Mini

As the more dense cities/countries run out of fresh new space for well meaning development, that leaves little wriggle room for anyone designing a house. There is basically no equivalent here in NZ where the wide majority of houses are all so sparsely situated that with house shifted to one side, we could probably fit two more residences in the same plot of land.

This is not the case in Tokyo, for instance. It's just you and the footpath. As with all restrictions, this spurs some interesting innovation with space use that we can all learn from. Yasuhiro Yamashita has done just that, it is tailor made to the site and client (if your car was any bigger it wouldn't work. Reflection of a Mineral is a superb little house, outshining the conventional suburban rubber stamp design right next to it. Miniscule as the site may be, it offers a much richer residential experience that any of its neighbours.

The coalface is I'm really over how houses in NZ are obsessed with having a huge amount of space for often neglected gardens. "Award winning" architecture in NZ does the same, we are all stranded in excessive area of polished floors and extravagant glass panes to the "view". Instead of building communities, we isolate ourselves in a mass suburbia. It is down to culture and lifestyle, both of which does not seem to be changing any time soon.