Tag Archives: city apartment

This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity

Posted on by

The Caterpillar is a 192-foot-long, 46-foot-wide modular residence designed and built from a Quonset hut that features a compact and inhabitable cube in the center of each unit for services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen.

In the United States, Quonset huts were introduced in the years following World War I. Based on the earlier Nissen hut, another type of prefabricated steel structure designed by the United Kingdom for military use, Quonset huts were designated for primary use by the U.S. Navy. Chosen for its lightweight profile, the Quonset Hut is an all-purpose building that can be shipped anywhere and assembled without skilled labor.

Today, in Detroit’s Core City neighborhood, real estate development company Prince Concepts, teamed with architect Ishtiaq Rafiuddin and landscape architect Julie Bargmann to turn the Quonset hut into a 9,000sf sculpture with six residences and two live-and-work spaces.

Following True North, the neighborhood’s first live-and-work communal space, the team of architects and developers hoped to merge that same sense of community into a single Quonset hut. Dividing the lengthy residential complex into eight units, each live-and-work space features 23-foot tall ceilings that are lined with clerestory windows and a ‘Jetsons’ style genesis chamber where residents can “transform from ‘just barely awake’ to ‘ready for action,’” as the architects describe.

Constructed from unstained, polished wood, the genesis chamber is positioned neatly in the center of each unit and brings a railroad-style flow to each unit. Separating the bedroom from the kitchen and dining area, the genesis chamber contains all the services available to each unit, including the bathroom, shower, and kitchen. From the kitchen, residents pass through the bathroom to get to the main bedroom and vice versa.

Finding inspiration everywhere from music notes on a piece of sheet music to a UFO crash landing in the forest, the team of architects behind Caterpillar set out to create a type of communal sanctuary in Core City’s urban woodland, where over 150 trees call home.

Caterpillar homes in on porch culture to outfit its exterior with the same sense of openness that floods the inside of each residential unit. From windows to doors, Caterpillar features 36 different openings that bring in pools of natural light indoors during the day and emanate a golden glow from the outside come dark.

Designers: Undecorated, Studio Detroit, Prince Concepts, D.I.R.T. Studio, and SteelMaster

The inhabitable center cube outfits the home with services such as a bathroom, shower, and kitchen. 

The curved walls evoke a similar open layout seen in spiritual dome buildings. 

Designed in railroad style, the genesis chamber divides the home into two different living areas. 

The bathroom takes on a minimalist personality to blend with the unit’s open layout.

Skylights and clerestory windows bring in pools of natural light throughout each unit. 

Each unit is split into its own half-circle splice with 36 different openings lining the facades of Caterpillar. 

The post This prefabricated steel residence is built from a single Quonset hut to find community through modularity first appeared on Yanko Design.

This multifunctional furniture system designed to create more living space is the solution tiny apartments need!

Posted on by




No matter the city, tiny living is in right now. As cities become more populated, their residents and architects are finding ways of making crowded spaces feel a lot more comfortable through versatile furniture and innovative interior design. From micro apartments to co-living spaces, city homes come in all shapes and sizes.

In Sydney’s Stanmore neighborhood, Australian architecture firm Mostaghim and co-living group UKO designed and constructed a multifunctional furniture system into the layout of a small studio apartment to augment the available living space and take full advantage of the system’s integrated storage units.

Captured by Never Too Small, a video channel dedicated to small footprint design and living, UKO and Mostaghim’s furniture system measures 205 square feet (19 square meters) to include a kitchenette, compact bathroom, and a catalog of multipurpose furniture systems from a bed unit with integrated storage to a fold-out wall desk. While a kitchenette and a compact shower are standard for micro-apartments, the versatile bed unit is what makes this tiny space feel a lot bigger than just 19 square meters. Just beneath the unit’s mattress, pull-out drawers and cabinets conceal closet space and additional furniture like a sofa and dining table.

The left-most cabinet unveils the rectangular kitchen table for dining and cooking purposes. Just next door to the kitchen table, a pull-out sofa with automated lock brakes remains in place on a set of trolley tracks and moves freely all over the apartment’s floor when taken off the tracks. To the right, a concealed clothes rack and storage compartment provides storage space for clothes and shoes. For larger wardrobes, the stairs leading to the unit’s bed double as hidden drawers for folded clothes.

Inspired by the design of Swiss-French modern architecture pioneer Le Corbusier, the multipurpose furniture system from Mostaghim and UKO is a modern solution for the timeless dilemma of finding comfort and space in the craze and excitement of a crowded city.

Designers: UKO Stanmore x Mostaghim Architecture x Never Too Small