All you need on 9 square meters

January 2, 2013

Smallest apartment of Sweden

Sweden is mostly known for fabulous and attractive interior design and practical furniture that is offered by Swedish retailers as Lundia and Ikea. Great practical solutions for small houses and people who like well designed furniture for a small price. Recently a Swedish architect, Krister Wiberg, surprised the world designing the smallest house of Sweden in the city of Lund that counts with only 9 square meters.

With this small home students are able to fit their hosing needs with their wallet: ‘All you need on 9 square meters!’.
Due to economical housing in Sweden being so few and far between, the apartment is a hot commodity and students must compete to be able to live here. They also must participate in things like blogging about their experience living in the space.

When we walk through the main door of the house, we aren’t just in the hall, but in a mono space including the dining room, living room, kitchen and bedroom. It’s a surprise to see how an entire home has been created on such a minimal surface. Many bedrooms in ordinary homes the bedroom is more than double the size of this tiny home. It is a kind of miracle that the architect Krister Wiberg has accomplished.

The ceiling height, natural lighting, the clean and minimalist decor makes it feel just like that typical housing taken from a Scandinavian lifestyle magazine. Lund’s city’s building commission (Stiftelsen AF Bostäder), proposed building 60 to 100 of similar units but their plans were turned down because of Sweden’s strict building codes (i.e., requiring access for the disabled). The commission is working on an appeal in hope of bringing more of these perfectly sized, bargain studios to the students to offer great value for money student housing.

The studio counts with some restrictions and inconveniences such as limited storage spaces, the furniture is very minimalistic and the mono space can turn into a wet room after a long shower. However, prudent renters can enjoy a great compact home for a very reasonable price in popular student cities, a problem that exists in many countries world wide.

Hopefully the Swedish can export this concept to foreign countries which would be a big relieve to many students. Besides that there is another source of hope because in 2012 the Swedish furniture giant Ikea announced plans to invest and construct affordable student flats in university cities across western Europe (first ones possibly in Amsterdam and Delft), all decorated with their practical furniture. Ikea also has plans to develop a chain of budget design hotels in the Netherlands, Great Britain and Poland.

Source:

Thelocal.se
Afb.se

3 Responses to All you need on 9 square meters

design traveller on February 8, 2013 at 22:32

That is a perfect example of functional design, great ergonomy!

Andrew Graeme Gould on February 21, 2013 at 20:11

What a fantastic design. And so practical, too!

Enoch Sears (@BusinessofArch) on May 15, 2013 at 21:46

I love it! Excellent use of space, everything the human needs (and more).