Tall, narrow volumes and awkward stepped sites are no problem when you arrange your interior spaces in a continuous flow of open platforms without walls. These unusual split-level home designs feel bright, airy and spacious thanks to imaginative floor plans that make the most of the available space.

Seven Stories on Two Floors by Tato Architects

In the amount of space that would normally fit two stories, Tato Architects have managed to fit seven through the clever usage of staggered platforms within the envelope of a Japanese home. Radically different from the average residence, the house was designed to meet the client’s request of a space where ‘the members of the family can feel close to each other regardless of where they are in the house.’ There are no interior walls, and covered platforms replace conventional spaces like closets.

Tsubomi House by FLAT HOUSE

The footprint of this home in Tokyo, including the biscuit shop on the ground floor, is a mere 279 square feet. How do you make such a small space work for a family? Architects FLAT HOUSE gave this structure a jagged roof and arranged the interior to include various half-levels and platforms made of larch plywood cut into parallelograms. “Sometimes, the wife stands talking with a customer in the biscuit shop on the first level, then drinks a cup of tea at the dining space on the 1.5 level, then moves up to the second level and watch TV, all in a very small time frame. We hope the house resembles a closed flower bud squeezed into a metropolis.”

Minamisensoku House by Kobayashi 401

This long, narrow Tokyo home has a footprint measuring 421 square feet, necessitating some creative solutions inside. Kobayashi 401 architects gave it a split level design where each simple white-painted level looks onto the other, making the space feel larger than it really is. These platforms create separated ‘rooms’ that remain open to each other and the main space. Imagine how cramped it might feel with standard enclosed rooms instead.

Vertical House in Tokyo by Muji

Nothing is obstructed by walls or doors in this narrow home in Tokyo designed by Muji. Split levels separated by staircases sit side-by-side in the space, paired according to function: the living room and kitchen are adjacent to each other, as are the bedrooms, all benefitting from the daylight that streams in through the windows in the envelope.

Haus am Eisberg by Bräuning Architekt

This small concrete volume by Bräuning Architekt sits on a hillside in Germany, mastering the ‘balancing act’ of making efficient use of space while maximizing privacy. Some of the platforms within the split-level space may be quite small, but they’re highly functional nonetheless, all enjoying views from the house’s geometric floor-to-ceiling windows.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Who Needs Walls 13 Split Level Interior Layouts Maximize Small Spaces

You don’t have to drastically shrink your whole life to fit into a 200-square-foot space in order to learn a space-saving trick or two from the tiny house movement. Builders and carpenters see working with such a compact living space like a puzzle, and they’ve come up with some pretty cool solutions that translate well to small rooms and apartments.

Raise & Lower Your Loft Bed at the Push of a Button

Carpenter Ana White built this incredible elevator bed for a tiny house she created. The bed raises or lowers over the couch using sliding door hardware and a garage cargo lift that costs about $200. The platform can be raised all the way to the ceiling during the day, lowered all the way down at night, or stopped halfway so both the loft bed and the guest bed below it can be used. White has more information on this system (and free plans for this tiny house design) available at her website.

Put Your Couch (or Bed) on a Platform

There are lots of ways to either craft or hack a platform bed, whether you’ve got the carpentry skills to recreate these two clever tiny house creations or just get some inexpensive items from Ikea and improvise something that’ll give you lots of extra storage space. The stepped system seen in ‘Tre Livelli’ by Studioata is especially cool, eliminating the need for standalone furniture. There’s a whole kitchen hidden in there!

Squeeze Your Closet Under Your Bed

Another cool tiny house trick (often deployed in campers, too) is to place the bed atop a storage area and use a hydraulic lift for easy access to the contents. Italian furniture manufacturer Dielle makes a freestanding version of this that has an entire closet underneath it! DIY-ing a design like this might seem tricky, but you can get a standard bedlift kit for as little as $45. You could also just use the space beneath a lofted bed as a luxurious walk-in closet, as seen in this interior by De La Haye Makelaardij.

Turn the Stairs Into Your Dresser

You don’t even have to have a sleeping loft to make use of a dresser shaped like a staircase. It’s great for accessing high storage, too – like bookshelves hung just beneath the ceiling. And while it’s always helpful to be handy, you don’t even have to custom-make these. Companies like Cymax offer them for as little as $350.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Take It From A Tiny House 12 Smart Small Space Tricks That Really Work

You never know how someone else’s creative custom solution for their tiny space could influence your own projects, or just help you organize your home a little more efficiently. Get lots of space-saving inspiration from this collection of well-executed lofts, transforming built-ins, custom shelving, storage platforms, swiss army kitchen islands and more.

Combo Office, Entertainment Center & Guest Bed for a London Micro Apartment

A young buyer moving into a London apartment measuring just 376 square feet commissioned CIAO Architects to custom-design the interiors with bespoke space-saving furniture. Not only does this particular piece combine an entertainment center, a desk and a room divider, it also pulls an extra bed out from underneath the main bed that’s raised on a platform just behind it. Then, both the owner and a guest can sleep in what feels like separate bedrooms.

A Closet Office/Reading Nook Combo

Could you sacrifice a closet to receive an office in return? This setup combines a small corner desk, shelving and a reading nook in a space that would normally be dark and, depending on how you’ve organized it, potentially difficult to use to its full potential. Add some storage under the nook seat and you’re really using that space efficiently.

A Half-Loft with Storage Underneath

If you’ve got plenty of vertical space, but not much floor space, check this out. Chelsea and Ryan, the owners of this Toronto apartment, built a DIY loft that raises the bed just about halfway to the ceiling in order to use the storage space beneath it more effectively, Plus, they use the open wall space on either side of the bed as a closet.

Everything You Need in Sweden’s Smallest Apartment

Looking like no more than a shed from the outside, this tiny cottage built as affordable housing for students in Lund, Sweden doesn’t seem like it could possibly offer much until you see the inside. There’s a workspace tucked under the bed loft, a mini closet, a dining table for two with storage above it, a kitchenette, a bathroom and lots of racks and shelves. Those skylights help a lot, too.

Platform Window Seat with Lots of Storage Underneath

Prior to renovation, this apartment in Barcelona required an awkward step up onto the slightly elevated terrace. The aptly named Nook Architects decided to make that platform an intentional part of the living space by extending it into the room and inserting storage beneath it.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Space Saving Inspiration 14 Gorgeous Lofts Nooks And Smart Layouts

Even the smallest, ugliest and most awkward space can become a comfortable apartment when creative custom built-ins are integrated into a brilliant renovation by a truly talented architect. Undeniably the most effective way to save space and reorganize interiors without cutting them off from each other, bespoke built-in elements like storage staircases, bookcases full of beds, transforming self-contained volumes, panel systems and custom cabinetry transform spaces like dingy garages, formerly abandoned slurry pits, historic flats and average urban lofts into highly livable homes.

A Floating Mezzanine & Storage Staircase in London

At Syte Architects’ Studio on Greville Road, a historic building occupied by the same artist for twenty years gets dramatically brighter, lighter and more organized with the addition of double-height glass doors facing the garden, a bespoke wooden staircase packed full of storage customized to the artist’s needs, and a floating mezzanine. The storage, including vertical cubbies that can accommodate oversized paintings, slots right beneath the staircase leading to the second floor, which stops short of the perimeter walls and inserts weight-supporting glass instead. This feature combined with new skylights ensures that plenty of all-important daylight floods into every corner of the space.

‘Sleeping Bookcase’ for a Paris Pied-a-Terre by

French architect Pierre-Louis Gerlier completely reorganized the interior of a Paris pied-a-terre to create a much larger living room and a bedroom with private cubbies for multiple children. This require a whole lot of custom built-ins, which maximize storage for each room and create fun features like window seats. But by far the coolest element of this renovation is that wall of bed cubbies interspersed with storage.

Aluminum Island in an Industrial Loft

What was formerly a 1920s industrial building in Paris’ 11th arrondissement has become a striking apartment in the hands of SABO Project, with a renovation that emphasizes the native character of the space. The concrete walls are aged and highly textural, contrasting with melamine cabinetry and an unusual aluminum island containing the bedroom and bathroom. Cut-outs allow daylight to filter into these more private spaces by day, and diffuse artificial light into the living room at night. There’s a guest loft hidden on top of the island, too.

A Modern Trocadero Apartment in Paris by François Champsaur

Myriad custom surfaces completely transform this Paris apartment in a high-end renovation by François Champsaur, giving it a modern edge with lots of curves. He removed false ceilings installed in 1970 and replaced the parquet floors with extra-long pine boards. The dining room is lined with marble, and the bathroom adds slatted wood to soften it. Custom panels are used extensively to disguise potentially busy-looking elements like televisions and kitchenware.

Renovated Family Duplex in Denmark by Spacon & X

It’s plain to see how custom built-ins can make a tiny space far more usable and enjoyable in this apartment renovation in Denmark by Spacon & X. Created for a family of four, the new living space integrates a staircase full of storage into the kitchen that doubles as a room divider for the living room, a guest bed that folds up into the wall beneath elevated textile storage, a window seat, a fold-down office stations and a super cute kid room full of slide-out closets, desks and play areas.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Built In Bonanza 13 Mega Apartment Makeovers Packed With Custom Features

A lot of the most impressive space-saving ideas really only work for wealthier urbanite apartment owners who can simply hire a contractor to design a bunch of customized built-ins. The results – like beds that lower from the ceiling at the push of a button – are often undeniably cool and effective, but not exactly accessible to most of us. For the renter with an average income, tiny space hacks need to be cheaper and way more portable. Here are 15 ideas that are either commercially available for less than the price of your first-born child, or could serve as inspiration for something to build yourself.

Fold-Up Walk-In Wardrobe

How luxurious must it feel to have the kind of walk-in closet full of beautiful wooden built-in shelves and drawers, with space to organize all of your shoes, accessories and clothing? Hosun Ching applies this concept to a fold-out wardrobe with additional storage in the doors, transforming into a sort of portable walk-in. There are mirrors on both sides, too, so you can see your outfits from every angle.

“The depth of a standard wardrobe is 60cm,” says Ching. “That is simply not practical, because it means that you literally lose sight of your clothing; and what you don’t see, you don’t wear. The Walk-In Closet is a small storage unit designed to solve this problem. The focus is on organization and visibility. There are drawers for accessories and the reduced depth does away with those ‘hidden’ stacks.”

DIY Breakfast Nook with a View

Turn any available window in your space into a cafe table with a view simply by adding a shelf and a chair or a couple bar stools. It takes up practically zero space, installs in mere minutes and makes a big impact.

The Hobby Box Craft Cabinet

Got a lot of crafting materials or art supplies? The HobbyBox by The Original Scrapbox Company has space for everything, keeping papers neatly organized, protected and individually visible. In addition to a whole lot of internal shelving, this craft cabinet features a small wall of magnetic storage and some hooks for hanging certain items. It also comes with a fold-down work table, a daylight LED light, 22 clear acrylic totes and 7 clear zipper pouches. The company has other versions of this cabinet that are customized for other activities, like sewing, as well as narrow storage towers and storage desks with clear tops so you can see all your supplies from above. Being able to closet it all up when you’re done eliminates a whole lot of visual clutter in a small space.

Space-Saving Living Cubes

Few things make more of an impact in a small space than the ‘all-in-one living cube,’ a freestanding piece of mega-furniture that typically incorporates a bed, storage and perhaps a desk or couch into the same unit. This one, the Kammerspiel by Nils Holger Moormann, is designed to stand in the center of a studio apartment, dividing up the space and offering just about everything you need. It even has a mini kitchen and a walk-in wardrobe.

“At a time when affordable living space is becoming scarce and the grand opera is not always possible, a Kammerspiel – or intimate theater – can be a fitting alternative,” says Moormann of his creation. “It’s a room within a room, condensing enough features and space to take the airiness of the rest of the apartment into consideration.”

Endlessly Customizable Peg Board Walls

Spotted here at a compact Budapest AirBnB designed by local firm Position Collective, pegboard walls prove they don’t have to be relegated to dirty garages to be handy. This one is made of a smoother-grained plywood, with pegs supporting custom shelves. You could mount these to the wall and have an endlessly customizable shelving arrangement without drilling a bunch of holes in your rental.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Portable Walk In Closets 14 Other Ways To Make A Studio Feel Like A Mansion