A remarkable micro home, mom included

Dreading your parents' holiday visit when they cramp your style and stay in a spare room for a few nights? Don't complain to Fuyuhito Moriya, a Tokyo bachelor who shares a parking space-sized home with his mother.

Tue, Nov 30 2010 at 3:27 PM

Related Topics:

Green Building, Green Design

A parking-space sized home in Tokyo cost $500,000 to build and is shared by a single man and his mother.

Snapshot from video

Earlier today, I blogged about a sprawling solar-powered estate in Tennessee that the owner, none other than award-winning songstress and TP conservationist Sheryl Crow, is attempting to sell via online auction. For something completely different, I thought I’d follow up by taking a look at a similarly hot property, this one in Tokyo, with considerably less square footage: about 30 squaremeters (or 323 square feet) versus the more than 10,000 square-feet of Crow’s country palace.

The ultra-compact, $500,000 home in question (which is not for sale through auction or otherwise) belongs to 39-year-old bachelor Fuyuhito Moriya and is built on a pizza-shaped piece of land the size of a single parking spot. Did I mention that Moriya shares the tiny but ingeniously designed space with his elderly mother?

Moriya tells CNN:

Size is not that important. More important for me is the atmosphere, the surroundings and the neighborhood. You reside in the building, but I'm focused on living in a particular area and environment. So the size of my home isn't as important as that.

The Japanese micro home trend or kyosho jutaku is nothing new (click here and here to learn more about the stateside small house movement) particularly in super-expensive Tokyo where those who would rather not rent a medium-sized apartment often take drastic measures. I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything quite as compact and puzzle-like as Moriya’s downsized dwelling. Tour it for yourself — claustrophobics and those who have nightmares about sharing a space with aged parents, beware — in the full video here.

Via [CNN]

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