[quote=spdrun]carli — the micro-apartment complex mentioned in the article is utter over-hyped shit. Anyone paying $2000-$3000 for a 260-360 square foot apartment should be given a free apartment in the Ward’s Island loony bin, considering that there are plenty of other buildings in safe, convenient areas where $3000/mo will get you 2-3x the apartment.

I’ve also seen the layouts. Fully 2/3 of the floor space is dedicated to bathroom and kitchen, because they decided to make ALL apartments in the building accessible rather than just some percentage. Furthermore, they designed the apartments with an entrance at the narrow side of the rectangle, which means they lose more space by having a “corridor” past the bath and kitchen.

Yuck![/quote]

Bummer about the bad design – weird, too, because they won the design competition. Probably Bloomberg’s rules for the design competition stated they had to all be accessible.

Will be interesting to see how they’re received by the marketplace of single renters. Maybe the advantages of being with a community of other singles and having some other nice pluses (storage space, common areas, good light) will be enough to outweigh the design/layout. For millenials, it might be kind of like moving back into their old college dorms, but in the city and with amenities.

They may prefer that to moving into a more demographically mixed, older building, even if it’s cheaper.