Those designing for small spaces can learn a lot from boats and travel trailers, particularly from European designs. Caravanning is a high-end luxury activity in Europe and some of the models put luxury yachts to shame.

Cameron Sinclair of Architecture For Humanity always says that the last thing people need after a disaster is another architect's idea for instant housing, but that hasn't stopped TreeHugger Best of Green Young Architect Andrew Maynard from lookin

Kids get to have all the fun.

Benjamin Benschneider / The Seattle Times

Rebecca Teagarden of the Seattle Times visits Steve Sauer's 182 square foot basement apartment. The 6'-2" tall engineer designs airplane interiors for Boeing, but notes a different inspiration:

"The greatest innovation anywhere for space is boats.

Hervé Véronèse at Centre Pompidou

The Pompidou Centre is one of the most remarkable buildings of the 20th century, with extraordinary engineering. But what would you expect from Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers in partnership?

Passive House, or Passivhaus design is finally becoming really active in North America, and is popping up in communities across the country.

images via Designboom

eOffice notes that Japan's famous capsule hotels "are traditionally grimy, and primarily intended as expedient sleeping solutions for drunk salarymen who have missed the last train home."

But

Office of the Future, 1922 prediction

In 1985, in the Harvard Business Review Philip Stone and Robert Luchetti foresaw in 1985 at the birth of the wireless phone that the era of the that you went to and sat at a desk was over; they noted that Your office is where you are. They were off by about 25 years; it takes time

Image via Onen

So much of what we build is a response to regulation; from garden sheds to modular homes, it is the rules that define the forms.

Think of it as a garden shed for the high-rise: Plant Room is a clip-on room that provides a bit of green space, hot water, rainwater collection and even a worm farm for the apartment dweller. We covered it briefly in March, but the designers have added a lot more information to their site.