microMACRO | A L A O

The idea of living in a compressed, highly efficient unit is liberating and enriching. To live comfortably within the spatial constraints of a single room containing all the essential programs of a home requires a radical imagining of the organization of “home”. It necessitates a veering away from the traditional notion of a house as a set of “rooms”, of compartmentalized space based on different functions. Rather than using static partitions, we can employ other systems to organize the activities of sleeping, cooking, dining, living, working, bathing and other specificities of our daily routine. The bedroom, for instance, becomes obsolete in this interrogation as it is unused during most of the day. Space can be utilized in a more efficient way if enclosures are created only when needed with the use of flexible boundaries that enable degrees of visual and acoustic privacy, with moving walls that expand and contract space or with nooks that conceal private programs. A holistic storage system can be used to arrange all domestic program, allowing every function and clutter to be tucked to the side or by container furniture that when opened, activates the space around it rather than within. These systems allow a single room multiple uses and transform with the changing requirements of a home through the day.

In this urban reimagining, the compression of each unit as part of a larger residential environment frees up of space for sharing. Step out of your personal space and into shared amenities to commune with your neighbours. Step out of your building, and into the city. The dream is to have access to everything and the trade off is space.