Tiny Origami apartment in Manhattan unfolds into 4 rooms

In 2005, third-grade-teacher Eric Schneider bought as big as an apartment as he could afford in Manhattan. He paid $235,000 for a 450-square-foot studio with a tiny kitchen.

Then he let architects Michael Chen and Kari Anderson of Normal Projects design a way to pack more density into his small space.

In order to fit more apartment in a small footprint, they created an object that's bigger than furniture, but smaller than architecture and that morphs with the changing activities of a day.

It's a large, blue, oversized cabinet that houses all of the walls/bed/tables/shelving/closets needed for at least 4 full-sized rooms.

By continuing to unfold, or fold differently, Schneider can create a bedroom with accompanying built-in nightstand and closets, but an office plus library, a guest bedroom, and a living room. Or close it up entirely and simply flip down the small bar and the room becomes entertaining space for a dozen.

The Normal Projects architects called their creation the Unfolding Apartment, though given Schneider's affinity for the Japanese sense of space (he spent his first year post-college living and teaching in Japan), it could as easily be called the Origami Apartment.

In total, Schneider spent $70,000 total remodeling his new apartment and this includes not just the cabinet, but the bathroom renovation, all cabinetry, kitchen appliances, furniture and dishes.

In this video, Chen shows us his custom cabinet of rooms and Schneider unfolds a few of his favorite configurations: his bedroom (& closet/changing room), office (& library), guest bedroom, kitchen, dining bar, living room and lounge.

Original story here: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

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  Howto & Style

[ajjs02]

This is great. but, to put this in the False Economy reality.. they spent in total $305,000 purchase,and renovation. If you take 25 years to pay off this mortgage,you will pay approx. 2.25 x the original loan.. so they would pay $686,250 for 450 sq/ft.!! The only people who benefit from this, is the Bank, in other words the corp assholes who bankrupted the world economy. People in general are insane. Well designed, and insane. ^_^

[zoerickard]

In all due respect, that is not a house. It's a room.

[nilomyki]

Checkout Chen's website: normalprojectsdotcom

[BooBoo0818]

Excellent design. Would love to stay here if I was visiting NYC but not to live. It then becomes a high tech ghettto. You sit in a cube at work and then come home to a cube apartment and play on your computer. What else can you do? What kind of life is that? And the rich get richer by subdividing space. That's really what it comes down to.

[Emese' Dasha]

It doesn't take that high of an income to pay a 2-3k mortgage, and afford the cost of daily living in New York City, his mortgage is that of a typical middle american family living in Indianapolis (200-400k home) 30 year mortgage

[Dejah Gonzalez]

Where is the shower

[Harrison M.]

I thought this was going to be an actual origami apartment

[scotianbank]

It just hit me... How does he make so much money being a 3rd Grade teacher?? Does he work in a ultra-fancy private school? Or does he have money from somewhere else and he just teaches because he likes it and earns him a couple extra bucks??

I mean, the apartment itself is a part of what raised my suspicion, but he went to college AND then lived 1 year in Japan (Japan is CRAZY expensive, specially Tokyo, and he probably went to Tokyo), that requires a hefty amount of money...

[scotianbank]

It's not a house, that's for sure... But it's one helluva home!!

[coldinfusion]

its on the wall if u watched the video

[James Colson]

cute



[MrAnagusto]

And where you play golf??