This is my new favorite YouTube channel. I discovered it last night and it's called "Never Too Small." The focus is on beautifully designed small spaces. And all of the videos are meticulously crafted -- they have a calming feel to them.

The first video that I watched was the one above (click here if you can't see the embed) about Desmond Wong's 31st floor apartment in Hong Kong. At 52 square meters, it's actually one of the larger spaces on the channel. But it is perhaps important to keep in mind that this was a 2-bedroom flat before Desmond renovated it.

Floor plans are an interesting thing (and something I enjoy working through for work) because there are lots of nuances to consider, some of which are entirely local. For example, in this flat you'll see that the kitchen is off in its own little room and furnished with a window.

That is common in many of the HK apartments that I have seen, but it is not how we would typically lay things out in a new build of this scale here in Toronto. The kitchen would likely be a galley kitchen adjacent to the living/dining room to create more of an open concept plan.

I'm looking forward to watching their other episodes. For more about NTS, you can also check out their website. They recently published a book which, from what I can tell, looks equally beautiful.

Koto Design, which I have written about before on the blog, has just announced both a partnership with Plant Prefab and two new home designs. Koto is based in the UK and is a designer of small and energy neutral homes and cabins. Plant Prefab is based in the US and is, according to Koto, the first prefabrication company entirely dedicated to sustainable building practices. This partnership -- called Koto LivingHomes -- now means that Koto's designs are available for delivery in the US.

The smaller of the two new designs is the Yksi House. It consists of two stacked volumes (pictured above) and is about 1,000 square feet. The ground floor has two bedrooms and the second floor houses the main living area. This allows the exposed roof areas of the lower volume to serve as outdoor spaces. You also naturally get better views from up top, which is one of the reasons why this configuration is so common across many vernaculars.

If you'd like to play around with the Yksi House in 3D (directly in your browser), you can do that over here. It's a wonderfully simple design. I know that the building industry has been talking about and experimenting with prefabrication for many generations (and it has never stuck), but I can't help but think that as beautiful products like these become far more accessible and affordable, we might finally make it happen.

Image: Koto Design

Before bed last night, I was was reading about a Tokyo-based real estate company called Spilytus. They have an apartment brand called Ququri (pronounced ku-ku-ri) that specializes in tiny apartments, which I suppose isn't all that novel for Japan.

Since the brand was launched in 2014, they have developed over 70 buildings and now manage about 1,200 micro apartments across the central wards of Tokyo (~17 units per project if you do the math). We are talking about apartments in the range of 9 square meters (plus sleeping loft) for somewhere around ¥75,000 per month.

Not surprisingly, their projects seem to lease up right away. And supposedly there's a long wait list for future projects. People are clearly looking for affordable housing in the neighborhoods in which they want to live. It's about lifestyle and location, and living a large portion of your life within the public domain.

This housing typology isn't for everyone. But it's great for some people. And I have no doubt that demand for it will only continue to grow in big global cities. However, for what we are all going through right now, I can imagine that it would be nice to have a bit more than 9 square meters to roam around in.

Image: Spilytus