It’s an oft-repeated but unfortunately accurate truism that living spaces in Hong Kong are only going to get smaller, what with the increasing proliferation of micro-living units selling for ever-more astronomical prices in this land-strapped city.
While it’s next to impossible for you to change the direction of the local housing market, quick fixes abound for better living within smaller spaces.
Rodrigo Buelvas, Professor of Interior Design at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), is one of the minds best poised to dish out advice for micro-living, given his extensive research in the field of new urban living. SCAD has also innovated in micro-living with its SCADpad initiative – which involved repurposing a parking lot at its Atlanta campus by inserting habitable, colourfully decorated trailers into mere 135sqft footprints. Rodrigo’s philosophy is perhaps most succinctly summarised by AMIE 1.0, a conceptual project completed during his time at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM), which saw the world’s largest 3D printer – located at Oak Ridge National Laboratory – used to print an entire micro-home unit.
We talked to the academic about where he predicts micro-living will go in the future, as well as 6 essential tips to make the most of a micro-home for a more efficient way of living.
See more: Make a small space appear bigger with more than white walls and foldable furniture
On the renaissance of co-living
Co-living is nothing new; it’s already something that was being implemented in the ‘60s, which was creating a sense of community and trying to be more efficient with the use of space. For example, the principle behind Tokyo’s iconic Nakagin Capsule Tower was to build around a central core, and add capsule units that you could plug and play. If there is higher demand then they can plug more capsules. Today, rapid construction makes this easier. I definitely see that as a game-changer in construction.
Today, co-living normally takes the shape of a vertical village where some of the functions of home life are taken out of the home and made more communal, creating spaces that everyone can use as part of a community rather than isolated for your own use. People don’t cook everyday – especially in Hong Kong where most people eat outside – but in a communal kitchen people can cook at all hours, so it isn’t sitting there with downtime because other people can use it. This makes it more efficient too.
See more: 6 micro homes that are making the most of small spaces
The main thing is still the physical space and how you program them to attract people. Yes, you can have a communal kitchen but it goes beyond that. It’s how you can create activities through programming to create a sense of community. You might do a cooking class every week where you can sign up, meet your neighbours, interact. The space is allowing that to happen, but if you don’t follow up with activities, it will be hard to create that sense of community.
A 3D-printed future
The AMIE 1.0 project was designed to test the boundaries of 3D printing to see how you could scale it to create a building in the future. It was super quick: construction took less than a month, so imagine the reduction in inefficiencies, waste of material, and labour work.
The maximum size will change as the technology improves and gets better, but it’s a matter of how you design this house – you need to be mindful of the materiality. The good thing about the polymer substrate material we used is that it can be chopped up, put back into the 3D printing machine and reused.
Hopefully in the future we can change the media of printing. There is a housing project in Guatemala that used 3D-printed concrete, metal and you can print gold, silver, stainless steel, copper. Plastics, ADS, high-density polymers, ceramics, anything you can think of. At Oak Ridge, they can print polymer that is transparent, but the problem is 3D printers print in layers, so it creates a texture that isn’t see through, like a frosted glass effect.
The space is allowing that to happen, but if you don’t follow up with activities, it will be hard to create that sense of community.
Professor Rodrigo’s tips for better micro-living
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Be careful with partitions
Traditional Chinese floor plans are very segregated, due to fumes from Chinese cooking. However, people don’t cook that often at home these days, so the more integrated you can have other spaces that you don’t utilise often, the better. If a kitchen doesn’t have to be closed, it can serve other types of purposes like working. -
Paint your walls as light as possible
The high reflectivity of white paint or lighter paints increases the perception of space to look bigger, and because lighter materials better reflect light. -
Multifunctional furniture is key
I have these stools where I can store my computer if I’m not using it, which I also use as my nightstand. -
Avoid using a rug
Dividing up the floor with different materials creates the perception of small spaces. Increase the sense of space by applying a homogenous flooring material throughout your entire home. In the same logic, glass partitions are very good too. -
Segregate spaces through indirect illumination, not with furniture or walls
Mentally, it creates the illusion of different spaces in a room, so you’ll think it’s a different type of space even though it’s not divided. -
Soft furnishings are key to absorbing noise
If you’re really concerned about blocking the noise and having open spaces, I would consider incorporating felt panels or curtains, and use a lot of pillows.
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Be careful with partitions
See micro-living principles put into practise at Weave on Boundary and The Nate, two of Hong Kong’s newest co-living spaces. For more abodes under 1,000sqft, don’t miss our Small Homes tag.
The post 6 micro-home tips for living small yet well, from SCAD interior design professor appeared first on Home Journal.
