Musings

Designer Meets Tiny Space Meets Low Budget Meets Plywood

“Calling Howard Roark, calling Mr. Roark.”

Forty years ago I was an aspiring architecture student, and that combined with my years in preserving artistic and historic resulted in  life-long interest in design.  On the occasional evenings when I am too tired to read or write I might veg out on construction, design or “tiny house” videos on youtube.  Although many of the latter strike me as attempts to extend or recapture a pre-adolescent lifestyle by the owners who appear to have few possessions (no room), kids (ditto), or jobs requiring their physical presence or labor, a great many of the projects reveal astounding innovation in space management or construction/design, a vocabulary I keep in mind for our small home.

If I remember my Ayn Rand novels correctly this challenge led her heroic architect Howard Roark to accept the surreptitious task of designing the Courtland Towers although a rival architect was getting all the credit. All Roark wanted was to solve the problem of high density housing that was well designed and well constructed, inexpensively.

I could not help but think of that when I came across this video.   I think this solution to a similar problem is ingenious and I would love to see it in person.  It highlights the creative responses to the matter of ultra-high density living in New York City, a/k/a Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.  As much as I admire this design I prefer living someplace where I am so remote I am barely aware of my nearest neighbor.

And shellac ties it all together!