Most people see a parking space and promptly back up into it; Tim McCormick sees one and thinks, “I could live here.”
Who would willingly choose to live in something with the footprint of a parking space (8x10x16 feet)? Millions already do, argues McCormick, a communications consultant: bedrooms, dorm rooms, motel rooms, hostels, mobile homes and the like. “I myself live comfortably in a converted one-car garage of 200 square feet,” he says, “which allows me to live inexpensively near downtown in super-expensive Palo Alto.”
In cities where space is at a mind-boggling premium, McCormick’s idea of taking up residence in a parking space — in what he refers to as a “Houselet” — isn’t all that far-fetched. It may in fact be more appealing than the so-called “hacker hostels” that got a lot of buzz earlier this summer. Essentially apartments that house herds of would-be startup entrepreneurs willing to pay market rate to live in near-migrant-worker conditions, hacker hostels are proliferating in cities like San Francisco and New York where work culture calls for 24/7 commitments and lots of food-truck takeout (which no doubt inspired upLIFT’s prefab parking pods for the city).
These apartments are less living spaces than crash pads with a social networking component.
They do fit a particular market need, however, which is more than a lot of housing options can lay claim to. Is collaborative space the new urban amenity, replacing the granite counter top or Viking range? Perhaps. Savvy developers see a market — namely, people’s attraction to what’s outside a dwelling as much as, if not more than, what’s in it — and are trying to fill it. (...)
It is an understatement to say that demand far outstrips supply in San Francisco. As a result, rents and mortgages have gone through the roof. (Compare those 200 units to the 16,502 units of affordable housing that will be built this fiscal year in New York City.) San Francisco has proposed reducing the minimum square footage for residential units (currently 290 square feet) so that more units can be built. The proposed new minimum would be 150 square feet plus kitchen, bathroom and closet (a size that is, interestingly enough, about the size of McCormick’s one-car garage). It’s also, jokes Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests, a developer in Berkeley, Calif., who has created a 160-square foot prototype, as small as “you can go without causing psychological problems.”
Who would willingly choose to live in something with the footprint of a parking space (8x10x16 feet)? Millions already do, argues McCormick, a communications consultant: bedrooms, dorm rooms, motel rooms, hostels, mobile homes and the like. “I myself live comfortably in a converted one-car garage of 200 square feet,” he says, “which allows me to live inexpensively near downtown in super-expensive Palo Alto.”In cities where space is at a mind-boggling premium, McCormick’s idea of taking up residence in a parking space — in what he refers to as a “Houselet” — isn’t all that far-fetched. It may in fact be more appealing than the so-called “hacker hostels” that got a lot of buzz earlier this summer. Essentially apartments that house herds of would-be startup entrepreneurs willing to pay market rate to live in near-migrant-worker conditions, hacker hostels are proliferating in cities like San Francisco and New York where work culture calls for 24/7 commitments and lots of food-truck takeout (which no doubt inspired upLIFT’s prefab parking pods for the city).
These apartments are less living spaces than crash pads with a social networking component.
They do fit a particular market need, however, which is more than a lot of housing options can lay claim to. Is collaborative space the new urban amenity, replacing the granite counter top or Viking range? Perhaps. Savvy developers see a market — namely, people’s attraction to what’s outside a dwelling as much as, if not more than, what’s in it — and are trying to fill it. (...)
It is an understatement to say that demand far outstrips supply in San Francisco. As a result, rents and mortgages have gone through the roof. (Compare those 200 units to the 16,502 units of affordable housing that will be built this fiscal year in New York City.) San Francisco has proposed reducing the minimum square footage for residential units (currently 290 square feet) so that more units can be built. The proposed new minimum would be 150 square feet plus kitchen, bathroom and closet (a size that is, interestingly enough, about the size of McCormick’s one-car garage). It’s also, jokes Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests, a developer in Berkeley, Calif., who has created a 160-square foot prototype, as small as “you can go without causing psychological problems.”
by Allison Arief, NY Times | Read more:
Phoro: Panoramic Interests
