These apartments are so small they can only be photographed from the ceiling. "According to the Society for Community Organization, 100,000 of the city’s laborers live in sub-divided apartment units averaging 40 square feet (3.7 sq m)."
posted by chunking express (62 comments total) 30 users marked this as a favorite

 

100,000 of the city’s laborers live in sub-divided apartment units averaging 40 square feet

Ballard foretold this.
posted by item at 2:11 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

firefox in osx hates that link. I can only see half of one picture. Do you have a print link or something that makes the page legible?
posted by leotrotsky at 2:17 PM on February 23, 2013 [8 favorites]

Which device was this Quartz thing optimized for? Because it's clearly not mine.
posted by pwnguin at 2:30 PM on February 23, 2013 [7 favorites]

Huh, I'm running firefox on osx and the page opens fine.

...and people look at me and Mr. Ant like we're mutant freaks because we choose to live in a 700-square-foot house. We Americans as a group have some messed up standards.
posted by workerant at 2:31 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Ugg, I got the heebie jeebies just looking at it.

I was kinda hoping to see one hyper organized one though.
posted by ian1977 at 2:31 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

Works in Chrome on Win 7: scroll down.
posted by maudlin at 2:32 PM on February 23, 2013

The top banner bouncing around is really annoying.
posted by ian1977 at 2:33 PM on February 23, 2013 [6 favorites]

I like the newsprint place mat on the main larger picture. That is smart. I will have to try that.
posted by ian1977 at 2:35 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I would seriously consider using a hammock in there so that when you werent sleeping your bed wouldn't eat up half of your living space.
posted by ian1977 at 2:36 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

I also encountered layout problems. ff19 on linux here. works better in chrome.
posted by jepler at 2:36 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

It works great on an iPad 3, if that helps.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 2:42 PM on February 23, 2013

Quartz is the website I keep bookmarked for when I want to explain to somebody how getting cute with website design can backfire.
posted by axiom at 2:44 PM on February 23, 2013 [19 favorites]

Fuck San Francisco. I looked at these and thought "I wonder how much I'd save on rent if I lived in one of those in the city?"
posted by c'mon sea legs at 2:50 PM on February 23, 2013 [5 favorites]

As we build Quartz, we are focused on the touchscreen and mobile devices that increasingly dominate our lives. Our design began with the iPad foremost in mind, and we modified it from there to suit smartphones and, finally, personal computers. -- Welcome To Quartz

I'm looking at this on a laptop and I find the site design tolerable but annoyingly cute. It seems to me that the main thing you have to do to a web page to make it tablet-friendly is to make the clickable zones bigger, so you can hit them with your fingers more reliably. Everything else designers try (like disappearing/reappearing banners and controls) always seems like a questionable trade-off at best.

The photos are great; very effective at giving you a glimpse into another place, and another's life.

I was kinda hoping to see one hyper organized one though.

I think several of them should count as "hyper organized," given the economic constraints involved. If you're working your ass off to just barely afford the absurd rent on one of those closets, you're probably not too interested in blowing what discretionary income you've got on a big set of matching bins. "Hyper-organization" in the Western middle class mode is perhaps a greater economic luxury than we imagine.
posted by Western Infidels at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2013 [13 favorites]

And, at $1300/sq foot, those 40-square-foot "apartments" are worth about $52,000.

I've lived in a tiny efficiency, and was pretty comfortable. It had a little kitchen and fridge and a separate bathroom, albeit one with barely room enough to turn around in. It was no bigger, in total, than a room at Motel 6, but it worked okay. I'd guess it was about 12' wide and about 14' long, maybe 16. I spent so much time working that I barely noticed it. It was the place that I ate, showered, and slept, when I wasn't at work.

But those? Those would be too small, even for me.
posted by Malor at 3:08 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

Seconding Malor. Small apartments can be just fine (provided they are properly ventilated and there is some closet-space or substitute), but this is taking it to an extreme.
posted by Yowser at 3:15 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Western Infidels: "It seems to me that the main thing you have to do to a web page to make it tablet-friendly is to make the clickable zones bigger, so you can hit them with your fingers more reliably."

You forgot totally disabling zoom. That's of utmost importance for a tablet-friendly web site, right? I mean, pretty much every "mobile" site designer does that now, so it must be right. Ugh.

Anyway - I'm contemplating a move to an expensive city (Boston) and it occurs to me that I could totally fit my piano and my couch in one of those apartments, so I guess in theory I could do it, since my couch is good for sleeping. I can't imagine not having problems, but as long as my piano's there I can stay sane at least. Not sure how my tiny-apartment neighbors would feel, though.
posted by koeselitz at 3:17 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

I remember seeing a House Hunters episode where the buyers were a couple in Oslo (I think). They had their pick of apartments in the 1200-1500+ sq ft. range. They had all the advantages of location and a high density neighbourhood, but with ample personal space.

I think there would be huge demand for apartments like this in a lot of cities, but not many of them seem to exist. Instead we get shrinking apartments in cities, and (up until recently) ballooning houses in the suburbs.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:30 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is warehousing, not housing, but it's not that different than comparable slum housing in 19th century London or New York. The big difference there was that many people shared a single space: one of the cases mentioned in Judith Flanders' "The Invention of Murder" was of a prostitute who shared an 8X6 foot room with her lover and another couple, plus a pair of street kids that she allowed to sleep under the bed.

Seconding Western Infidels on the idea of 'organized space' as a middle class luxury. Does anyone know when the building codes began to be developed and enforced in Europe and the Americas?
posted by jrochest at 3:47 PM on February 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

Stunning photos. It was a little hard to square away the reality of illegally sub-divided places personally as an Angeleno, but when you consider that whole families live here, you get a better sense of just how terrible the reality is of living in these spaces that dot Hong Kong Island and Kowloon.

And, of course, living in these spaces means living at the edge of the law. You get a little detached taste of this strange urban reality if you're a backpacker renting out a hostel, as chances are that you'll land in another illegally sub-divided place with an ominously threatening notice (that is, if you can read it) about how illegal your situation is.
posted by zer0render at 3:50 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

The big difference there was that many people shared a single space

What difference? The first picture is of a family of three. They appear to have a triple bunk bed. I love my dad, but I can't imagine being within arm's length of him whenever I'm at home.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:04 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

Looks like an interesting topic. Shame it's on a terribly designed site. I can only see 3/4 of the 1st picture.
posted by dazed_one at 4:19 PM on February 23, 2013

leotrotsky, both the Guardian and the Daily Mail ran this series of photos. Here is the Guardian link.
posted by glasseyes at 4:21 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

And to add insult to injury, minimum wage was for fought tooth and nail in the past few years and came into force in 2011 at $28HKD/hour. That's a bit over $3USD/hour in one of the highest rent seeking places on earth.

The rest of the population as a whole ain't doing that much better either. As of January 2012, median income for male adults 25 to 34 is $13,000HKD/month and 35 to 44 is $16,000HKD/month. That's $1680 and $2060 USD respectively. English source: SCMP.

Both Donald and CY have done shit for the common people IMO.
posted by tksh at 4:22 PM on February 23, 2013 [4 favorites]

I meant to add that minimum wage factoid to say, the lower class in HK society live in squalid conditions barely making sustainable wages. The middle class above is not even keeping up with inflation, so it's that much worst for the those less fortunate.
posted by tksh at 4:26 PM on February 23, 2013

I shudder to think of the aftermath of a fire in one of those buildings.
posted by yoga at 4:40 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

zer0render, I'm not sure why you say the notice you linked to is "ominously threatening". It's a notice not to put things along fire escape routes, including back stairs and corridors. The notice states that any items found in these areas will be treated as rubbish and cleared, and expenses will be charged to the residents responsible.
posted by Alnedra at 4:42 PM on February 23, 2013

Architecture of density
posted by dephlogisticated at 4:44 PM on February 23, 2013 [11 favorites]

Alnedra: I was just about to post a correction; it seems like I posted up the wrong notice. Sorry about that. I assure you that notices about illegally subdivided flats do exist; just have to dig around to find 'em.
posted by zer0render at 4:44 PM on February 23, 2013

Thanks for the Guardian link, glasseyes.
posted by dazed_one at 4:45 PM on February 23, 2013

You know, I think that these could actually be a sustainable model somewhere with ample, genuine public and semi-public spaces, and a weak culture of individualism. I feel like the gut reaction of "ack! too tight!" is what partially led to our Progressive overdose and consequently suburbanization, urban renewal, etc. I'm not saying cholera and fire are awesome, but I think extreme density like this could work in certain highly thoughtful and well-executed contexts (that probably don't currently exist anywhere). Ain't nobody gonna catch miasma anymore.
posted by threeants at 4:45 PM on February 23, 2013 [3 favorites]

Not to gloss over the class aspects here-- obviously it totally sucks that poor people have to live this way because they're poor. I'm talking more about this kind of extreme density in the abstract, executed more equitably.
posted by threeants at 4:47 PM on February 23, 2013

Just to follow up: here's a review (second from top) noting the hostel notices on the building front. The implication is that the illegally-rented blocks are also illegally subdivided.
posted by zer0render at 4:57 PM on February 23, 2013

it's impossible for me to get a sense of how awful this would actually feel based on the jarring ceiling-downward angle. who experiences space like that?

i remember my girlfriend's 3-mat apato in tokyo which was basically an apartment the size of three single beds. there was a closet to store bedding during daytime, an entrance alcove that doubled as a kitchen and a toilet just down the hall shared with one other apato. with a nightly soak at the local bathhouse and a beer vending machine right there it was actually kinda nice.
posted by ecourbanist at 4:59 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

Like living in a bunkroom on a submarine, except you get to leave whenever you want? Meh, I could do it. I don't need much.

Like yoga says, though, fire is a big deal. At least on a submarine, everyone is a trained fire-fighter, everyone knows every square inch of the place, and firefighting equipment is everywhere. I'm not sure I'd be happy with a gazillion people I don't know and trust living in the same building with me, with shady toaster ovens and stuff.
posted by ctmf at 5:36 PM on February 23, 2013 [2 favorites]

Here are the five photos on the site, raw and unresized (since even opening them in their own tab force-resizes them): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

ian1977: “I was kinda hoping to see one hyper organized one though.”

Western Infidels: “I think several of them should count as ‘hyper organized,’ given the economic constraints involved. If you're working your ass off to just barely afford the absurd rent on one of those closets, you're probably not too interested in blowing what discretionary income you've got on a big set of matching bins. ‘Hyper-organization’ in the Western middle class mode is perhaps a greater economic luxury than we imagine.”

Yeah – I feel like all of these, especially #4 and #5, demonstrate pretty good organization of space. I mean, #4, which impresses me most, seems to house a family of 3, with cooking gear and a tiny fridge and two bunks. That one seems to be the "luxury" apartment of the five, though, considering that it seems to be the only one that actually has a window. #1 is interesting just because it shows that living in abjectly tiny rooms (it seems like the smallest of the lot) is a lot easier when you don't have any stuff beyond a TV, a fan, a pile of magazines and papers, a sleeping mat, and an iPhone.
posted by koeselitz at 6:04 PM on February 23, 2013 [1 favorite]

As jrochest and ecourbanist have mentioned, SRO (single resident occupancy) and efficiencies have housed the working poor and seniors as well as denizens of megalopolis Asia tolerably well. Hanoi is a great exam