Urban Micro Apartments – The Future of Apartment Living?

City planners in San Francisco have proposed the idea of building hundreds of so called ‘micro apartments’ to help alleviate the problem of rising populations yet maintaining cost efficiency. These apartments will be around several hundred square feet and are aimed for single or double occupancy. The image below shows a proposed apartment which will be 220 square feet in size and makes use of a foldaway bed that turns into a dining table/area to maximise on space.

Living in small spaces is nothing new, we’ve regularly featured small apartments and  great use of space here on Apartment Geeks, including this 325 square foot apartment in Barcelona which sleeps 4 people. There’s also the smallest New York apartment, coming in at 55 sq ft, and my favourite, the 254 sq ft Lego style apartment, which shows how much you can do with unlimited creativity and limited space.

io9.com questions whether these apartments are really suitable for living in or if we’ll become claustrophobic. They suggest providing everyone with “220 feet of private space in a micro-apartment building, but also provide communal kitchens in the building, along with communal recreation areas” which would result in roomier apartments.

Personally, I hate the thought of having to share a kitchen with other people. Not only have I found I have a low tolerance of other people’s mess from sharing in the past, but food goes missing, utensils go astray and so on. io9.com also states that by having communal kitchens, we may just socialise a bit more. Fair enough, but I’d prefer to have a choice in the matter and not be forced to socialise.

For more information check out http://io9.com/5967632/could-you-live-in-this-futuristic-ultra+tiny-apartment