Slashdot Mirror
24 Rooms in 344sq Feet
This is a little unusual for a Slashdot story, but you've got to respect the hacker ethos that makes something like this possible. Gary Chang modified his 344 sq foot apartment with a system of sliding panels to transform it into
24 room combinations. I'm not so excited about the tinted windows, but the functionality is sweet.
This went arround the net over a year again, also I think it was posted here. ./ should die
Is it just me, or does it seem bigger on the inside than on the outside?
Call me when he redesigns his parents basement.
This is something that would impress me.
Not suitable for Slashdotters.
Have gnu, will travel.
I was take really good care of my media and storing it all really nicely on shelves in the boxes they came in like a good little OCD meticulous collector.
Fuck that.
A couple of months ago I got a bunch of Case Logic Zipper cases, not only can I put a whole bunch more DVD's and CD's into the same physical area when it comes time to move they can all fit into a single box that I would have held about 1/10th of the collection before hand. This guy needs to go that route to squeeze even more functionality out of what he has.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
The best part is that he turned it into a time machine and had the story posted over and over again on slashdot.
Cool apartment mod, but this was all over the place years ago.
You'd have to be obsessive compulsive to live in one of these places.
Leave you car keys anywhere but the designated spot.. whole system probably jams. Ok, maybe not that bad, but I suspect you'd have to be very tidy to keep this functional.
Still, pretty damn impressive!
He would find a job at Aperture Science any day.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Nah, that's about par for Slashdot stories.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Headline is wrong, but to be fair TFA's is as well. It's not 24 rooms, it's 24 room combinations (each consisting of between 4 and 6 rooms as far as I can tell from the diagrams).
...when it was on Fark a month ago.
The guy speaks better English than most Americans. What's wrong with these people?
It seems that his skills could be very useful in designing multi-purpose rooms in the (extremely) cramped spaces of spacecraft used for long duration voyages.
He might welcome the challenge since presumably he could design with the additional freedom of the third dimension. That assumes the spacecraft is in zero or very low gee environments most of the time like under ion thrust or having "landed" on a small asteroid.
I wonder if he does set design? These skills might be very good for quickly changing sets especially in venues where they do not have a lot of backstage space.
I saw this on This New House on the DYI network about six months ago this is really old news. Really neat news but really old news.
Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted.
iPods and ebooks would allow you dump bulky CDs and books.
I hope he does because one could patent anything these days. As Gosling noted, they obtained a patent that essentially said, "if you make something simpler, it'll go faster". This was in relation to computer software.
I hope this fellow has applied for a patent.
...in an expensive city. While the building looks awful from the outside, what's inside is beautiful IMHO, and would certainly be a 'solution' for people looking for a way to utilize their small expensive living space to the fullest. At least, I don't know of any large city that isn't expensive in terms of house prices.
One would wonder about humidity etc. though. The bed being stored away like that would be a recipe for - okay, you can fill that in yourself. And what about leaking etc. - if you'd even find out about that in time that is...
according to the above comments - I'm glad it got reposted cause I must have missed it.
I, for one, think this design is friggin awesome. I'd like to see how he routed his power needs on some of those panels.
However - to hell with being in what appears to be a shitty building otherwise. Though I'm unfamiliar with Hong Kong so maybe this is the good part of town.
This reminds me of Corbin Dallas' woefully small, but configurable living space in the movie. One of the underappreciated sci-fi movie sets.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Can we get that in some sane unit like library of congress(es) or football fields?
Website is here.
A preview video is here.
I have no idea how expensive this stuff is.
My home is comparable to the Transformers too - basically the same as it was in the 80's with a few unpopular changes and a more costly budget. Also Megan Fox is no longer welcome.
Much of the video is him dragging stuff around. Motorize the walls and maybe I could deal with it.
Please leave the room, I have to transform it into a shitter.
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
Meet the new Doctor.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The apartment does not transform into 24 rooms or even 24 different configurations. Since 1976 the apartment has had 24 different layouts; each one created by a renovation and not sliding walls. The last layout is the one in the article and uses sliding walls and a Murphy bed to maximize space use. Take a look at the layouts you can make out. The bathroom fixtures in the 1989 layout are completely different in the 1998 layout. Changing the shape of a bathtub by moving walls would be a really great trick. How does the furniture disappear? In the 1976 layout there are 3 conventional beds while the 2006 layout has none.
It's common enough in architecture to have useable sliding walls, an attempt at a patent for the concept should be met with a swift firm no based on the ample prior art.
No I am not an architect ..... but my wife is.
Why? Because my bedroom and sitting are bigger than his apartment. It really makes it obvious how much space (well that and other things) we waste here. I can see how some "areas" of the house would be restricted to outside walls, that being anything with plumbing. With that little floor space I figure heating and cooling if provided at the building level would be at opposite ends of the area centered restricting those sides. It then becomes a game of what can you pack in each shelf width and the hard part is, ordering them.
The lesson that most will miss is, regardless how some here will claim they don't have this, that, or something else, they sure got most of the world beat and they need to stop crying
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Any small living area has to be kept tidy, since there simply is no room to make a mess. Sling walls make no real difference in this.
But the sliding walls make this a single task apartment. You simply cannot one person stay in bet while the other starts watching tv. Since the kitchen and the bed share some space a luxery breakfast also is not very practical.
Single user, not really a problem for most slashdotters.
They didn't show what he did with the bathroom? Did he fit in a fold up tub, or has to make due with just a shower?
His apartment reminds me of some of the displays in the Ikea showroom.
He could gain a large amount of storage volume (and make one wall easier to move) if he ripped all of this CDs and DVDs. Since storage in such a small apartment is going to be at a substantial premium, I'm a little surprised that he didn't do that yet.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I first saw this about a year ago...
There are a growing number of people now going off-grid, reusing shipping containers as apartments and homes, and making mini homes that by all definitions are really either closets, sheds, pods, or coffins. There are a number of prisons and former insane asylums that have been converted into hotels and apartments -- so repurposing of existing structures isn't going to waste.
The reasons are varied (cost, green/pro-environment), but at the end of the day how can you convince the average person that it is a worthwhile endeavor to glorify prison-like living, living in a sardine can, etc?
You're impressed that a person can live in a giant live in cupboard? Really? I think after a very short time I'd be looking for a padded cell. Maybe he could incorporate that too.
Where is the space to store stuff? Or work bench or gadget room? They'd all be crushed.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Isn't that thing in 1:18 a small tub?
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as a boat/caravan/RV interior designer? I was more impressed than I thought - some neat ideas but what do you do when you want to move?
to hell with being in what appears to be a shitty building otherwise. Though I'm unfamiliar with Hong Kong so maybe this is the good part of town.
Hong Kong residential apartment buildings are often very old, and not in the best of condition. Land is very expensive, and most new construction is devoted to commercial buildings.
...I'll take my house with its 12 rooms that I don't need to create by dragging panels everywhere. Also no neighbors on the other side of the wall. Advantage: me.
Police: Are you classified as human?
Korben Dallas: Negative, I am a meat popsicle.
--
Seriously though, you do what you have to do. In Hong Kong you have to live in tight space unless you are a billionaire basically, other places you can have miles and miles of open space to yourself.
It's not about 'eco' anything for this guy, it's about space efficiency because he has no choice.
By the way, in HK he can become rich selling his solutions.
You can't handle the truth.
I have less then 32MÂ (In real numbers). I have a bathtub, not a shower. I have a kitchen part, big desk with 3 24" screens and a queen sized bed.
I have no need of moving walls around and I could do even with less space. Most important space to use is under the bed. LOTS of space there.
Sure, I can't invite people over (well, not more then 1 at a time) but then there are plenty of places to go to.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
...but you still live in a box, dude. That's no way to live.
Ugggg... this just drives home the latest statistic that I heard. The housing prices here in Hong Kong have increased 70% in the last two years. Unfortunately these kinds of modifications and specialized furniture usually cost an arm and a leg. Well, the most economical space saving design I've done is to import a Kindle. Lord knows I can't afford the give up anymore space to books.
Now, 89ft, that's tiny. And these have a bathroom, of differing levels of completeness. http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/
Lots of YouTube videos of tours are out there- get the mind thinking about how much wasted space we have.
That's just amazing. It's like it is bigger on the inside than on the outside. I don't think I could live there since I am too messy. It looks to me like he would be unable to go to bed without doing the dishes first! I was a bit surprised that with all the effort he has made to save space, that he still relies on physical media (CDs in jewel cases) to store his music. He could compact a whole wall of stuff onto a hard drive 3.5" x 6" x 3/4". Then he might have space for one of those wall mounted NASA toilets (or do those only work in 0 g?)
two full adults and it was totally functional. much more functional than this.
About half of my house is space I only go into to drop or look for stuff. I don't get why people put themselves through that kind of life for any longer than it takes to get the fuck out of it.
I'm a single guy living in a 3 bedroom, 2 car garage house. Waste of space? Yes and no. I need the garage to work on vehicles and a once car garage is insanely small for storing tools and having space to move around your car and motorcycle. I've got my office and exercise equipment in the finished basement. One bedroom and the formal dining room are never used. Houses tend to add amenities as price and # of bedrooms increase, and it's those amenities I want. The wasted space just comes with the package. I think this design is awesome, but I can't imagine living in a space so small I had no real estate to spread out a project to work on.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Isn't this the apartment Bruce Willis lived in in "The Fifth Element?
While his design is almost there, most of these become much less functional when you actually use them. The reason is the functions you want are not in the space/walls/desks/tables, it's in the stuff on them. The tools, the cup, the plate, the fork, notebook, the paper. the onion, the knife. The stapler, the files, the pens. When you compartmentalize you need very careful planing of what you need access to and when. otherwise it doesn't matter how much stuff you can fit if you can't get it when you want it. He doesn't seem to have a lot of places to sit down in a lot of the configs, such as cooking breakfast. I guess you could get used to eating standing up? His stove doesn't seem to have good vents so good luck cooking homemade stuff at hi-temps or such. Packaged/precooked stuff is doable. I hope his friends enjoy going out because they are not coming over. Which I'm fine with. It's much better to have dedicated but smart spaces in general thou. You lose more time then you can image cleaning tabletops to fold them up just to put the laundry in the dryer so you can go back to the task by laying it all out again. Even things like going to the bathroom have to be planned between tasks, and worse, what if you cut yourself and need a sink for example? I'd rather have the same space as him but just static. The only things I'd want movable is the bed. For example, why does he need two TV/movie viewing areas? it's nice, but not practical for what he gives up for it. Just settle for the smaller TV. I Guess I would have two configs, one for sleeping, and one for everything else. The kitchen can be part of the living room which is part of the TV room. Cramped, but saves time and you get used to it
What's this? A millipede in need of othopedic shoes?
344 sq ft? What the heck? Let me google it... 32m2 (*)... hmmm, quite small, I used to live alone in a 56m2 apt.
Amazing what the guy managed to do. A true hacker in the very sense of the word: doing the impossible with insanely few resources. Hats off to hi for a very well done project.
(*) Slashdot, supposedly for nerd news, removes the exponent 2 -- how lame can this UI be? What next? Remove plus and minus? Well, we can always use COBOL...
I think that's what he was washing his hands in.
Let's take it a step further. A lifestyle could look as follows:
Rent a small coffin as seen in the cyberpunk novels of yore.
Spend much time working in said coffin. Someone can have an efficient computer, with a small (and thereby efficient) display with high pixel density, approximately 300ppi and mounted on an adjustable stand thingy. They would perform human intelligence tasks for enough time to support their lifestyle.
Recreation would use this display too. Anything and everything that a computer can be used for, but most probably WoW.
An optimal nutrition mix can be piped in, along with air, and the wastes out, obviating the need to leave very often. If space is at a great premium at the locale, the coffins can be stacked tightly in a rack-like fashion. A request to leave could be put in, and after some time the coffin would be moved to a "portal" which would allow you to exit.
Especially if you need blinds anyway (for the windows so as not to get up with the sun at 5am), even some of the cheapest ones such as http://www.avforums.com/forums/projector-screens/372990-ikea-tupplur.html at US$15-20 make a great screen (up to 100" approx. with a much better viewing angle than LCDs, and none of especially Plasmas' reflection issues). With cleverly designed brackets, they can even be mounted to curtain rails (and double as LED fixtures) to be removed without a trace from rented rooms later on: http://diy-community.de/attachment.php?attachmentid=63752&d=1278867980
;-) - and the pressure it creates to upgrade the entire collection to BluRays now that the difference in resolution really shows.
Very often, some piece of furniture or drywall (easily bridged by 125mm ventilation tubing or one of the monster-sized grommets e.g. from http://www.mockett.com/furniture-hardware/wire-cable-management) at the opposite side of the room will lend itself to building an excellent "hush box" for the projector (smokers will want to integrate an otherwise optional "museum glass").
The hard part is to hide it from the neighbors or they'll want to visit all too often
A pity affordable FullHD 3D projection is still a few years away for home cinemas - but even then this type of installation is most easily upgraded.
No matter when the story mad news. That is really cool! I always contemplated the problems of the static nature of housing and it seems that finally we are at a point to start exploring more versatile and dynamic spaces as shelter.
-- no sig today