Por Fin Nuestra Casa Container Homes !!!

Wow, here's a builder from Albequerque, Brian McCarthy, that was inspired from a Ciudad Juarez trip to go for housing from sturdy metal freight containers!

He named his company Por Fin Nuestra Casa, or PFNC for short. Here's PFNC's website. Their media page has two youtube videos, and one video has an interior tour of the container. And here's a CNN article about them.

Here's a pic of a detached unit's inviting exterior, with blue door and flower box!

And here's an interior pic. The containers have about 320 square feet of space--a bit bigger than the smallest hotel rooms, and the size of some studios in our cities:

And here's their awesome concept of a stacked configuration--I would love this! Living close to neighbors, but with my own little unit to retreat to:
Thanks Mr. McCarthy! This is inspiring!

NYTimes article on families with children choosing to stay in the city

This New York Times article about families living in Manhattan one-bedroom apartments has some wonderful descriptions and ideas. It says the number of families with children deciding to stay in Manhattan rather than move to the suburbs as the children grow up is increasing.

This was a walk-in closet in a 700 square foot West Village apartment. It now contains a twin-size murphy bed for the older child, with play space underneath when the murphy bed is put away. Amazingly, it also contains a washing machine, which is covered when not in use! The younger child is still sleeping on foldable portable bedding at the foot of the parents' bed. So, in 700 square feet, four people sleep and both parents have work offices--wonderful!

Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings By Edward Sylvester Morse

I discovered this book while browsing my town's art museum's giftshop. It is called Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings, and written by Edward S. Morse. If you google Ed Morse, we find he went to Japan at the end of the 19th century, recording marvelously with words and pictures the living environments of Japanese people at that time. It was published by Ticknor and Company in Boston in 1886.Just flipping through it, I was stunned to find this passage regarding clutter.

One of the surprising features that strikes a foreigner as he becomes acquainted with the Japanese home is the entire absence of so many things that with us clutter the closets, or make squirrel-nests of the attic,--I speak now of the common house. The reason of this is that the people have never developed the miserly spirit of hoarding truck and rubbish with the idea that some day it may come into use: this spirit when developed into a mania converts a man's attic and shed into a junkshop. The few necessary articles kept by the Japanese are stowed away in boxes, cupboards, or interspaces beneath the floors (pp 195-6).

With all the clutter-clearing, organization, and simplification movements over the past few years, I've very much enjoyed and been inspired by the works of Julie Morgenstern, Don Aslett, Karen Kingston, and Michelle Passoff, among others. Through all this immersion in the clutter-clearing and organizing literature, I'd come to the impression that clutter appears more and more as societies become wealthier over time, and have more disposable income to spend on clutter. So I thought North America in 1885 would not have clutter because we were poorer back then and didn't have all the material wealth of today. I was very much surprised to read Mr. Morse's comments on "squirrel-nests" and the "miserly spirit of hoarding truck and rubbish" and the "junkshop," as he wrote this more than 120 years ago, before the rapid increase in wealth!

Here is Ed Morse's wikipedia page. An online biography of Morse has been written by the great great grandson of Morse's lifelong friend, John Gould, and is available here.

Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings is available in its entirety through the magic of google books! It has also been reprinted by Tuttle Publishing over the years if you want a hard copy. You can get it from them or from amazon. Here is a clip from the page he mentions Japan's lack of clutter, showing one of his beautiful line drawings of a stairway storage unit. There are many other descriptive line drawings of this quality in Morse's book. The lower left-hand cubby contains portable lamps, and directly above that are floor cushions or futon bedding.

This book was a wonderful discovery!

Casulo Apartment in a Box

Here is the Casulo Website.