Decadent Downsizing
How Low Can You Go?
With sustainability and affordability on the brain, multifamily developers are pushing the boundaries with radical new ideas in micro-unit construction.
Since opening in 2006, San Francisco’s Book Concern lofts in the city’s South of Market district have continued to redefine the “efficiency” in efficiency apartments. Though technically condos, the loft-inspired one- and two-bedroom units range in size from 270 to 425 square feet, complete with a kitchen and bath. “Book Concern doesn’t just break the paradigm; it completely smashes it and throws it out the window,” says Daniel Gehman, a principal with Los Angeles and Irvine, Calif.–based architecture and design firm TCA. Gehman—who has since worked on two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment floor plans at a diminutive 764 square feet, says micro units could see a renaissance in the rental market as construction activity heats up and developers look to pull yield out of ever-decreasing urban infill acreages.
“We’re also seeing the 800-square-foot, single-unit apartment become a one-bedroom ‘plus den’ with the full expectation that the den might be used as a second bedroom,” agrees Michael Ytterberg, principal of Philadelphia-based BLT Architects. “That’s the reason why amenities are becoming so critically important: The reality is that everyone is being squeezed. But we certainly seem to be able to cram a hell of a lot into a small area that still feels commodious.”
Credit that to next-gen renters, who seem to embrace open-space design that allows for smaller kitchens without boxy cabinets and living spaces defined by function and furniture rather than the formality of walled-in boundaries. The fact that such tiny living spaces A) are more affordable and B) create less carbon stress on the environment makes for an easier sell to prospects numbed by the McMansion culture that dominated the first several years of the century. Though they’ve likely never sailed in one, Echo Boom renters would be happy to call a steamship stateroom home sweet home. “The expectations are completely different,” says Rohit Anand, a principal of Irvine, Calif.–based KTGY Group who runs the firm’s East Coast office in Vienna, Va. “It’s suddenly cool again to have galley kitchens without any cabinets.”
Kitchens and baths will likely be the final frontier when it comes to apartment miniaturization, not only for the space required for plumbing and electrical, but also in order to satisfy accessibility requirements. As a result, developers have reached a barrier that as yet seems unsolvable: the 270-square-foot threshold. Gehman, for one, isn’t giving up, though. “Someone, somewhere—and I only hope that it is me—is going to crack the code on kitchens and baths,” he says. “And I’m confident that when we get there, we will learn how to work it within the parameters of universal design.”
“You know why the dense urban apartment design trend has spread across the entire country?” offers Daniel Gehman, a principal at Los Angeles and Irvine, Calif.–based architecture and design firm TCA, which is working on a pipeline of approximately 6,500 units this year. “There’s one primary reason: HGTV. And I’m not just talking about the design community. The proliferation and popularity of real estate– and design-oriented television has redefined renter expectations. Everyone watches at least one of those shows.”
For those not completely sold on the omnipotent power of television to alter consumer household design expectations, Gehman offers another compelling reason (one that he says is likely irreversible) for the downsizing of the modern apartment unit: condo conversions. Whether it was competing against condo product before the crash or the legions of condo shadow rentals that have since flooded the apartment market, Gehman says the higher-end finishes of for-sale multifamily housing have permanently raised the bar for rental interiors.
“It’s created a vision in the mind of the apartment dweller that he or she is automatically going to get granite countertops because everything on the market looks like that,” Gehman says. “You have a whole generation that—just as they don’t know what a landline phone is—has no idea what P-Lam and Berber beige are. The way you solve for those expectations and stay at a certain price point is to decrease the square footage. It’s the old champagne-on-a-beer-budget problem—it forces developers to squeeze the unit but make the remaining spaces more luxurious-feeling.”
