Starting Friday, you can head over to the Museum of the City of New York to experience a weird mix of housing schadenfreude and apartment envy. As part of their current Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers exhibit, they'll have five different participants live in a 325-square feet "micro-apartment" for 24 hours while museums guests can interact with the inhabitants both in real life and through social media. The five micro-unit dwellers will consist of two roommates in single beds, a romantic couple and a single person. On the one hand, obviously the cramped quarters will make you appreciate your own (slightly) more spacious set-up but...look at how nicely -- and creatively -- furnished the pad is! It looks as if someone did a Supermarket Sweep at Ikea and was able to make the space so cute and multi-functional that Tokyo apartment bloggers would be jealous. The quasi-performance piece is part of a larger exhibit that focuses on creative design
solutions meant to address New York's chronic housing issues (of the
space, price and availability varieties). The micro-unit residences will take turns living in the space from August 16-August 18 and we hear there will also be guest demonstrations showing how to cook, decorate and organize shoebox units. Just think -- it'll be like the Real World without all the sex, post-club hot tub sessions or fights over peanut butter! (Or maybe there will be fights over peanut butter...who knows.)
Photos by the Museum of the City of New York