Ask any American expatriate living in Japan, China, or South Korea about the apartments/houses/buildings there and they will tell you some sad stories. Most Northeast Asians live in cement block monstrosities. Stalinist grey, drab, utilitarian and mind-numbing uniform. Probably the uglist cities in the world are located there. The majority of Japanese have no style. Walk into the average apartment and you'll find cheap consumer goods, Western knock-offs and cramped conditions. Same for Korea except worse. "Japanese design patterns are bound to be adopted by Western architects" Yeah, right! 1,001 Uses for Cement. More cement! More cement! Read "Dogs and Demons" by Alex Kerr.

Travelling in Asia I've seen children sitting at windows in high rise apartments, rocking from side to side to express energy. I am intrigued by the impact on Chinese, Japanese families of having no outdoor living spaces. I came across this blog while researching a business idea for outdoor furniture for high-rise balconies - seats and trellises, garden frames for growing herbs and some vegetables. Has anyone (who might read this comment) come across instances of Asian people attempting to use balconies for anything other than drying the laundry? I would be interested to know.

we don't wear our shoes in the house. >> The majority of Japanese have no style. Walk into the average apartment and you'll find cheap consumer goods, Western knock-offs and cramped conditions. Same for Korea except worse.<< do i hear a big shot showing of his big spacious house with expensive goods and pretentious lifstyle. how do you people not dirty the house wearing your shoes all over the place. bathroom. bedroom. weird.

As an American expat now living in Europe, I would say that the vast majority of Americans have no style. Now that my palate has been cleansed, so to say, by living here for a while, I can see American taste for what it is -- hokey and junky!

Loved and got great ideas from all three Two Big books. I wish builders agreed with Sarah's premise. I am trying to build a wonderful little house that contractors label too small ....which I take to mean not profitable enough for the builder. Now it seems even the pre-fab houses are getting bigger. With all the baby boomers and singles retiring one would think smaller homes would be a logical choice. Did you see the size of the the upcoming Dwell House? Peace!

"The majority of Japanese have no style...Same for Korea except worse." Being in style depends on the person. Those views change depending on where someone comes from and the environment that person was raised in. What does it mean to be stylish anyways? Making everything from expensive materials? That is so American. Living in luxury, always 1st class with their shoes on in the bathroom (oops, dog poo?). Japanese people use wood a lot, not cement. I would like to see how you make a tiny space, "stylish".

I have seen a bathroom made entirely of rendered-polished cement with intentional faults and cracks added in for a little bit more dramatism. I am sure the idea of having a non-tiled bathroom conveys on most a sense of deprivation, poverty, unwanted spartanism. Not so. It is to date one of the most striking batrhooms I have ever seen. Cheap and extremely effective. It turns the bland, fluffy bathroom interiors into a total design piece, and it costs next to nothing to do. The bathtub was also rendered, polish cement, by the way. I think the material rocks and it is the modern equivalent to mud. As per my own experiences in Japan, for a Unitedstatesian to call a Jap classless it is quite a statement. Because we do take offense of calling yourselves 'Americans' when they are Americans sharing the continent that are fare mor styilish than U guys are. Hop on your SUV and drive off you guys.

Japs and other asians marvel at the beauty of Australian and European cities. Asian cities by comparison are shit. There is comfortable and there is very small, which would you have? True some Australian homes are over the top big but 90% are just right (200-300sqm). No use attempting to copy the jammed conditions of Japs and other asians.

Why not take advantage of the innovative use of very small spaces to solve the problem of homelessness? Rather than a large homeless shelter, how about a space about the size of a small closet containing just enough room for a small bunk? The person inserts a small plastic card provided by local government or a charitable organization. The space opens. The person enters and spends the night. In the morning a timer causes the space to open and the individual moves on. The amenities inside could be very complete with regard to heating, air conditioning ventilation, depending on resources available. Why not? We need innovative thinking with regard to resolving homelessness and the design of very small spaces may be part of the answer.

Yes, having been homeless myself for over 9 months, and having lived in the Tenderloin of San Francisco for many years, I can assure you that many of the people who are homeless have many BIG problems. My solution is to have semi-trailers, outfitted with mattresses, AC/heat, and outside of the trailer, portable toilets/showers. These trailers could be placed wherever the political winds blow, and would allow the most vulnerable and hopeless among us a place to sleep at night. Inside the trailer itself, there would be boxes, 4x4x8 ft., one on top of the other and side-by side, running the length of the trailer. They would be on a slight incline toward the entrance to the box, so they could be washed out during the day. They would have small, waterproof mattresses inside them. The truck would arrive at the appointed hour, the 'guests' would enter, and in the morning, they would be awoken, and sent on their way. Then, the truck would depart also, possibly to a depot where other trucks like it would be cleaned and prepared for the next evening. Various charitable organizations could be alerted to this routine, and could be on hand in the evening and the morning to provide food, medical care etc. I have more ideas, but this is one of the basic ones.

how do we make it very beautifull

My first blog and I am thouroughly entertained! I came upon this site trying to decorate my really small home in Irvine, CA USA. Live and Let Live. Our world is getting too populated and we need to find a kind of peace in our dwelling. Small or large, our dwelling must allow us to connect with what is important to us. For the japanese, this is a pure art, when the warrrior steps forward. For the lazy, its chaos.

form indeed follows function and small can certainly be as functional as large. ...interesting to see all the defensive reactions to only one crank entry. Let's just hope he stays abroad.

Having lived in Japan for a few years..I really have to say the majority of the houses are joke. Most fall down in 10 years, they have poor insulation and recently there have been frauds relating to the data calculating the strength of foundations of buildings. Someone who says that the buildings in East Asia are to be an example for the ones in the best, be it in America or in Europe, should seriously be dragged outside and shot

there are lots to learn from everyone, everywhere, and every little corners of this earth that we will never have time to explore within our brief life time. please travel indiscriminately as much as you still can. there's always more than meet the eye. those that are designers/architects and never been to japan - GO. it's one place on earth you have to visit in your life time. no one can carry out details so obsessively like the japanese. (& whoever said singapore is one of the finest places to live obviously have not yet 'lived'). yes, we 'asian peoples' grew up rocking helplessly in our tiny balconies between lines of wet clothes. we can't seem to think of any other uses of balconies 'cus we grew up without opportunities of frolicking in liberating open spaces. (our ancestors apparently didn't go rip off some far-away continent to propagate and occupy so we can possess, preserve, then take for granted this apparent idea of 'open space'. but ok. perhaps - it's really like this:- if you'd bother to do real research when you 'travelled through asia' and visited those 'balconies' instead of just playing 'tourist' - you'd find some of items below:- 1-lots of asian highrise balconies are also part of their kitchen. 2-and laundry would hang out partly 'cus that's also where the bathroom and laundry rooms are. & not 'cus they don't have dryers but drying clothes in very polluted air is often preferred than machine dryed clothes. just is. 3-asian balconies - are mostly not associated with lifestyle. it's not about 'hanging out'. not about the view. balconies are very utilitarian spaces. that's where you can pour water out after you mop the floors of your entire apt. and hopefully it goes into a drain instead of just out the building. no guarantee. 4-because most asian cities have such high densities and air quality is always an issue, there's a big distinction bet. indoor and outdoor. basically: indoor=clean. outdoor=not clean. therefore, balconies=not-so-clean. hope those insights help in creating furniture ideas. possiblities for 'furniture' in such spaces endless - really. the balcony is really part of the back-of-house in a home. perhaps you can create the possiblity of kids really playing there. normally you'd be play on the balcony if you're a boy or a tomboy. unfortunately, it's usually sort of a gross space.

The challenge of architectural design everywhere is to use resources efficiently: for the wealthy this can mean how much can one get for one's budget or how fast can a project be delivered, for the socially responsible this can mean building green or providing housing for homeless people, for the average consumer this can mean how can one fit everything one thinks one needs into smaller spaces and yet not feel closeted. Brown's books are one atempt to illustrate well conceived, well designed choices that minimize the use of space or make the most of small spaces one already has; the same is the case for many parts of Susanka's many books. They are useful resources to glean ideas that others have tried out. Some of them are quite expensive to pursue that involve architects, engineers, and builders while others are things you can do today with the help of storage and organizer systems or just re-organizing how you see and use existing small spaces. Contrary to the tenor of some of the postings, the idea is to advance the best of these ideas, to learn from other cultural settings and see how they might be applied to your setting and your needs. Several of the posts clearly get this idea and submit their own ideas for the design and efficient use of small spaces. One unfortunate error in two posts is the conversion of metric to English with regard to floor area: 10 m = 32.8 ft. thus 10 m2 = 1175.84 ft2 and not 100 ft2 as posted. Similarly, the 200 -300 m2 cited as an average Australian home would imply 23,500 to 35,275 sq. ft. homes. The post should have read 20-30 m2! Even then sizes beyond 20 m2 are above average - but may reflect the norm for what is published in other journals that feature residential design. A 10 m2 or 1000 ft2 dwelling generally allows 2 - 3 small bedrooms, 1 bathroom, a kitchen, living room, dining room, some closets and circulation space. Square feet for homes listed in realty advertising excludes garage square footage. A two car garage is generally 20' x 20' or 400 ft2. The current new production home in the U.S. averages 2100 ft2 and comprises 3-4 bedrooms, all the spaces listed above, and adds a family room and additional baths (usually a master bathroom and a powder room). As a means of comparison, 100 years ago the average U.S. home was half that size and less. Much of the reason books like this are becoming more prevalent - and needed - is the underlying understanding that as our populations grow, as transportation becomes more expensive and commuting less desirable, as land costs rise, as services and utilities become harder to deliver to outlying areas, we are living in denser settings and our remaining resources are becoming more precious. There are a host of books that better address these issues under the rubric of Building Green, New Urbanism, and Socially Responsible Design. Quality design is something that can and should cut across all economic spectra, all cultures, and all design philosophies. Brown's books are attempts to show how we can learn from small, well-designed spaces in Japan.

I lived in Japan for a number of years and found a lot of stylish elements throughout the country. And Japanese people are very stylish. Unfortunately, what is touted as the Japanese aesthetic is largely an idealized, architectural concept. Certainly, one can go there and find beautiful paper lamps, beautiful cabinets, pottery etc, but if you enter the typical Japanese home, it doesn't exist. Japanese living spaces are indeed very small, and they are filled with the same kind of crap that Americans fill their space with.

Hi, I'm from South Africa so I thought an African perspective was needed. Here in Johannesburg, we still have huge disparities between the haves and the have-nots, one of which is the issue of housing. Yes, we do have squatter camps and shack housing,but like every aspect of life, you cannot blanket an entire city, nation with a generalised view of how things are. While the middle-class here live in lovely houses with gardens, the majority of people do live in shacks and makeshify housing but this in no way takes away from their dignity and pride in their surroundings. Many houses/shacks are decorated in the most inventive and unusual ways using everyday items like labels of popular tinned foods, or mundane everyday things like feather dusters. The point is that while money may be a constraint, imaginative and style certainly is not. In a nutshell, it is the individual who decides to accept a drab concrete block or turn it into a piece of art. And there are individuals no matter where you live!

using dryers to dry your clothes is incredibly wasteful. although not aesthetically attractive, when one billion Chinese decided to machine dry their clothes, which WILL happen, you will be wondering why energy consumption has increased as rapidly as it has. it is important to be aware of the humanprint one is making on this planet. the notion of monster homes will become very outrageous when one finds their energy bill is $2,000 a month.

I Agree. at the pace pre-fab houses are going, only the rich will be able to afford them, and yet why buy them when for the money spend you can have a custom made house. Personally, as a latter member of the baby boomer generation, I can't wait to build my 1000 sq ft / 1 bedroom home with all the basic needs that a couple of tw2 needs. Hopefully, somewhere in the tropics, with two walls of glass overlooking the valley and costing me no more than 50 G's.

Hey Jason Kaldis, Architect: Are you confusing square meters with "meters squared"? Saw your math and couldn't even read your post, dude! 3.2808333*3.2808333 = 10.76 square feet per square meter...SO a 200-300 m2 house DOES contain from 2153 to 3229 square feet - which is still pretty big for this discussion!