Extending beyond the existing rooftops like a fast-growing plant, this compact cylindrical home slotted into an unused urban plot in Milan features a breathable ‘skin’ connecting the interiors to the outdoors. Designed by New York-based architects SO-IL for Milan Design Week 2017, the MINI LIVING ‘Breathe’ installation is a response to the growing challenge to maximize available space in cities to comfortably accommodate more residences.

Built on a modular metal frame covered with a flexible, semi-translucent envelope that reacts organically to the environment, the home was designed for a family of three, and features six rooms and a lush rooftop garden. The ground floor is transparent to encourage interaction with the world outside; climb the spiraling staircase and you’ll find a series of private spaces for relaxation, work and sleeping, all separated by fabric canopies.

The outer skin lets in filtered sunlight, while the rooftop garden collects rainwater and helps filter the city air. Hammock-like nets suspended from the upper levels look out onto both the city outside and the interiors below. The architects describe the skin as a ‘jacket’ that can be zipped and arranged differently to protect against various external conditions. The more you layer it, the more privacy or water resistance it offers, so inhabitants can customize the needs of different rooms.

The idea, in part, was to ‘tune’ the interiors to the rhythms of the city, the weather and the sun outside, eliminating the closed-off feel that many homes tend to have. While the tent-like design may not be viable for many urban centers where cold weather, rain and theft might be a problem, it’s an intriguing idea for layering with more solid and secure materials like glass.

The problem of homelessness is a complex one rooted in gross stratification of wealth, and while addressing it in full means addressing poverty itself, temporary portable housing can save lives in the meantime. Many cities are implementing transitional housing programs that make use of inexpensive, easy to move structures in interstitial urban spaces. The Martin Architecture and Design Workshop (MADWORKSHOP) teamed up with students from the University of Southern California School of Architecture (USC) to come up with some creative examples of these structures.

‘The Homeless Studio’ is an organization aiming to address LA’s homelessness crisis through design. Students built a series of full-scale, inhabitable nomadic shelters ranging from contraptions that fit onto shopping carts to more comfortable structures that wouldn’t be out of place in a tiny house village. Most of the materials were scavenged from around Los Angeles, and the designs had to be collapsible and suitable for a variety of locations.

The results are sometimes more artistic than they are practical – like a hut clad in retail mannequin displays – but in many cases, the interiors are cozy and well-lit by windows and skylights, and one design even has a roof deck.

The aim of actually addressing homelessness didn’t just consist of building a few weird-looking structures and calling it a day. The students worked with city officials, local agencies, artist and activists to come up with a holistic solution in a city where nearly 47,000 people live on the streets. They’re making repeated visits to local agencies like the Skid Row Housing Trust and the Downtown Women’s Center, speaking to people experiencing homelessness to get firsthand information about their needs.

They’ll also be taking the hands-on skills and knowledge they gained through this project and applying it to a larger solution, designing a 30-bed modular shelter for women for Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission in San Fernando Valley. Their efforts over the course will be documented and compiled into a publication set for publishing by the USC School of Architecture in 2017.

Do you want to spend a night on a river bank, a cliff, a meadow or a busy urban street? The ‘Sleeping Around’ pop-up hotel concept can go virtually anywhere you like, setting up quickly in locations where static architecture isn’t possible or practical. Made from four recycled 1950s shipping containers, this traveling hotel opens up possibilities for travelers who want more than just a night of comfort.

Sleeping Around consists of six shipping containers – four are individual hotel rooms, one serves as a sauna and the sixth is a breakfast and lounge area. Each of the hotel rooms has a floating bed, spacious rain shower, iPod docking station and air conditioning system.

The hotel has already spent a few weeks on the banks of the Scheldt in Antwerp, where the containers were procured, and is now on the move. Travelers interested in staying there can track its location on the website, and put in requests for future spots. It can be set up and ready to go within five hours of arriving.

This hotel may not be quite as mobile as the super-compact Hotello, which is basically a self-contained hotel room setup in a wheeled trunk, but it opens intriguing possibilities for the future of travel accommodations. If you could choose any location to set up a temporary hotel, where would it be?

Cities all around the world have vast, empty spaces just going to waste – abandoned buildings, empty lots, decommissioned military barracks – but the Hotello wants to put those spaces to use. The Hotello is a tiny, portable hotel room that can go anywhere and provide a comfortable sleeping space no matter where you are.

Designed by Antonio Scarponi and Robert de Luca for the Swiss firm daskonzept, the Hotello starts out as a rather nondescript wheeled trunk. It does the seemingly impossible by packing an entire 4 square meters room into a surprisingly small area – bed, desk, wardrobe and all.

Thanks to its wheels, the Hotello can be taken almost anywhere. You can set up the room in a matter of minutes by folding out the bed and setting up the metal structure that supports the sound absorbent privacy curtain. A small work space and stool let you catch up on work before bedtime, and the trunk itself acts as a storage area for clothing or other objects.

Several Hotellos could be placed together to create unique configurations if desired, but a single unit is perfect for the business traveler who simply needs a place to lie down for several hours before work starts again in the morning. Since the portable hotel room doesn’t come with a bathroom, though, it would be wise to plunk the Hotello down in a place near some public facilities.

Looking beyond the most obvious uses of the Hotello, though, it is clear that a solution like this would be ideal for housing victims of natural disaster. Similar, though hopefully more modest and cost-effective, solutions could be used to house homeless populations in otherwise-abandoned buildings. But of course, part of the project’s appeal is the idea that you can travel around the world with nothing  but a suitcase and a red trunk on wheels and always have a comfortable place to sleep at night.