It starts with a chair or a table, an old nightstand or vintage traveling trunk, but from there, these artifacts evolve in the hands of sculpture Ted Lott, who transforms them into complex works of miniature architecture. His goal, in part, is to illustrate the craftsmanship behind both furnishings and home construction. In many of his works, he peels back the typically unseen layers of domestic architecture, usually hidden behind layers of drywall and cladding.

“During most of our history shelters were made of local materials,” he explains, like “timber, stone, hide, grass and mud [that] provided protection from the elements. However, with the coming of the industrial revolution, locally sourced materials gave way to industrially produced ones, 2×4’s and nails replaced timbers and elaborate joinery. Today, in America and all over the world, balloon frame construction is a primary means by which shelter is created from wood.”

He uses a bandsaw and scale sawmill to make miniature lumber. Then, he says, “by combining a diminutive version of this building system with chairs and other objects pulled from the everyday domestic environment I honor the logic and engineering brilliance of stud frame construction, taking what we usually only see when we pass by construction sites, and exaggerating it in a way that renews our vision and understanding.”

“Through this process we point to the complex interaction of necessity, artistry, economy, function and beauty present in the original objects, while highlighting the possibilities of transformation and growth that are a requirement for the continuation and evolution of life.” (h/t Colossal)

The project of a Syrian-born artist and architect and an Iraqi-born author, this installation invites viewers to imagine what refugees leave behind when the pack up the few things they can carry and flee an oppressive regime or war-torn country.

The UNPACKED: Refugee Baggage installation by Mohamad and Ahmed Badr “sculpturally re-creates rooms, homes, buildings and landscapes that have suffered the ravages of war. Each is embedded with the voices and stories of real people — from Afghanistan, Congo, Syria, Iraq and Sudan — who have escaped those same rooms and buildings to build a new life in America.”

Visitors can listen to the stories of refugees on headsets attached to each diorama in the series, complete with “miniature cars, tiny living room sets, and even fake plants adorn the open luggage—installations which each” took months to complete.

The work hits at all levels: the scenes look small and fragile, familiar but derelict, while framing them inside baggage conjures images of flight. Together with the audio, they are powerful awareness-raising tools in the fight to humanize refugee situations.

More about its creators: “A Syrian artist and architect, Mohamad was born in Damascus, raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and educated in the Midwestern United States. Expressing the juxtaposition of East and West within him, Hafez’s art reflects the political turmoil in the Middle East through the compilation of found objects, paint and scrap metal. His work has been profiled by NPR , New Yorker Magazine, and The New York Times. With four highly acclaimed exhibits under his belt, Hafez creates surrealistic Middle Eastern streetscapes that are architectural in their appearance yet politically charged in their content.”

“Ahmed is a writer, social entrepreneur, poet, and former refugee from Iraq. With work featured by Instagram, NPR, The Huffington Post, Adobe, United Nations, and others, Ahmed explores the intersection between creativity, the refugee experience, and youth empowerment. Ahmed is attending Wesleyan University, where he is a Fellow at the Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life. Ahmed is the host of TOGETHER, a UN Migration Agency podcast that is centered around the stories of refugee and migrant youth across the world.”

It takes just one artist to raise this annual micro-village, putting out a fresh scene daily featuring miniature people going about their everyday lives, navigating repurposed objects designed for different purposes at larger scales.

The new Miniature Calendar by Tastuya Tanaka is the latest in a series of 7, each one featuring 365 snapshots of lives lived small. The figures are often framed by items that are easy to recognize and yet also simple to reimagine in context.

The little humans populating each scene can be seen riding camels over sand dunes, diving between the spirals of a notebook, scaling toothpick architectural towers, strolling down bustling streets with neon sticky note signage and more.

Notebooks, sticky notes, thin plastic sheets and other items found at any art store make up the backdrops for these shots. These are, in turn, turned into books, postcards and calendars by the artist.

What may look like a harmless pothole or random remainder of grass takes on a different meaning when viewed from the perspective of the ultra-small, becoming dangerous sinkholes or inviting plots of land for sale, respectively.

Michael Pederson crafts signage for just such a miniature reality, helping form orderly lines for anyone heading into a small hole in the wall, or suggesting a certain hiding space may not be as welcoming as it looks.

One can imagine tiny creatures of myth and fantasy, or simply everyday little urban animals, installing such signs to variously warn, invite, notify and sell at a scale that most of us overlook on an everyday basis.

For full-sized human observers, the signs can provide small insights into the world around us, reminding people how long, for instance, a given weed has managed to struggle and grow out of an unassuming crack in the pavement (via Colossal).

What began as a random hole in a São Paulo wall is now the world’s tiniest office, complete with miniature books, laptops, paperwork and design tools. Emerging creative agency Agencia Grande created the public installation to celebrate its opening while also making a statement about the unnecessarily large proportions of many commercial offices in Brazil, which can have an unintended effect on the neighborhoods where they’re located.

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“Agencies and production companies often have very big and luxurious offices, and during the years those constructions have changed the city landscape, transforming small neighborhoods into big gentrification areas,” Caio Andrade of Agencia Grande told Designboom. “We wanted to move on the opposite direction – we decided to ‘go small.’”

Set into a colorful wall in the trendy neighborhood of Vila Madalena, the tiny office is a fun way to promote the agency, encourage conversation around the issue of gentrification and encourage passersby to pause and take a closer look at their surroundings, too.

Photography by Dan Magatti