Small space living is nothing new to New Yorkers, but it wasn’t until recently that micro apartments of 400 sq. ft. and under started becoming en vogue. The mindset change was largely inspired by Mayor Bloomberg and New York City’s adAPT NYC design competition, which is challenging architects to design functional, desirable dwellings that are just 275-300 sq. ft.
And even though this is the first time we’ve seen Ikea highlight the diminutive size of their display apartment – the low numbers they typically like to emblazon on room displays are the prices, not the square footage measurements – they’re not at all new to the small space living game. The Swedish retailer has devoted entire editions of its globally-distributed catalog to showcasing products and solutions that allow people to build up instead of out to accommodate more urban-sized homes.
Flip through our gallery to see what the talented display designers at Ikea Red Hook were able to pack into just 391 sq. ft. of space, or visit them yourself and many thanks to Ikea graphics coworker Shastri Babb, who was kind enough to send us photos of this tiny apartment display.
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This gives me so many ideas…Thank you!!
Ikea has done this for as long as I can remember in the NYC area, and that is by no means the smallest unit they did.
They are also not very realistic, most small apartments in NYC are old buildings with awkward layouts that don’t allow you to optimalise the space anywhere near as well as Ikea can setting up a unit from scratch.
Sorry to be a cranky sue here; but this is really the kind of story I don’t want to read on this site. Ikea? Really? Is that all you have for us? There’s no redeeming value here. Please focus on your core values.
397 sqft is tiny? only in America!
This isn’t new at all – IKEA has been doing this for years, including highlighting the square footage and also going smaller than this (I think the smallest I can recall was 196 sq.ft.). It may however be new to that particular store – but it pre-dates any recent surge in popularity of the small homes movement.