It’s not a stretch to call New York City the world capital of living large—perhaps to be even more so following Brexit. But ever since the 2012 exhibition, Making Room: New Models for Housing New Yorkers, presented by the Museum of the City of New York in collaboration with Citizens Housing and Planning Council, scaling down has become an increasingly desirable way of life. Info

The first building dedicated to micro living began welcoming tenants to its 55 units last month. Ranging from 265 to 360 square feet, the studio apartments at Carmel Place range from affordable (40% of the units rent for $950 and up) to market rate ($2,000 and up). Designed to appeal to Millennials on the move, they include well-designed storage and public amenities such as laundry service, bike storage, fitness center, and finished roof deck. Info

Model apartment at Carmel Place.

At the far end of the spectrum is Getaway, a company founded by students in the Harvard Innovation Lab, a multidisciplinary program that supports entrepreneurship and innovation. Founded in 2015 by business student Jon Staff and law student Pete Davis, with the help of design students from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, the company has designed and built six mobile, wooden cabins that are rented to stressed-out city dwellers for weekend getaways—at $99 per night for the smallest. 

"Getaway builds tiny houses, places them on beautiful rural land and rents them by the night to city dwellers looking to escape the digital grind and test-drive tiny house living," the team said. 

The Ovida cabin, near Boston, sleeps four. Photograph courtesy of The Bearwalk

The company finds land-owners willing to lease a portion of their property. "The cabins are able to move, although we will leave them in the same place for extended durations," Staff told Dezeen, where this story first appeared.

The first cabin was placed in southern New Hampshire, about an hour's drive from Boston. Due to its popularity, the company built two more rentable cabins for the Boston area, and recently created three additional cabins for the New York region. Reservations can be made on the Getaway website. The team has so far raised a total of $1.1 million and plans to build 10 more cabins. 

Project credits:
Founder/CEO: Jon Staff (Harvard Business School)
Co-Founder: Pete Davis (Harvard Law School)
Land: Aaron Vomberg
Operations: Sarah Ruehlow
Designers: Emily Margulies and Rachel Moranis (Harvard Graduate School of Design)
Designers (emeritus): Addison Godine, Wyatt Komarin (Harvard Graduate School of Design)
Carpenters (emeritus): Patrick Mulroy, Sean Sullivan, John Staff (Jon's dad)