Tag Archives: Never Too Small

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

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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

This tiny passive home saves and creates space with an expandable roof and multifunctional furniture!

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The Brook is a tiny home in Rosebrook, Australia designed to be a passive house equipped with a fully off-grid solar panel system and expandable roof for lofty ceilings à la New York-style apartments.

We’ve seen countless tiny home designs throughout the years. Some might even think if you’ve seen one, then you’ve seen them all. How innovative can you get when you’re working with such a tiny space? If they really get creative, then architects often incorporate elements like hidden storage compartments, multifunctional furniture, and even expanding structural frames all to augment the home’s available living space. One small, 27sqm home in Rosebrook Australia called The Brook, designed by Small Not Tiny, incorporates each one of these elements and so much more to make the most of the home’s small build.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Clad in cypress, the timber used to construct The Brook was sourced from felled, old cypress windbreaks that otherwise would be disposed of or burned by farmers who had no use for them. Repurposing and milling this timber to build The Brook captured carbon and presented a theme that would follow throughout the construction process. Placed atop a recycled concrete slab that was found in an old paddock, The Brook is slightly raised from the ground to brace the home for potential flooding from the nearby Moyne River.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Designed to be a passive home, The Brook hosts a fully off-grid solar panel system on its roof stocked with batteries and a backup generator to ensure a constant flow of power when needed. The roof itself also expands in height on a telescopic frame. During the transportation of The Brook, height parameters margined the home to a height of five meters. Once transported and situated into place, telescopic framing had the uppermost walls fold in so the roof could expand before locking the walls back into place, creating a lofty sleeping area and high ceilings.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Once the roof is raised, the home comes into its final form and expands the home’s floor plan to 40sqm. The raised roof generates an upper mezzanine that stores the bedroom and working space, which is assembled with a deskspace that folds out on piano hinges, where you can work as your feet dangle above the downstairs living area on a wooden plinth. A bookcase also separates the sleeping area from the bedroom to ensure enough privacy.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Guests can reach the ground level via a wooden staircase that retracts from the mezzanine with the turning of a wheel. Downstairs, the living room juts out from the rest of the house in the style of a sunroom and is enclosed by floor-to-ceiling glass windows reinforced with steel beams. There, you can sit in the living room and still feel the openness of being outdoors. The kitchen is outfitted with a two-burner gas cooktop, extra-sized sink, small refrigerator, and plenty of hidden storage compartments. The cabinet’s sliding wooden door even doubles as the bathroom door.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

The loftiness inside The Brook was inspired by New York-style apartments, bringing expansive glazed glass windows and an industrial aesthetic with a mid-century modern flair to Australia’s regional setting. Throughout the home, recycled brass elements and metal mesh shelving add to the home’s rustic energy and multipurpose outfittings. Copper and ply louvers border the perimeter of the home on both floors and pivot doors provide access to the home’s south and west sides to offer plenty of fresh air and cross-ventilation.

Designer: Small Not Tiny

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

The living area juts out from the rest of the home to bring you closer to the outdoors. 

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Positioned nearby the Moyne River, The Brook is situated atop a recycled concrete slab to brace the home against flooding.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Dark, navy blue interiors focus the eye on the outdoors and warm up the home come dusk. 

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Copper and ply louvers border the perimeter of the home’s windows, providing the home with plenty of airflow and cross-ventilation.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

The home’s exterior is clad in cypress wood sourced from felled, old trees that would otherwise be discarded or burned.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

The bathroom is lined with bluestone cobbles that give the washroom an elegant flair while directing attention to the windows.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

At night, the tiny home glows from the inside out.

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

Tiny Home with Expandable Cabin Design

The post This tiny passive home saves and creates space with an expandable roof and multifunctional furniture! first appeared on Yanko Design.

An oakwood tiny home built from locally sourced timber was designed as a love letter to Tasmania!

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The Pod, described as a “love letter to Tasmania,” is a 430sq-ft tiny home located in Tasmania, Australia comprised of two pods merged together with an overhead row of skylights.

Airbnb and tiny homes have garnered a whole lot of attention in recent years. During the pandemic, when air travel restrictions and health warnings were issued by airlines and hotels, we looked to road trips and Airbnbs to fill our wanderlust. Others took the extra time to finally build a tiny home and guarantee their hot vax summer with a destination they could escape to every weekend. Alice Hansen, a travel writer based in Australia, built her tiny home, The Pod (available on Airbnb), for others to escape to and fall in love with Tasmania.

The Pod, described by TV host Peter Madison as a “love letter to Tasmania,” is a tiny home comprised of two living ‘pods’ merged together by a narrow row of skylights. Covering only 430sq-ft, the exterior of The Pod is wrapped in Tasmanian oak wood which is replaced with expansive, floor-to-ceiling windows around the back of the tiny home.

Positioned on a hillside, the tiny home’s back pod rises on steel beams to merge with the front pod, giving the illusion that you’re “floating” above the ground, as described by Hansen. Skylights also line the ceiling of The Pod, complimenting the floating feel with enough natural sunlight to brighten the entire home and visually splitting the two pods into separate living spaces.

Inspired by a war aircraft, the structural soundness of The Pod is durable and lightweight by design with hardwood fitting out most of the exterior and interior. Upon entering the tiny home, a centerpiece fireplace greets guests, leading their eyes to the floor-to-ceiling glazed windows that offer unfettered views of Tasmania’s iconic pine trees and dunes, Frederick Henry Bay, and the Southern Ocean. Throughout the home, Hansen was sure to incorporate homages to the local area with most of the furniture and homemade goods in The Pod coming from the community’s craftspeople and artisans.

Hansen found beauty in simplicity with The Pod, describing it as inspired by her “danish heritage,” and “the simplicity of Scandinavian design.” To stay true to Scandinavian design’s elemental roots, much of the interior walls within The Pod are unstained natural wood panels.

While the exterior and the majority of the interior are wrapped in light, natural Tasmanian oakwood, the bedroom is soothed in black timber walls, giving it a touch of blackout comfort for a restful night. On starry nights, guests of Hansen’s Airbnb can escape to the deck for a warm soak in the Huon pine outdoor tub made with timber sourced from the depths of Lake Pieman.


The kitchen is small and stocked with all the essentials, from an electric stove to working space for cooking. Just beside the kitchen, a modest dining table doubles as a workbench, and overhead skylights lead guests to the living area. There, guests can enjoy a cozy reading nook and find plenty of concealed storage compartments to keep the living spaces organized and decluttered.

Designer: Alice Hansen x Never Too Small

The living room’s couch was handcrafted by a local artisan and styled in a similar fashion to the back pod with a wooden base atop steel fittings. 

The kitchen and bedroom feature darker timber wall panels to give both rooms a cozier air. 

The dark timber walls in the bedroom function similarly to blackout curtains for a restful sleep.

The only door inside the tiny home, a sliding frosted glass panel, leads to the bathroom.

Laundry facilities are found in the bathroom along with a toilet, sink, and shower.

Outside, guests can enjoy the Huon pine outdoor tub made with timber sourced from the depths of Lake Pieman.

Come dusk, the lights inside The Pod emanate a golden glow to amplify the cozy and elegant feel.

The post An oakwood tiny home built from locally sourced timber was designed as a love letter to Tasmania! first appeared on Yanko Design.