Located in Kyoto, Japan, the Ukiyoe Small Museum has extremely flexible hours, at least for its owner/operator, artist Ichimura Mamoru, whose sign explains: “When I’ve had enough the store is closed.”

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In big black block letters on a white placard, the message contrasts with the historic facade and is hard to mess. For years, the signage was only in Japanese, but a kind tourist translated it for him into English, at least roughly, so foreign visitors could also get with his unusual program.

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Inside one will find woodblock prints in the traditional ukiyo-e style, which dates back to the 17th Century. These “pictures of the floating world” capture everyday scenes with recognizable perspectives.

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Though less popular now, Mamoru and others like him still make work along the same lines — he learned from his grandfather, and is one of the last few dozen artists of his kind in Japan.

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Those who manage to catch him during his hours of operation can tour the museum, shop and his workshop as well to see how the artwork gets made.

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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.

Driven by an artificially intelligent butler, this smart furniture system promises to free up valuable floor space by lifting and lowering modular interior design elements as needed, putting them into play or pulling them up to the ceiling on demand.

Bumblee Spaces has designed their bot to learn and adapt, anticipating needs in addition to responding to specific requests — it even scans items in storage then tracks their location for retrieval, helping you find stuff like lost keys faster. And if it’s raining, the roombot can also call down your umbrella in case you forget.

For some, it may sound at first like an overly high-tech solution without a problem, but anyone living in old city apartments knows that desire to turn slightly higher ceilings into something more useful, like raised shelving or other storage, at least (but even that only occupies the periphery). When things can be lifted out of the way entirely, even large beds are on the table (and tables, for that matter).

In the Bay Area, for instance, where the startup is based, the cost of additional square feet can be a lot higher than something like this making extant space usage more efficient. It also addresses the persistent San Francisco and Oakland challenge of moving from a smaller, rent-controlled unit to a larger, market-rate one, which can involve paying far more than the size differential alone would suggest.

“When I moved here I was overwhelmed by how much we were paying for so little space,” says the founder. “I come from a product background so I understood a lot about how we could densely pack objects really well. In the iPhone or Apple Watch we do such a good job of finding every micrometer of space to package all the features in so the user only sees the screen.”

Murthy applied this logic to furniture with Bumblebee Spaces. With modular furniture units installed in the ceiling a single-room studio can become a multifunctional area serving as bedroom, living room, study or wardrobe depending on the time of day. And the space given over to a retrofit can be small — as little as a foot of vertical in a room (with additional variability for taller items).

Bumblebee Spaces has also created a software library of their modules for architects, so they can fit them into reflected ceiling plans for future buildings. They aim to deploy a combination of ready-built furniture as well as custom-made items, all worked into a larger modular system. In the long term, they also aim to set up exchanges so people can buy, sell, lend and trade units to customize and redesign their interiors.

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).

The smallest of the small, this two-seat micro-machine features just one (quite literal) front door positioned where one would expect to find its engine, perfect for navigating and parking on tiny European streets.

Recharging is easy since the auto can plug into a conventional socket. Finding a spot also a breeze since the little car can slide into any old narrow slot then open in front (no need for side door clearance).

The electric vehicle was debuted last year in Geneva, but had to pass a series of safety tests before it could be approved for deployment on the open road. It has gotten the green light roll out next year in Switzerland, then Germany.

Built for city driving, the car tops out at just over 55 miles per hour, but it can accelerate from 0 to 30 in five seconds. Total range is up to over 100 miles depending on the battery purchased.