Here's a scale model of my room:
I keep some basic food and my possessions on the shelf, and clothing on the rack and in the drawers built into the bottom of the bed. The desk folds down, against the wall, but the door opens outward anyway so I never actually fold it down. I keep cleaning supplies and oatmeal under that.
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Originally Posted by Chicago103
Is there a bath/toilet area in your room or do you have a shared bathroom with other units? In my view as long as I can sleep, shower and shit in private and there is a world class city just outside my unit I could manage. Actually I have thought about the concept of making apartment that are the same size as pre-1970 standard residential bathrooms, they usually have a sink, a tub/shower and a toilet, the towel closet and place under the sink would be your closets, enough room for a hot plate/microwave on one side of the sink and your bed would be a small mattress in between the tub and toilet/sink or perhaps sleep on the mattress in the tub at night. So basically you have total privacy but nothing else, paradise for introverted devout urbanists. I would call it "urban monk apartments", essentially people who are so religious about urbanism they are willing to give up virtually all earthly possessions to live in an awesome city. Materialism and a desire for space is the slippery slope to SUV's and McMansions on a cul-de-sac.
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Kitchen and bathroom is shared with four other rooms. But my situation definitely affords me a bit more privacy than those of my classmates, who share small rooms, have beds in the tiny living room which the bedrooms open into, etc.
Your idea reminds me of the units in the Nakagin Capsule Tower. But they're probably double the size of my room, at least. Seems people in Japan also have less personal space in domestic life. I lived for a couple months with a friend in a single room. Also stayed briefly with one family (sister, brother, sister's son) who all slept in one room. Not sure that sort of thing would go so harmoniously in some other cultures.
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Originally Posted by MolsonExport
I am fascinated by the cultural characteristics that facilitate people to live in social environments characterized by extreme density and lack of personal space (as well as tolerance for otherwise dystopian urban fabrics).
For example, Tseung Kwan O district (also in Hong Kong):
^Despite its wretched appearance to many Western eyes, my understanding is that the place is fully occupied of gainfully employed people. Some of my former students live in the complex.
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I wouldn't mind living in Tseung Kwan O except that I couldn't afford it. Newer buildings, good public transport, good public facilities. I questioned whether Westerners would really find it so "wretched" but then I remembered reading online comments on
the photography of Michael Wolf. Does it have to do with individualism? I feel like the uniformity of this type of housing is shocking to some mainly because it's so evident compared to the fact that you don't notice the same thing at ground level in some American suburb with mass-produced house designs.
Or is it about space? I've never been inside a McMansion and really have no idea what people fill them with.
Or maybe people associate the look of these estates with failed public housing projects in the west?
Side note: there is some funny distortion in that photo of the Chungking Mansions. Look at the length of those air conditioners on the upper floors!