIY Mobile Homes Neverwas Haul 2

RVs rarely get more ornate than this – a two-story Victorian house on wheels, designed, naturally, for Burning Man. The Neverwas Haul was built over six months in 2006 and is made almost entirely of recycled materials. Designer and builder Shannon O’Hare used the skills and experience he gained creating theme park structures around the country to come up with this amazing vehicle, which is built upon the base of a fifth wheel travel trailer.

Tiny House with a Built-In Hot Tub
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Tiny House Hot Tub 1

You can even tack a generously sized wooden hot tub – powered by wood, if you like! – onto the back of your very own custom-built tiny house. UK-based Tiny Wood Homes builds both hot tubs and little houses on wheels, making this combo a natural fit. The whole setup is small enough to be towed around via truck and sells for about $ 57,000.

Matthew Hofmann’s Renovated Airstream Trailers
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Architect Matthew Hofmann purchases old Airstream trailers and renovates them into beautiful and modern mobile spaces, custom-creating everything from backyard offices to tiny roaming homes. The project began when Hofmann decided to downsize from a large house to an Airstream of his own. People took notice and soon enough, demand turned into a business opportunity.

Wothahellizat
DIY Mobile Homes wothahellizat

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Sound out the name of this creation phonetically – that’s basically the reaction of everyone who sees it. Australian photographer Rob Gray wanted a home base while adventuring in the Australian wilderness, so he created his very own monster RV complete with a viewing deck, hydraulically operated roof and a bedroom over the cab. It’s got all the amenities of a standard camper, but can go off-road.

Al’s Housetruck
DIY Mobile Homes Al's Houstruck

What looks like no more than a narrow cabin from the back is revealed to be an incredibly intricate hand-crafted mobile home, built right onto the back of an old Dodge bus. Featured in the 1979 book Rolling Homes by Jane Lidz, ‘Al’s Housetruck‘ has a sleeping loft over the cab, a wood stove, stained glass windows and decorative porch railings.

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Roaming Homes 15 Diy Rvs Converted Buses Tiny Houses

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Pocket Tent: Tiny Prefab Home Inflates Itself with Body Heat

08 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

portable pocket house inflated

A brilliant application of material science toward simple living, this portable self-inflating structure folds up into a manageable miniature package but expands to create a small dwelling space.

portable fold up home

Created by Martin Azua, the Basic House is a genius “habitable volume; foldable, inflatable and reversible … made from metalized polyester” that uses body or solar heat to inflate itself. As its designer explains, “is not a product, rather a concept of extreme reduction.”

portable modular prefab design

In a clever twist, this tiny portable space is made to be inverted so that it can deflect solar heat (for cold situations) in one configuration but capture it (to warm its interior) when reversed. Versatile and durable, the design could be used for everything from homeless shelters and travel tents to emergency housing and much more.

portable pocket travel tent

portable tent home concept

portable house interior exterior

More from its maker on his motivation: “Our habitat has turned into a space of consumption in which an unlimited number of products satisfy a series of needs created by complex systems and relations that are difficult to control. Cultures that maintain a more direct interaction with their environment show us that the idea of habitat can be understood in more essential and reasonable terms.”

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