When Helen Zhou first started looking to buy an apartment in London, the idea of living tiny was already appealing.
“I’m into minimalist living and I’m a big fan of the Marie Kondo approach,” said Zhou, 33, a software engineer who is also environmentally conscious and knew that living in a small space was one way to reduce his carbon footprint.
As it happens, her wants dovetailed perfectly with her budget: “I wanted an apartment in the city center with south-facing windows and lots of light,” she says. “All I could afford was a small studio.”
In November 2020, she purchased her new home, a 312-square-foot apartment, for £328,000 (approximately $420,000).
The kitchen and bathroom had been recently renovated and she thought they were good enough to leave as is. The living area was about the size of a bedroom. But Zhou had seen many creative apartments online and knew that with a few design tweaks, the tiny room could become more than just a place to sleep.
Still, she moved in without making any changes: “I just wanted to live there for at least a year to get a feel for it,” she says, moving furniture around to see where it felt best.
Soon after, she began searching for architects and, after seeing a small multi-purpose apartment they had designed for themselves in London, contacted Sara Lesperance and Michael Putman, partners at the firm Suprblk.
It turns out that L’Esperance and Putman had since relocated to Halifax, Canada, but were comfortable working remotely during the pandemic and eager to collaborate with Zhou.
First, the architects asked her what she wanted from the space, and instructed her not to hold back: “We had quite a few requests,” Zhou says.
In addition to spaces for cooking, eating, and sleeping, “I wanted a lounge. I wanted to entertain. I wanted a place to play board games. The list was pretty long,” she says.
While packing so much stuff into such a small apartment might have seemed impossible to anyone else, L’Esperance and Putman relished the challenge. “The question was how to achieve all these different areas without the space feeling closed in,” L’Esperance says. “How do you create rooms within rooms without using dividers or partitions?”
Their answer was to design a custom, shape-shifting cabinet, and after much discussion with Zhou, they came up with a design with many reconfigurable components.
The full-size bed is set against the wall and sits on a platform with integrated bedside tables and storage drawers underneath. A slide-out sofa can be placed next to the bed to provide a seating area. A storage box can be pulled out underneath the sofa to create a large flat surface, and the seat cushion can be unfolded to double the size and serve as a bed for an overnight guest.
When you move the sofa away from the bed, a table folds out from the back to create space for playing games, serving dinner, etc. With this arrangement, all you need to do is place a small cushion on top of the sofa’s storage bin to complete the seating.
“Everything had to have two or three functions,” Putman said.
Another desk pulls out from the wall, giving Zhou a place to work from home.
Without space for a full-size closet by the front door, Suprblk built an open wardrobe with a hanging rod for coats and an enclosed cabinet lined with shelves for storing shoes and other clothing.
“Storage is really important in a small apartment,” says L’Esperance, “so we took advantage of every little space we could find to put something.”
All the pieces are made from a green wood-fiber material called Valchromat, and Zhou found a paint color to match, then painted the wooden floors, walls and ceilings of the installation area himself, creating the appearance of a room within a room.
Another benefit of using custom cabinets rather than wooden studs and drywall to divide the space is that the pieces could be prefabricated off-site and quickly installed, meaning Zhou would have to spend less time away from his apartment. Construction began in February 2023, and the apartment was fully completed two months later. It cost less than GBP 25,000 (about $32,000). The compact design won an award this year.
Now, Zhou can’t believe that he can live such a luxurious life in such a small space.
“I knew I would have to make some sacrifices, but the design included everything I really wanted,” she says. “It’s a wonderful place to live.”
Living Small is a bi-weekly column that explores what it takes to live a simpler, more sustainable and more compact life.
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