A step beyond flip-down beds and foldaway furniture, this series of modular rooms packs whole kitchens, bedrooms and offices into a highly portable form, so much so that they be bought online at stores like Amazon Japan and shipped right to your door.

Consider the possibilities, too, for on-demand residential conversions: with these you can make anything, from a cargo container to an old warehouse, into an instant apartment.

Set on wheels and made narrow when closed, each room-in-a-box can be rolled easily through opening and navigate narrow corridors to arrive at its destination.

The bedroom unit is the largest – it uses central breakpoints to allow overhead lighting as well as the bed and its supports below to collapse in half then fold up or down into empty spaces in the shell.

The mid-sized office features interlocking solids and voids to maximize shelving and storage when open. Meanwhile, the wheeled chair below detaches from the primary structure on demand.

The small kitchen flips up and out to reveal a sink, work surface and hot plate at hip height with space for storage and refrigeration below.

Square footage is a serious commodity in cities like Tokyo and Kyoto, making the four-figure price tag for these units from Atelier OPA (dubbed Kenchikukagu) also a lot more palatable in the right urban context.