Bibliography

The bibliography of stuff that I used for research

Videos

Dirksen, Kristen. ‘Lego-style apartment transforms into infinite spaces’; Online Video; Youtube; Uploaded on Apr 25, 2011 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWaO5TJS00>

Dirksen, Kristen. ‘Tiny Origami apartment in Manhattan unfolds into 4 rooms’. Online Video; Youtube; Uploaded on Nov 7, 2011<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RbxkrmuQ5E>

House, Erica. 'Living in a Studio Apartment', Online video; Youtube; Accessed 8 July 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-L6QefB8ZLc>

Websites

Breaux, Adrienne. Apartment Therapy: The Pros of Living in a Studio Apartment. Created 30 Oct. 2008. Accessed 28 Jan. 2014 <http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-pros-of-living-in-a-studio-68187> 

Mount Sophia Studio Apartments

The studio apartment in Mount Sophia are one of the known studio apartments in Singapore situated near the  Dhoby Ghaut MRT station. The Apartment is 366 sq. ft. and can occupy a maximum of 2 people. The apartment also contains a sliding wall which can be utilized to separate the rooms. 

As you can see from the floor plan the apartment has a small kitchenette, a small wardrobe, a queen sized bed, a sofa, a desk, and a bathroom with shower. There is plenty of space but there appears to be not enough storage space. So I believe that the set furniture designed would aid in creating more storage space and at the same time conserving the given space.

Final Design

Ok, now looking at it again, creating just one furniture that has all three concept ideas is not working. So decided to make it a set of furniture instead. Here are the designs (art credits go to Laura, my group mate and artist)

Yeah, not that original I know but then again Murphy beds all look the same anyway so can't really do anything about it. The concept and how it looks like are the same as what you would probably see in other companies design so like I said, the idea of the design is not really original so sorry about that and credits go to whoever originally made this design. The only thing I added that was hopefully original was the double width capacity in the Murphy bed. I initially wanted a Murphy bed, and a multifunctional chair and table, the design was that withing the murphy bed there would also be storage to keep the multifunctional table and chair but it didn't really work out that well. What you see in the picture was the initial design with the storage for the multifunctional chair and table, but because we scrap the idea out and we didn't have enough time to redraw everything so we left it as it is. The design is the same, the only thing is that the storage for the chair and table would be for users items like clothes or whatnot.

One of my group mates thought of an idea where the chair can morph into a sort of a small stepping ladder so I thought why not. But since we're also tackling the problem of lacking storage space so I had asked to incorporate the storage solution to it. The design came out like this. The concept is that the head  board of the chair can be pulled down 180 degrees, taking half of the seating area and turn it into a stepping ladder (look at the process in the image if you don't get what I'm saying). At the bottom of the chair is storage. It looks like a drawer. The drawer storage is based on the concept of the twisted table so it was design so that the top drawer can be twisted to a certain angle to reveal storage in the bottom drawer. 

I later found out that the chair turning into a stepping ladder idea was originally from a company that I do not know so.......credits to original designer.

The next and last design was that of a telescopic desk incorporated to a bookcase/cupboard. The concept idea came from a group called 'Resource Furniture' so we based it on that. Again, we're tackling the problem of space so the desk was design in that manner. As for how it works, the bookcase/cupboard is just a standard one with a cabinet storage at the side incorporated to a telescopic table. the two table legs connected to a part of the desk is pulled, revealing a sort of aluminium bridge. the planks or leaves, I don't know what they're called, that is stored in the cabinet is placed on the aluminium bridge. This creates a dining table can serve up to 9 people.

I decided to based the name for the furniture set design on the pulling term because I noticed that all our designs had to do with the action of pulling something. So we named it 'La Traccion' which means pulling in Spanish. We had no other ideas.

lofted beds

After looking at this video, I realized that there may be also be space in the ceiling. Which brought me to think about stuff like those pillar - like things in the corner of the rooms and double ceilings. Typically, they were constructed to hide things like pipes or wires to make the place cleaner and neater. But when you live in a studio apartment, you need as much space as you can get right? whether if its on the same ground as you or above you. So I then thought about what if the ceiling were a little higher? Like the fake ceiling is not there? Then you can have things like a lofted bed where you can have space to put furniture in like a desk to do your work and whatnot. It shows that you can actually make use of any space, whether if its right next to you or above you, and that can conserve space.

            

This is what a lofted bed looks like if you don't understand what I mean.

Then again I don't think most apartments, studio or not have double ceilings so I don't think this info is really useful. But that doesn't mean one can't place a lofted bed. Just that you need to mind your head.

3 main ideas

Out of the 101 ideas, my group and I agreed on the 3 main ideas that we would use for our designs. They were multi-functional chair, murphy bed and twisted table. And as we chose those ideas, we also thought of pros and cons to them.

For the multifunctional chair, the good thing is that it doesn't take so much space, and it has more functions compared to that of a normal chair. It can fulfill the requirements of other furniture so you don't need to buy another furniture that has the same usage. The only drawback is that it could be more expensive compared to a standard furniture. Obviously because since it can do other things than being just a chair, more materials are required to make them, the could be of higher quality and durability so that adds to the price of buying such a thing. Plus depending on how it's design it can only fulfill certain needs. It can't morph into everything. So to tackle on to those drawbacks, we can manufacture them using recycled materials so it can be strong and no too costly. As for the design, we have to make so that it fulfill more needs than just one or two of them.

For the Murphy bed, it's multipurposeful so it's not just a bed, so it can morph to cater other needs as well. The bed can be kept away so it doesn't take up your space so it's really helpful when you need space. Plus, I read from the Internet that it's possibly cheaper than a regular bed, so it helps to save money. The only problem is that it can be tiresome to constantly take out the bed and keep it back whenever not in use. The only to solve it is to either designed it so that it is automated or to make it a habit. It can be good for exercise.

lastly for the twisted table, it pros are about the same as the multifunctional chair; it's multipurpose and it helps to conserve space. On another note, it can only serve certain requirements so like the multifunctional chair, we need design it so that it can serve many purposes and not just one or two. 

So from those we planned on making a designing a furniture that consists of those 3 ideas and help to tackle those drawbacks that we had just mentioned.

101 Ideas

After some research, it has come to a conclusion that the main problem of studio apartments is that there is not enough storage. Considering that there is not much one can change about the interior of the apartment, the only thing that can be done is modifying the furniture inhabiting the space.

After much brainstorming, we ave managed to come up about 101 ideas for the design of the apartment. Since the studio apartments are already quite small to begin with, most, if not all, of the designs are based on multifunctional furniture. Some are rational and already existing, such as the idea of murphy beds or furniture hidden behind walls, and some are quite interesting, if not rather ludicrous, such as the floating apartment (I'm not too sure on how to explain, the idea was not mine), and some, well, has no longer anything to do with the apartment, such as combining two rooms to make one bigger room.

All in all, there are some interesting ideas that could be developed further. The sketches are underway so, in time, it will be easier to understand the illustration rather than words.

experience living in a single room

I noticed that even by researching about the problem, it is still difficult to understand the full length of the problem. They say that the space is small, but what's wrong about it being small?

So I decided to conduct my own research of experience the life in a studio apartment. It's kinda hard to wrap my head around it, since I lived in a 3 bedroom condominium, but then again, I always stayed in my bedroom, and only going out to use the kitchen, dining room, and the bathroom when I needed it. I never used the living room. So it's not that different from a studio apartment. The only difference is that I have walls separating the rooms.

Like others, I also face the same situation, but rather than the room being too small, I find that the problem lies with storage. I can never seem to have enough storage to keep my stuff, so they always lie in piles in the corner of the room. And there's projects, which makes it even harder to keep them all without them getting squished. And my bed seems to take up almost 1/3 of the room, making it smaller that it already is. I do a lot of illustration sketches, so it's not surprising that I have papers all around the place. I don't even have a proper desk, so I would always used the small foldable white table that I can put on the bed whenever I need a flat place to work with other than the floor. Before I would use the wide window ledge by my bed to do my desk-work, but because i have been sitting in a kneeling and hunchback position for long periods of time, I tend to suffer from backaches and leg cramps, which have made reconsider using that area. So now that area is more or less a place for storage or some kind of sitting area so that I can look out the window.

Other than the bed, I also have a dresser table, honestly I used it more for storage and a surface to put stuff that I can just pick up from, and a built in wardrobe. I don't have a bookcase for my books, so I always left the in a box since I never take them out to read anyway so no use in getting another furniture. It'll just make the room smaller.

Since the place is rented I can't just simply renovate the area, so the only way I can think of is by using multifunctional furniture, with plenty of storage space.