NYC challenges architects to design comfort in 250-square-foot apartment

NEW YORK Sam Neuman jokes that he doesnt casually throw off his coat when he gets home at night it would take up half his apartment.

Such is life in his walk-up studio a few blocks from Manhattans bustling Times Square. At 280 square feet, the apartment is barely the size of a one-car garage, with just enough space for a bed, a desk, a TV stand on one wall and a kitchen against the other.

Ive developed this weird Stockholm syndrome, which you identify with your captors, said the 31-year-old publicist. When I go to other peoples apartments, I think, Why do they need more than one bedroom? Im really very happy here. Theres not really time to let things accumulate because ... where would I put them?

The Big Apple is legendary for its legions of residents who live in really, really small apartments. Many of them are fiercely proud of it and can even find the humor in their cramped quarters. Now the city is about to see just how small New Yorkers are willing to go.

With the population and rents expected to keep climbing, city planners are challenging architects to design ways to make it tolerable even comfortable to live in as small as 250 square feet.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Tuesday announced the winner of a competition to incorporate those designs into an apartment complex to be built on Manhattans east side next year featuring 55 micro units.

To make up for the shoebox dimensions, the building will offer residents common spaces like a rooftop garden and lounge area on nearly every floor. The aim is to offer more such tiny apartments throughout the city as affordable options for the young singles, cash-poor and empty nesters who are increasingly edged out of the nations most expensive real-estate market.

If the pilot program is successful, New York could ultimately overturn a requirement established in 1987 that all new apartments be at least 400 square feet.

Smaller living is already endorsed by some cities. San Francisco has approved construction of apartments as small as 220 square feet. Tokyo and Hong Kong have long had tiny units.

As a way to get New Yorkers to think small, a new Museum of the City of New York exhibit features a fully furnished, 325-square-foot studio that incorporates the latest space-saving designs. Theres the bed that folds out over a couch, a padded ottoman containing four nesting chairs, a foldout dinette table tucked under the kitchen counter and a TV that slides away to reveal a bar.

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NYC challenges architects to design comfort in 250-square-foot apartment