A series of abandoned subterranean spaces in Milan have been transformed into tiny living rooms, dining rooms, bedrooms and kitchens, complete with furniture and fixtures.

Designed by Italian artist Biancoshock, these small dwellings are rendered especially surreal thanks to bright colors and attention to detail. The project has a social dimension as well, inspired by the actual people forced to live in extreme spaces thanks to unfortunate circumstances, including the hundreds that live in the sewer systems of Romania or places like Las Vegas.

Whatever your own interpretation, the next time you pass a sewer grate, manhole cover or set of maintenance doors on the streets of Milan, it might be worth taking a closer look. More about the artist and his philosophy: “Ephemeralism has the purpose of producing works of art that have to exist briefly in space but limitlessly in time through the photography, the video and the media. He has realized more that 650 interventions in the streets of Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, England, Hungary, Lithuania, Malesia, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovak, Slovenia and Spain and he is not thinking about stopping.”