Seamless storage options are key when designing a residence with a small footprint. This has proven true not only in our modern age of tiny living but for as long as boatbuilders have been crafting drifting homes and city dwellers have slept, eaten, and bathed in one compact space. From floating stairs to inventive built-ins to hidden storage compartments like the one shown above, Pretty Small: Grand Living with Limited Space (Gestalten, 2022) showcases residences that serve as inspired guides on how to set up a place of solitude with a reduced floor plan.

Here, architecture duo Claire Scorpo and Nicholas Agius of Agius Scorpo Architects took on a personal project to create a home for Agius in Melbourne’s historic Cairo Flats building. Designed in 1936 by Acheson Best Overend, the U-shaped building made up of studio apartments built around a central garden is one of the city’s most recognized architectural landmarks. Agius and Scorpo chose to maintain the ethos of Overend’s design—“maximum amenity at minimum cost and space”—while modernizing the unit and allowing two people to coexist with privacy.

Shown above is the studio’s “kitchen cabinet,” a multifunctional, transitional construction of recycled Victorian ash hardwood. Two doors—the left on a slide, the right on a hinge—open to reveal the kitchen and its various gadgets, tools, and ingredients, which, when the doors close, can all be tucked away while remaining easily accessible. A hidden moving panel above the sink, when opened, allows light to flow from the main living space to the bedroom, which is ingeniously made private by the kitchen’s sliding door.

1. KOBENSTYLE CASSEROLE IN MIDNIGHT BLUE Food52 x Dansk // food52.com

2. EXTRA-LARGE ROUND GLASS STORAGE CONTAINER WITH BAMBOO LID Crate & Barrel // crateandbarrel.com

3. LARGE HANDCRAFTED MAPLE CUTTING BOARD Block Brothers Custom Cabinets // blockbrotherscabinets.com

4. YAMAZAKI 12-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MALT WHISKY Suntory // house.suntory.com

5. VIKING 5 SERIES PREMIERE 30-INCH WALL OVEN IN WHITE Viking // vikingrange.com

6. ENAMEL TEAPOT IN CHARCOAL Barebones // barebonesliving.com

7. YOLK 2023-10 Benjamin Moore // benjaminmoore.com

8. SHUN CLASSIC BLONDE STARTER KNIVES Shun // shun.kaiusa.com

9. REINHARD 20-INCH FIRECLAY FARMHOUSE SINK IN WHITE Signature Hardware // signaturehardware.com