YO! Company founder Simon Woodroffe is collaborating with the British firm Glenn Howells Architects on the first YO! Home project. These intuitive apartments will provide a compact but high-quality accommodation for people who live in big cities. The idea for YO! Home was unveiled by Woodroffe at the London Design Festival in 2012. He presented a space that was no bigger than a typical one-bedroom apartment that contained as many rooms as a mid sized house.
The Architects at Glenn Howells have since updated the design to create a not so typical 40 square metre one-bedroom home that includes a mechanised bed that can be lowered from over a sunken seating area in the lounge. They also include a breakfast bar that slides out from the kitchen wall and a dining table that folds up from the floor.
“Homes help shape our lives. They are our refuge, and our rock. Since the invention of the city centre apartment, we’ve never really re-invented it. YO! Home is that new invention,” Says Woodroffe. “Moving parts draw on the wealth of engineering technology taken from fields as diverse as yacht and automotive design, and the mechanics of stage production, allowing the transformation of a 40 square-metre space into what feels like a much bigger home.”
These unique apartments are built using a modular approach at the company’s UK-based factory. Once finished the apartments can be stacked liked boxes to create blocks for apartments and are then loaded onto a truck for delivery.
Apartment Features
- Bed that raises into ceiling when not in use.
- Drop-down table and benches
- Trap door dressing room
- Sliding Units
- Kitchen hidden by sliding door
The first of these apartments is going to be created in Manchester, UK. Jack Spurrier, managing director of YO! Home said, “Our vision is tower blocks of a single space YO! Homes in city centres around the world, from Manhattan and Buenos Aires, to Tokyo and Shanghai, changing the way people live in small spaces whist addressing the growing population issues. But any journey or adventure starts with a first step, and it would be great if our first step is in Manchester.”