Welcome to the first installment of Elements of Design.
Briefly: about me + this newsletter
I work in the tech industry, and in the past I’ve written about user experience design for a tech-familiar audience. I may choose to share some of that here, as relevant, but I want this newsletter to have a broader focus and be accessible to regular humans. I plan to share my design-related fascinations (I considered calling this newsletter “things I like”), as I come across them.
This will not be a shopping newsletter. There are plenty of those, I subscribe to some myself, but I’m not interested in creating one.
Never Too Small
A while back, I discovered a video from Never Too Small (NTS), “a media company dedicated to small footprint design and living.” And then I gobbled up every last video in the series.
Never Too Small features tiny apartments and houses from all over the world, including homes in Poland, Spain, France, the UK, the Philippines, Brazil, and Singapore. There’s also a companion book.
Each video is a walkthrough of a small home, typically an apartment, usually under 600 square feet. The designer of the space—usually the architect—narrates each video.
The Guardian did a good article about NTS in 2019, which is worth reading, if you’re interested in the personalities behind the scenes.
I think there must be very specific requirements set by NTS for people who want to feature their work, because the videos are very consistent, as far as level of quality, lighting, shot composition, and narrative style. Each video shares a “before” and “after” version of the floor plan, and describes where walls were moved, storage built, kitchen/bath/utilities shifted, etc. This is full-on interior design, with major architectural changes.
As a design-obsessed city dweller who has been involved in a few gut rehabs myself, I am fascinated by these videos. If you live in a city, you have restrictions on your space, no matter how much of it you happen to be blessed with. Apartment layouts are limited by the layout of other apartments in the same building, lot size and shape, utility placement—it might be really hard to move sinks and toilets—and on and on. It’s really fun to see how architects problem-solve when the homeowner (or the building owner) is willing to renovate down to the studs.
I’m also very interested in the aesthetics of these spaces. There’s a specific architect-produced minimalist interior design approach—popularized among non-architect normies by Dwell Magazine—that shows up a lot: visible plywood, scant furniture, white walls, strategic pops of color. Which makes sense! Minimalism promotes a sense of calm that can be helpful when people jam their entire lives into a small apartment, and plywood is relatively cheap and available. But it does lead to a sense of bland sameness, and plays into the global coffee shop phenomenon, where you run into an identical set of aesthetic choices coming and going.
There are instances of homes that go against the style grain, though. This one from Paris is bonkers.
This one is more typical of the NTS series. It’s in an old building in Barcelona with gorgeous original features.
You can find the rest of the series here.
I am also moderately obsessed with the design and build concept surrounding 'tiny living' and the 'tiny house' movement. It's kind of like the architectural/interiors version of a travel capsule wardrobe. You're so right re that too-cool-architect 'standard look' of plywood and bare-bones (often IKEA) furnishings. There used to be a darling boutique in downtown NYC in the mid-late 2000s called Tiny Living that sold transformers/space conscientious furnishings and home goods. Very sad when they closed. Looking forward to your new posts here! :)