SVA Students Take on Micro-Apartment Design
A couple months ago, a class of intrepid School of Visual Arts (SVA) undergrad students taught by the talented architect Darrick Borowski took on the assignment of conceiving micro-apartments in the spirit of adAPT NYC. The exact brief was to “design a prototype for a combined living/working space for the young, mobile, urban dweller of the 21st century in 320 sq ft.”
The designs show great talent and we’re excited that students and academics are taking compact design seriously.
Each student conceived of a design based for a theoretical client. Below are four of the projects (headings are student names) along with a description of the project by the designer.
Sooji
Client Information: My client is a female in an age of 32. She works at a women’s clothing store as a shop manager. She is very active and merriment, also like to invite close friends to studio and spend time together. She is an entertaining person and has hobby of cooking and reading.
Client Lifestyle :She works 12+hours a day from 9 am. She does not spend much time in her place and usually eat outside. She does not work in apartment but spend time with friends and use time for her hobbies. She does laundry very often and iron clothes everyday to give professional look as a shop manager.
Leah
My client is mid 20’s woman who owns yoga studio. She teaches two yoga classes per day and spends most of time at the yoga studio. When she gets home, she practices yoga or reads books. She doesn’t cook much so she usually eats outside.
This space can be used as a studio apartment and private yoga studio. All the furniture is placed on one side and mirrors are on the other side. She is able to slide all the furniture in and out of the bookshelves which allows the uses of the yoga studio. Also she can slide the furniture out and use it where she wants. Furniture components are chair,table,bed and closet.
Duelle
Client: The client is a 28 years old copywriter (usually writes copies for ADs and movies). She spends most of time outside, and likes to meet people outside. She likes watching movies and reading books.
Design Approach: She wants an one-person simple studio with an open working space, so i put all hidden furniture with colorful reveals. I place a large magnetic white board for her working area, and i designed a lounge area to watch movies with movie projector. Since she gets bored easily in one place, i try to create variety modes in a micro studio, like desk mode, lounge mode, bed mode, and a big board. She wants to focus on living room and working area,so i minimize the size of kitchen and bathroom.
Courtney
My client is a young male working professional, he typically works from home as a software designer. I designed the space to meet his live/work needs and have the space not be transformable to give the traditional sense of home in this pint-sized condition.
See more of the students’ designs at the class’s website.