So, about four years ago, Graham Hill, founder of the eco-friendly design/architecture site TreeHugger, brought together a bunch of architects to transform his Manhattan studio into a modern, ultra-efficient “apartment of the future.” Today, he’s moving on, and has recently put the 420-square-foot “Life Edited” apartment up for sale. His asking price? A cool $995K.
Why so expensive? Well, for starters, it’s in Soho, one of the most sought after neighborhoods in New York City, so there’s that. Location aside, the remainder of the pricetag likely comes from the apartment’s brilliant design. When Hill initially sought out to redesign the space, he crowdsourced the project, and set up a contest to attract architects. The winning design, a $365K renovation plan by Romanian architecture students Catalin Sandu and Adrian Iancu, incorporates pretty much every space-saving design element you could possibly imagine: murphy beds, hidden appliances, expandable furniture, and even entire walls that move on rails in the ceiling and floor. It’s only 420 square feet, but the ingenious configuration makes the space extremely versatile, allowing Hill to do things like host 12-person dinner parties or accommodate multiple overnight guests.
Unsurprisingly, the apartment has become rather famous since it was first built, and has won a boatload of awards, including the American Institute of Architecture NY Honor Award, and the Architizer A+ Award for Small Living. It’s also been featured in The New York Times (twice), CNN, ABC World and local news, the Today Show, the New Yorker, NPR, Wired UK, Dwell, Gizmodo, and countless others, and is probably the only apartment in the world with its own TED talk. That’s why it’s selling for nearly a million bucks.
You can get a pretty decent idea of what the inside looks like from the pictures we’ve included, but if you want a closer look, Gizmodo actually got a live tour from Hill last year, which you can watch below.
(Images via Street Easy)
