A group of 36 shipping containers has been transformed into urban living space in Brighton, England.
The containers have been retrofitted with kitchens, bathrooms and insulated plasterboard walls. They will be used to house some of Brighton's homeless population.
Ian Kent is the Canadian designer of the Nomad micro-home. The 10-by-10-foot structures can cost as little as $25,000 and be shipped anywhere in the world.
Inside, the Nomad facility contains room for two levels connected by a small stairway. The upper level houses bedroom space while the lower level has kitchen, bathroom and lounge areas.
A number of fresh micro-home concepts have also been designed in other regions of the world in recent years. Tengbom Architects created this 10-square-meter (107-square-foot) housing unit with students at the University of Lund, Sweden, in mind. The compact space offers a sleeping loft, kitchen, bathroom and a small garden with a patio.
These 'pop-up' structures have been designed by architects Levitt Bernstein to occupy redundant garage structures on housing estates in London. The design won the HOME competition run by the Building Trust International.
This micro-home concept was designed by by Dutch firm, Tjep, and features three separate floors, with a solar tree on the roof that helps meet the facility's energy requirements as well as a set of giant opening shutters.
The transportable APH80 home from Spanish firm Abaton takes between six and eight weeks to build and can be transported or moved between destinations by road. Designed as a home for two people, the 27-square-meter (290-square-foot) dwelling has a bedroom, living room and bathroom.
Italian architect Renzo Piano is famed for designing Europe's tallest building (the Shard in London). In 2013 he also put his name on one of its smallest, the 7.5-square-meter (81-square-foot) Diogene, which comes equipped with a foldaway desk, chair, sofa bed, composting toilet, shower plate and a small kitchen unit with built-in sink and refrigerator.
An example of a 325-square-foot apartment at the Museum of the City of New York. The exhibit, called "Making Room," was inspired by a contest to design micro-apartments to help ease the affordable housing shortage.
