Without proof, it makes for a tough sell – what looks like four photographs arranged into a square is indeed a single shot, meticulously staged, as only accompanying images and videos will convince.

Bela Borsodi created and photographed the scene for use as an album cover. And while it is still hard to trick your mind into seeing the reality of the overlap, there are subtle cues – certain objects that span multiple quadrants and lead the eye between them. The animation below shows the stages of setup and construction in a kind of stop-motion animation format.

About the artist: “Bela Borsodi was born in Vienna 1966. After studying graphic design and fine art he started to work as a photographer. In 1992 Bela moved to New York and in 1999 he focused on still life photography, which is still the main direction of his work. Bela lives and works in New York.” He has worked for editorial clients including The New York Times and Wired Magazine and advertising clients including Hermes, Puma, Nike and Freitag.

In the last 30 years, the size of a typical home in the United States has shot up from under 1000 square feet to nearly 2500. It begs the question: how much room to we really need in order to live?

Once a Laotian refugee and, now, a German architect, Van Bo Le-Mentzel understands firsthand what it means to be homeless, displaced but also to feel a sense of owning your own space both emotionally and financially.

Thus his contribution to the small homes movement – a do-it-yourself mini-house that tilts and folds to reveal a bed, desk and light, complete with a window as well as lockable door.

In short: it has the very basic essentials for survival, but also is necessarily a space you venture out from and use as an urban home base, not a remote hiding place.

Plans for the one-square-meter (or 1SQM) house are available for free, along with its bare-banes list of essential building components: “20 meters of wooden timbers (3.4 cm x 3.4 cm) for 250 Euro (300 Dollars), Wall Coverings (Sperrholz), 200 Screws, 4 wheels, 1 acryl-glass window, 1 door and 1 day of your lifetime to build it.”