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design so like I said, the idea of the design is not really original so sorry about that and credits go to whoever originally made this design.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.

Matroshka Furniture

I found this interesting multifunctional furniture set on YouTube when I was researching on different kinds of multifunctional furniture, be it individually or as a set. What I find interesting about this furniture is that everything is compacted into 1 set which is situated just in the corner of the room. I have to agree that the name actually suits because just like the matroshka doll, all the pieces fit together inside. The set of furniture can be used as a home office, a dining room, a lounge/living room and a bedroom.

The pictures below shows how people interact with the furniture:

The actual website for this is here: Matroshka furniture

Interior Design videos

Among all of the design videos that I've watched, the ones that had piqued my interest and inspiration in small space designing were those from faircompanies.com and "small eclectic amazing spaces". These two companies or channels focuses more into interior designing small spaces such as studios or micro apartments or other small housing areas.

faircompanies.com

 Videos from faircompanies.com features designers and what they can do with a small space. It doesn't necessarily mean studios, it could be as small as a ranch, a shed and other places that one might not even consider to be a housing area. Their design solutions are very simplistic and modern, and during videos they explain how their designs are utilized. The downfall is that sometimes, the furniture used are custom-made and built-in so it's pretty costly. Here are some sample videos:

SPACEStv
Another channel that I look towards to is "small eclectic amazing spaces" which is a reality show on SPACEStv channel in YouTube. The videos in this channel shows different people of different occupation from designers to photographers to businessmen, design their small space to suit their needs and at the same time show off their personality. The small space that they preview was not always a studio apartment, some are just certain rooms like a bedroom or even retail shop spaces. What I find interesting about their interior design is that they're all fitting their personality. Also at the fact that unlike faircompanies.com, the furniture used, are not necessarily multifunctional, they standard with only a single purpose and yet, they were able to fit everything in such a small space whilst designing to suit their personality. Here are sample videos:

Case study relating to my problem

In New York City, Manhattan, there are also citizens facing the same problem of having too small a space within the studio apartment. Like us, they want to conserve space, whilst at the same time have the room serve the usage of many different rooms; bedroom, dining room, home office, living room, kitchenette, basically everything one would want and need in an apartment. But because a studio apartment is only one room plus bathroom, it is very hard to fit all those into one room without making it too cramped and stuffy. Whilst some would only have to suffice with a room that can only serve basic needs, there are others who have found solutions to get a room to act as almost 6 different rooms.

Techline Studio is one of those smart ones.

Techline Studio is a company that designs custom furniture and by using that knowledge, they were able to design a studio apartment that fully optimizes its space. This company follows a style that is both functional and versatile, so their furniture is rather multipurpose. For example, in this case study, they built cabinets, around 16" to 24" deep, along the walls that can open up to bedroom, living room, wardrobe, dresser, home office, and dining room. 

This is what the cabinets look like in the apartment. And when they open, you get...

a home office, with some storage for printer or files...or...

 

a dresser with a sliding table, and storage for shoes, jewelry and other miscellaneous items...and when opened even further...

you get a dining table that could serve 2-3 people...

 

it can also open up to reveal a wardrobe with plenty of storage for clothes and shoes and whatnot...

the cabinets can also open up to reveal a bed!

So you can see how Techline Studio makes use of the small living space area. And I believe that the same concept can also be used in Singapore studio or 'shoe-box' apartments to fully optimize its living space...

reference and image source:

Techline Studio: Case study, studio apartment

Hong Kong Apartments

One of my lecturers' mentioned something about a video on Hong Kong Apartment in class. I couldn't hear the words clearly but it got me interested (anything related to interior design or jewelry interests me) and since it is related to the topic my group and I are working, I decided to check up on it. I found a video of a certain Hong Kong apartment on Youtube. I'm not sure if it's the one my lecturer mentioned but I watched it anyway. Here is the video:

The video is actually about an apartment space which is about 32 sq m (which is equal to 344 sq ft, it's even smaller than the studio apatments in Singapore). An architect, who had lived in in for 40 years, designed the apartment so that it can morph into 24 different rooms. 24!!! That's like a mansion and he was able to fit all of that into such a small space. Initially it would look an average open studio, but by pulling handles and walls sliding across steel tracks, he can have a mini bar, a 'maximum kitchen', a spa room, a lot things many people can only wish to have in their apartment. And the problem this architect has is too much storage. What people would give to have such a luxury as too much storage.

Although the place looks quite high tech, he stated that it is the opposite, and while he can control everything by using his smartphone, he prefers to do it manually.

Persona - Commuter

Hello, you can call me Sam for short. I am a Malaysian female who is further studying in Singapore. At the same time I am also working as a designer assistant for a virtual company. I spend most of the time out in school or at work, so you can see I’m hardly home at all except during the weekends. I am not very social, which is the reason I bought a studio apartment so I do not have to share with a roommate whom I am not familiar with. It is easier for me to work in peace without getting constantly distracted.

Seeing as I am a foreigner, I have to work part time to pay the bills and some of the tuition fees (the rest are being paid off by my family in my homeland).  I never had much money in the first place so I was only able to rent a studio apartment as it is cheap. It was either that or the dorms. The dorms are more expensive but the fees can be split with a roommate, but it makes me uncomfortable when socializing with people.

I noticed that the studio apartments in Singapore are quite small, but honestly I do not really care. I am too busy to take note of the lack of space around me. However, when I do notice it, I sometimes get overwhelmed by the sheer lack of space. But other than that, I’m pretty much indifferent to it. I mostly keep my studio apartment minimalist to make the room comfortable. Again, although it is too small, regarding that I only come home to take a rest after work and directly go to my workplace in the next morning, the small size might not be a serious problem for me.

Plus living in smaller spaces means cheaper electric bills, since it takes less energy to light and cool the room. So it really helps with saving money. It also helps me in deciding whether to buy something or not, since I have to get rid of something else to make space. It is also easy for me to multitask since everything is within reach. I don’t have to go from one room to the other just to eat or get something for work.

However, sometimes, having a small space can be problematic.  I can be very messy and disorganized at times and that leads to having things around the place. It is very annoying having to walk through the clutter and it can be rather distracting whenever I am doing something important because my eyes tend to stray to the mess.

Then, there is the problem of where I am living in. I’m lucky to have lived near a train station so I can get to the campus or my workplace with little difficulty.  But there are times where I wished I could live nearer so that I do not have to take so much time to get from my apartment to the campus or the workplace. Then I could have gotten a bit more sleep instead of having to wake so early. I don’t really have much of a problem with my neighbours as they are mostly quiet. Even if they are noisy, I can handle it, since I am a heavy sleeper. Getting to sleep is the problem.

Then there is also the problem with having guest over.  There was once a time I had to bring my group over for a group discussion. My group consisted of 6 people including me. If you do not know, I am claustrophobic, which means I cannot handle tight and closed off spaces, which is also one of the reasons why I’m out almost all the time. So when I had them over, I could barely breathe. There were so many people in such a small space. It was almost suffocating! And if it is already this bad having 5 people over, I cannot imagine having more people than that coming in.  And sometimes I have to keep their itchy fingers away from certain compartment. It would be so embarrassing if they found out what was stored in there.

Empathizing

Looking at it from a student's point of view, especially a foreign student, I would say having a studio apartment has its ups and downs. For one, since it would just be me living in it, despite it being relatively small, it is an alright size for one person. And since it is quite small, it takes less time to clean it (I heard it takes less than 10 min to clean the place). Unlike living in a dorm, I don't have to share with a roommate, so I can avoid the typical roommate drama. It is also easier to multitask, as everything is near to me, so less time consuming. Rental is also cheap compared to one bedroom apartments, which helps to save money. Electrical bills are also cheaper, as there is less space to cool, so again it saves money. Also, being a foreign student living in a different country, I have to work part time to pay the bills, so I'm hardly inside the studio. If anything, the studio apartment is just a place for me to sleep and for storage,.so, having a small studio apartment is a good thing.

But there are also a disadvantages of living in one. For instance, seeing as I'm hardly inside and I'm always in a hurry, I have a tendency to leaving things around the place, which makes the place very disorganized, so I had to shuffle my way through the clutter, which is considerably hard if I'm in a hurry. And if I have projects, which accumulates every month, there is little space to store them without ruining them. Also if I'm bringing visitors, there will be little to no privacy, which is quite embarrassing if they see something  they shouldn't. It also cancels out the possibility of a party or a sleepover, seeing as the place is too small for a group of  people. And although I hardly cook in the studio apartment, when I do, there will always be either oil stains on the furniture or the room smelling like food for the next few days. So, it is quite unpleasant. Not too mention I have to pay rental fees and bills myself, unlike in dorms where I can split the bills with a roommate. And since the space is quite small, you need to conserve as much space as you can, which means you have to get rid of some things to make room or it'll get stuffy and cramped. So if you're indecisive like me or you're a big furniture lover, you're gonna face some difficulty.

So yeah, all in all, like I said, there are ups and downs to living in a studio apartment. But luckily, I plan on leaving once my studies have been completed, so I don't have to go through this for the rest of my life. Even if I do plan on staying, I wouldn't be living in a studio apartment. Once I start working and manage to save up enough money, I would rather buy a one bedroom apartment. But for now I'll just endure it.

Studio apartments are too small. A problem?

I find many problems concerning with the studio apartment being too small. Firstly, it can only accommodate only 1 person, 2 at most. It is certainly not an ideal place for families. The space is just too small for a family of three, let alone four and i find that it will be quite awkward among them, especially if the children would prefer their own room. Secondly, there is not much space for a lot of furniture to begin with so in order to maximize space one must use multipurpose furniture, like a sofa bed for instance. Buying a furniture only meant for one purpose will only minimize the space. And the bigger the furniture, the lesser the space. And then there is the space itself. It is really small, seeing it is just ONE room for everything (minus the bathroom) kitchen, living room and bedroom, and that actually means no privacy for residents should visitors enter. They will see EVERYTHING. There also comes safety issues. Should a person choose a studio apartment where the kitchen resides directly parallel to the front door, and should a fire break out, it will cut off their only means of escape, basically leaving them trapped. The government themselves are also not helping, seeing that in order to accommodate the ever increasing population, they must shrink the already tight spaces. In Singapore its worse, as it is a small country, and the government needs to save plot land for either economical reasons or to build things that will boost up the finances. There are good things that come with studio apartments, but I find that disadvantages outweigh them all.