‘A Box of Surprises’

August 26, 2024 8:57 AM

a Rotterdam Apartment That’s Only 74 Square Feet. Two architects in the Netherlands made the most of the tiniest of spaces, “maximizing absolutely everything.” Julie Lasky for the NYT
posted by bq (44 comments total)

I do love that they acknowledge this is not a solution for housing, but rather as an option for travel or professorial visits. Like, I could totally stay in the Cabanon for a couple of nights (and that bathroom is so interesting!!) but I could not live there long term.
posted by Kitteh at 9:03 AM on August 26 [6 favorites]

There is a mirror on the bathroom ceiling because...
posted by grumpybear69 at 9:04 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

The thing about the bathroom that bothers me is that all of the walls are tiled but there appears to be no effort to waterproof the track that the door slides on.

Aside from that, it looks definitely like a "good enough for a couple days' brief visit" sort of place and the space usage in the cabinets is impressive.
posted by tclark at 9:08 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]

I have a dream to live in a 3 x 3 x 3 cube with the center cube being the main space and the other 8 stacks go up & down to bring different spaces to the main living level.

Technically each stack space could be interconnected with their neighbors on all levels, that'd be even weirder.
posted by torokunai at 9:17 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]

The thing about the bathroom that bothers me is that all of the walls are tiled but there appears to be no effort to waterproof the track that the door slides on.

If you look really closely there is a narrow drain, not a track.
posted by cooker girl at 9:20 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]

One problem I have with a lot of these lofted bed designs - if you can't climb up for whatever reason (disability, general stiffness, have the flu) you can't get into bed. And if you are sick, someone bringing you food or meds will find it difficult to climb up while carrying them.

Not every visiting professor is going to be able to climb into that loft!

Also frankly they can say all they want that it is not intended as a solution for the housing crisis, but it's precisely the thing that will be taken as a solution. Not their fault, but still.

I've seen some slightly bigger tiny spaces with lofted beds that have built in tansu-like stairs, and I think that's much more viable - wouldn't work for everyone, but would work for a lot more people and situations.
posted by Frowner at 9:24 AM on August 26 [20 favorites]

There is a mirror on the bathroom ceiling because...

I think it's recompense for all their crimes of self defense.
posted by The Bellman at 9:32 AM on August 26 [33 favorites]

Also frankly they can say all they want that it is not intended as a solution for the housing crisis, but it's precisely the thing that will be taken as a solution. Not their fault, but still.

There is a housing crisis here in Ontario, and in most cities, the current "solution" is hey, build more condos! So we have an influx of 250 square feet condos not meant for anyone long term, IMHO. Developers decline to make anything bigger* (like three bedroom condos potentially for families) because bigger condos struggle to sell on the market. So instead of any sort of more spacious affordable housing for couples who might have kids, or have kids, or are part of intergenerational families, are either left to stuff themselves into these shitty little boxes.

Aside from the usual prefab builds in the suburbs, no developer will ever be civic-minded enough to build what's really missing in the market. It's just shiny shiny poorly made condos towers all the way up.

*two words: AirBnb or investment..which are pretty much the same thing
posted by Kitteh at 9:34 AM on August 26 [6 favorites]

Oh no, they've built the stateroom from Starship Titanic (2:14 - 3:31)
posted by GenericUser at 9:39 AM on August 26 [6 favorites]

I love that a hot tub was a priority for a small space. This definitely makes sense as a spare room fit into an old building and not anything beyond that. Fun project to exercise some architectural muscles.


This is clever, use of space, but the solutions to the housing crisis are not architectural or technological ones. We know how to build things, but we need streamline zoning/permitting and financial models that can fund building for all income levels.
posted by CostcoCultist at 9:40 AM on August 26 [8 favorites]

smol

so, one might be that visiting professor who likes to have some wine with dinner, then have to make it up that ladder. yikes.

one might be a visiting professor, or any other person, over the age of 50, who is going to have to navigate that ladder at night, at least once, to pee. especially if they've had some wine!!

as an old who likes to drink I could not do the loft bed thing for life.
posted by supermedusa at 9:52 AM on August 26 [7 favorites]

One thing I like about this over a lot of tiny apartment remodels is how little it relies on things on huge, weight-bearing hinges or walls that slide in and out with motors. Those things look cute in magazines when they are brand new, but as they navigate down into lower end housing -- most small spaces are not occupied by couples with two professional incomes! -- I bet they would tend to break, and then so much functionality would be lost. Like, imagine the function of an electric motor is the difference between whether you have a one bedroom apartment with a kitchen and living room and office and bedroom or whether you just have living room. And imagine trying to get your slumlord's maintenance guy to fix it in a timely manner.

That doesn't mean this layout is without problems -- it is super not accessible, as others have noted -- but smaller space solutions also have to be maintainable and often the ones that get fancy photo spreads are just not.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:57 AM on August 26 [11 favorites]

There is a mirror on the bathroom ceiling because...

I think that's actually the shower head embedded in the ceiling.
posted by chrominance at 10:08 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]

with that wall i'd play qbert nonstop
posted by HearHere at 10:15 AM on August 26 [4 favorites]

The fact that I immediately looked at the comments for what I thought was going to be the inevitable 'Little John used galvanized steel with screws borrowed from his aunt" type comments means my brain must finally be truly cooked. If my comment makes no sense to you - I hope it stays that way.

Outside. Grass. Touch. etc.
posted by inflatablekiwi at 10:18 AM on August 26 [5 favorites]

I find this adorable for maybe two nights’ stay, assuming you planned on spending most of that outside. Afterwards, you would start having to face irritations like walking on a wet shower floor to get to your toilet or, alternatively, facing the black marble death tub with your beater knees that cannot take another fall. The free healthcare would be only a slight consolation.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:26 AM on August 26

I have a dream to live in a 3 x 3 x 3 cube

There's the Cube House in Toronto (slated for destruction) which was inspired by the one in Rotterdam.
posted by Ashwagandha at 10:27 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

I believe the shower head is stored inside the cupboard in the wall above the toilet.
posted by bq at 10:39 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

I was fine 'til I saw the sleeping loft and then I hyperventilated and passed out and now I'm typing with my closed fists while howling in fear s.l;,.z;/x./xc.l;,/.l,dxc./vc.v/c.v/c.v/c

Huh. Turns out if you pound on the keyboard with your closed fists you end up hitting the alt key a lot and getting fun results. Anyway, what I'm saying is that the sleeping loft seems a bit close.
posted by Don Pepino at 10:50 AM on August 26 [3 favorites]

74 Square Feet

Luxury!

These two woman are fine sharing 4 cubic feet.
posted by fairmettle at 11:03 AM on August 26 [2 favorites]

At least it has the one thing that always kind of bugs me about small spaces or ADUs or whatever - you can conceivably relieve yourself without having to leave the unit. Like I understand outhouses are acceptable for rural cabins, sure, nobody's going to notice or care if you shuffle out to do your business in a housecoat in the middle of the night, but that doesn't work for urban small spaces and ADUs.

I wonder if the main space is big enough for a murphy bed, and... I dunno, use the current bed nook as storage? I mean, that's the flip side to urban small spaces - you don't necessarily need a full kitchen and pantry, arguably you can get meals delivered or dine out or whatever.
posted by Kyol at 11:24 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

One problem I have with a lot of these lofted bed designs - if you can't climb up for whatever reason (disability, general stiffness, have the flu) you can't get into bed.

Yes, agree. I love tiny houses and am thinking about living in one some day, but it can't be a loft because I'm already 60 years old. That said, I think this place is delightfully designed and I love the colors.
posted by JanetLand at 11:24 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

So... no kitchenette or other food prep/storage space? Or did I miss that?
posted by cnidaria at 11:32 AM on August 26

There's a tiny little sink in one of the cabinets, just above a tiny dorm fridge and a hotplate in one of the other cabinets. Like, you could maybe make easy box meals, but fine cookery is probably right out.
posted by Kyol at 11:36 AM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Confirming that the ‘mirror’ on the ceiling is in fact a rain shower.
posted by sixswitch at 12:05 PM on August 26 [2 favorites]

By an interesting complete lack of coincidence, the the Netherlands birth rate has fallen to a record low, 1.43 children per woman, which is far below replacement.
posted by jamjam at 12:16 PM on August 26 [1 favorite]

We just this weekend built an IKEA loft bed (VITVAL) in offspring's 6x13' room in her new place. It is a bit close at the top with the ceiling in the room not quite 8' tall. She can't sit up in it. We told her we could shorten the legs to give her more room up there but she hasn't asked yet. It sure as hell wouldn't work for me but it might be comforting for her.
posted by seanmpuckett at 12:20 PM on August 26 [1 favorite]

Wait, where do you keep the ladder when you're not using it?
posted by AndrewInDC at 12:26 PM on August 26 [3 favorites]

This is a job for galvanized square steel and eco-friendly wood veneers.
posted by sibboleth at 12:37 PM on August 26 [2 favorites]

The peach and green colors are kind of nauseating to me, but besides that, if you have a space that small, you just have to make all the walls white. Makes it feel larger.

The craftsmanship is fantastic, but yeah that loft does not look fun. I had a loft apartment for a year, and my loft was actually very long and wide, but I couldn't sit up fully...sometimes I'd get a bit claustrophobic. Could the shower and tub have been merged together, creating some space for a Pullman bed, or maybe some stairs to the loft?

Also, and this is my only real problem, not really with this as it's not designed for long-term use, but more with the tiny house/microapartment scene in general: where do you put your stuff? You'd almost certainly need a storage facility nearby for your things.
posted by zardoz at 1:18 PM on August 26 [3 favorites]

This looks nice! I hope we can build more tiny apartments out of small spaces. It's not right for everybody but it doesn't have to be.

Reminds me of this article about legalizing single-room-occupancies (i.e. shared kitchen/bathroom situations) especially in the context of converting office spaces to housing. The history was surprising to me — we chatter about amenities compared to a modern flat but the actual original rationale was black and white class warfare.
posted by daveliepmann at 1:41 PM on August 26 [1 favorite]

This architecture reminds me of child beauty pageants and of those small dogs that can't breathe right. Skilled but mirthless frippery, very rococo.
posted by dmh at 2:14 PM on August 26 [2 favorites]

Even with the caveats, this feels like the housing policy version of the “heartwarming” story of a little girl selling lemonade to pay for the prescription that’s keeping her mom alive. Making 74 square feet better is a bit beside the point.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 2:48 PM on August 26 [1 favorite]

The space (its architects/designers "live several floors below, in a one-bedroom unit" & "take the elevator to the seventh floor and walk up one flight" to access it) is at the top of a mixed-use building.

Is the "large window with an urban view" operable? If it is, does the window tilt in?
(Boxes for living creatures require adequate ventilation holes.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:49 PM on August 26 [2 favorites]

This isn't a post about housing policy. Neither the people who made this beautiful apartment nor the people who wrote about it are suggesting it solves housing or asking you personally to live in it. Imposing your desire for a solution to housing policy and then criticizing them for the inadequacy of their solution is unfair and rude.

My favorite part is the bathroom, sliding shower doors are usually a source of annoyance but here it's a joy. If you sit on the toilet it probably looks pretty big.
posted by hermanubis at 3:00 PM on August 26 [5 favorites]

I would expect much, much more resistance to this tiny apartment idea from someone like you, CostcoCultist.
posted by notyou at 3:01 PM on August 26

I agree that this is tone deaf during a housing crisis. In times of plenty this might read as whimsical, but in times where the fully employed are sleeping in cars while trying to find somewhere to live, this reads as dystopian.

That said, if you want to do small living spaces that imply hope rather than hopelessness, boats seem to be the thing now. My YouTube feed is full of people refitting sailing vessels and narrowboats, with lots of small living spaces designed specifically to escape places like the one in the linked article.
posted by krisjohn at 3:56 PM on August 26

It's certainly interesting, though the "spa" room is a huge waste of space unless you're really into soaking in a tub. I think though that could be re-purposed into a small workroom or office type space to make the whole thing more actual-livable. In reality, the commercial version of this would make that a second "bedroom" so it could be marketed as "two bedroom efficiency" or whatever at $425,000.

Making the loft a single (big) step up to a workspace with a murphy bed below, losing the spa and moving the storage stuff to one of the walls, would be another possible practical mod, though a murphy rolling out into main room would limit the actual furniture you could have.
posted by maxwelton at 4:27 PM on August 26 [4 favorites]

I hate "rain" showers. There are many times when I want to wash my body but not my hair; rain showers just dump the water on from directly overhead. Maybe this is a curly-haired problem.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:21 PM on August 26 [2 favorites]

Architects love designing minimal dwellings. And I get it. It's fun, you get to pretend you are a mechanical engineer or ship designer. This example is very fun and pretty, but it's a point that they don't live in it.
And it is a slippery slope. One of my friends once said that social/affordable housing shouldn't be minimal: it should be maximal, both in size and quality of construction. After 20 years, with inflation and the downpayment of financing you will have cheap, large and sound homes for those who need it. Whereas the minimal housing of 20 years ago is already slum. I think he was right, but obviously, it depends on the legislation and the financing of social/affordable housing.
I know a guy who is quite good at making affordable housing in small units, and it always looks good during the first year. But 2-3 years in, it already starts to look cheap and worn, and it becomes difficult for the tenants to deal with their part of maintenance.

BTW, I also have some friends who specialize in affordable housing and have never compromised on quality of construction for 50 years. But that is freaking hard. The architects in the article mention how many hours they have spent doing this tiny project -- imagine doing hundreds of units in a similar quality (albeit very different aesthetic). These guys have their toolbox in order.

I think there is a more philosophical aspect to it as well. When you are designing this type of housing, every tiny space is tailored for a specific purpose. But our lives change; both our personal lives, and the culture as a whole. I feel this is another reason this type of design becomes redundant.

When teaching, I sometimes compare Prince Albert's model cottages with Brumleby, a housing complex built by the Danish Doctor's Association. They were built at about the same time, for the same reasons, but they are very different. Prince Albert's homes are designed very specifically for the lives and mores of Victorian England, while Brumleby has open and flexible floor plans that have been able to accommodate different lifestyles through the ages. For instance, even though the flats are about the same size, the English houses have three bedrooms and a living room, to keep parents, girls and boys separate for moral reasons, and to separate private and public spaces. The Danish houses originally had two almost identical rooms, where the family could choose how to use them. They have been easy to adapt to modern living, and will be easy to adapt if our lifestyles change again.
posted by mumimor at 3:01 AM on August 27 [5 favorites]

> This example is very fun and pretty, but it's a point that they don't live in it.

They might have given it a useable living room if they did. I don't understand that sofa. I guess one sad dancer can sit on it with an aching back while the other sad dancer stands next to it and looks sad while waiting their turn on the bench, but that isn't how I want to live.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:15 AM on August 27

mumimor: One of my friends once said that social/affordable housing shouldn't be minimal: it should be maximal, both in size and quality of construction. After 20 years, with inflation and the downpayment of financing you will have cheap, large and sound homes for those who need it.

That sounds great in principle, but in the Netherlands we have a lack of space to build in.
posted by Too-Ticky at 9:18 AM on August 27

That sounds great in principle, but in the Netherlands we have a lack of space to build in.

I'm pretty sure my friend meant "within reasonable limits". Like family apartments of 80-90 m2 rather than 30-40m2. Not McMansions for everyone.
posted by mumimor at 1:54 PM on August 27

There is no escaping the farts.
posted by Orthodox Humanoid at 5:28 PM on August 27