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Given today’s rates of rural-urban migration, city dwellers can expect to live in ever-smaller homes as the years progress. How small is feasible for a comfortable life? And is a small space supportive or antithetical to a sense of community?

Since 2016, MINI Living has been exploring the development of novel residential concepts for some of the world’s major urban centres. Its travelling Urban Cabin program proposes a highly flexible, temporary living space on a footprint of just 15 square metres. The project, like the Mini vehicle, is based on the principle of the ‘creative use of space’.

Each Urban Cabin consists of three formal elements. A living and sleeping section and a kitchen and bathroom section are designed by the MINI Living Design Team. A third section, defined by MINI as an experiential space, is filled out by a local architecture firm in a way that has relevance to the location.

After stops in London, New York and Los Angeles, the Urban Cabin has landed in Beijing with a micro-apartment concept developed with Chinese architect Dayong Sun. It was displayed as part of the

China House Vision exhibition between September and November 2018.

Sun created an open area as an homage to traditional hutongs, which offered a combination of private withdrawal spaces and communal living areas. Reminiscent of the hutong courtyard, he created a flexible open area, mounting golden telescopelike mirrors above it to bring in glimpses of surrounding context. Storage and seating facilities positioned around the Urban Cabin were designed with geometric shapes that recall Chinese tangram puzzles. At the centre of the space, a swing allows for a playful shift in perspective.

This year, building on the Urban Cabin program, MINI Living will develop its first coliving project. It is being developed with Chinese company NOVA Property Investment Co. and will be opened in Shanghai. The project will transform an unused industrial complex in the Jing’An district into a mix of apartments of various sizes, work spaces, and cultural and leisure facilities.