Re-inventing Microhousing

As urban living has become increasingly desirable and as urban rents have continued to rise, micro-housing has cropped up in cities all across the country. This new housing type provides market rate affordable housing in dormitory sized studio units.  Seattle has been at the forefront of this trend, with over 40 projects either built, under construction, or in the planning stages.

Marion Microhousing - Street View from 12th Ave & E Marion St

Micro-housing was in the news this week. Councilmember Tom Rasmussen proposed a moratorium on the project type in response to neighborhood concerns about both the number and the design quality of the projects. Ironically, this happened to be the same week that we delivered the schematic design for Marion Microhousing, our first project of this type.

Main floor plan showing shared commons with lounge, fireplace, kitchen, laundry, study, and workout areas

Marion Microhousing begins with a simple assertion:  A large number of people living together in a communal setting needs an architecture that is designed to bring people together in ways that build community.  Not a radical manifesto by any means, but this is generally not the case.  To date, most micro-housing projects are designed as a code back-door-work-around strategy, with the architecture itself being a bit of an afterthought.

Typical floor plan with private sleeping rooms, private bathrooms, and shared kitchens

MMh is a different kind of project than what has come before.  Whereas most micro projects are a cluster of townhouses with multiple entries and stairwells, MMh is designed as a single building with one entry at the street.  The ground floor is given over to a generous commons featuring a lounge, fireplace, kitchen, study room, laundry, and workout area.  Access to the private rooms is through the commons, activating the space and creating opportunity for chance encounters among the residents.  The commons provides a public counterpart to the private rooms, a place to bring people together for movie night, weekend dinners, group meetings, etc...the kind of social glue that can make living with 50 other people into a positive, desirable experience.

Cross section showing commons at the ground floor with private rooms above & below

We believe good design has the capacity to improve the lives of the people that live in it.  This in mind, we don't just want to produce boutique show projects. We want to create better archetypes that other developers will emulate. For this to happen, they can't just be attractive - they have to outperform the kind of project we are trying to displace. One thing MMh has working for it is that its economics look really good.  The apartment format of the building is much more space efficient that its townhouse-pod predecessors, so it's not just more desirable from a user standpoint - it's a better development model.  We'll see how the marketplace of ideas responds to this offering, but I'm very optimistic.

Design team:  David Neiman and Liz Pisciotta