News Home & Design Small Apartment Remodeled as an Intergenerational Home for Two Here's how a mother and her adult son live comfortably in a 500-square-foot apartment. By Kimberley Mok Kimberley Mok Writer McGill University Cornell University Kimberley Mok is a former architect who has been covering architecture and the arts for Treehugger since 2007. Learn about our editorial process Published July 7, 2023 09:18AM EDT Never Too Small News Environment Business & Policy Science Animals Home & Design Current Events Treehugger Voices News Archive Worldwide, more and more people are living longer, thanks to advances in modern medicine. This global trend is translating to aging demographics, where the world’s population of people aged 60 years and older will number 2.1 billion in 2050, or about double what it was in 2020. This demographic shift has huge implications—from the need to revamp healthcare and home care so that seniors can age in place to urban design and ensuring housing affordability by exploring alternatives like senior-friendly co-housing and multigenerational housing. Such shifts could happen on a small scale as well. In Tokyo, Japan, one son decided to move back into his mother's small 495-square-foot (46-square-meter) apartment when she injured herself and could no longer live alone. The son brought in local architect Kumiko Ouchi of Small Design Studio to remodel the 40-year-old apartment into a functional place that both mother and son could call home. In this short tour below from Never Too Small, we see how Ouchi's new design scheme successfully designates private spaces for both, while ensuring that the shared spaces feel open and uncluttered: The apartment is one of seven in a block of units dating back to the 1970s, each with a different floor plan. For this particular unit, the original layout had two bedrooms on either side, with a kitchen and bathroom in the middle, and a connecting living room. To start, Ouchi altered the layout by taking down some of the partitions in order to create a multifunctional living room that doubles as the son's sleeping space, and an open plan dining and kitchen area. As one enters deeper into the apartment, the spaces become more closed off and private, and this is where we find the bathroom, laundry, and the mother's bedroom. Never Too Small Upon entering, we enter a narrow hallway that functions as the apartment's primary storage space. Thanks to the full wall of light-toned, streamlined cabinetry to the left, we don't see the shoes, clothes, and other miscellaneous equipment like the Wi-Fi router that is hidden here. Never Too Small To the right of the entry hallway, we have a door that leads to the bathroom. Never Too Small Next up is the living room, which has been redone in a minimalist aesthetic to lighten up and expand the feeling of space. There is a change in floor level here that requires one to step down, making the living room feel like a separate space without closing it off. There are some integrated cabinets here, as well as a few built-in wall niches to hold the son's record player and record collection in a prominent place. Never Too Small The couch here can seat guests during the day, and it serves as the son's bed during the night. Additionally, there are built-in storage spaces under the base of the futon bed—a convenient way to hide clutter without needing even more space. Never Too Small The floor is carpeted to make it more comfortable to sit on, and there is a ventless ethanol fireplace that also blocks the view of the living room from the entrance, thus boosting privacy for the son's convertible bed. Never Too Small Adjacent to the living room is the dining and kitchen area. The client loves to cook, so redesigning the kitchen meant making it a brighter and more communal place. Never Too Small To do this, the layout now has the large steel sink facing the window, with lots of counter space for preparing food. The cabinetry here is made of wood, finished with a water-resistant plastic. Never Too Small Interestingly, the central kitchen island also acts as the dining table. As Ouchi explains: "The gas stove and oven is built in with a dining table in an island in the middle of the room. This creates a lively kitchen environment, where you can serve what you cook right away." Never Too Small Next to the kitchen is a utility space that runs down a long hall, which cannot be seen from the living room. It's here that we find the refrigerator and washing machine, as well as access to the balcony, where they air-dry their clothes. Never Too Small At the very end of the hall is the doorway to the mother's secluded bedroom. Never Too Small It's a small space, but it's been well-organized so that clothes hang up and out of the way, with built-in shelving for storing her belongings. Never Too Small To ensure that the mother also has easy access to the bathroom, Ouchi installed a door to the bathroom at the other end of her bedroom. Never Too Small To maximize the bathroom's functionality, the toilet has been installed in its own separate room, as is common in Japan, and is softly lit from above to make it feel comfortable. Never Too Small It's an elegant and super-functional redesign of an apartment—now inhabited by two generations. As Ouchi points out, the aging population trend in Japan and elsewhere needs to be factored into how homes are designed in the future: "As Japan's population ages, the number of environments where the parent's and children's generations live together has been increasing very rapidly. It is important to consider a space where each can maintain an appropriate distance from each other, while keeping a space for a family to share." To see more, visit Small Design Studio.