Garage converted into modernist apartment

Lovely example of a garage converted into a modernist apartment. Of course, it begs the question: Where do you park? (I'm kidding.) The home, in Bordeaux, France, was designed by architectural firm Fabre | de Marien. And here's a video about it! (via Reddit)

• [Dickie Anginson]

  this garage/apartment is one of tiny houses featured in the documentary film “we the tiny house people’ http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/we-the-tiny-house-people/ directed by Kirsten Dirksen.

• [gjbloom]

  A Google image search reveals it was created by French architectural firm Fabre | de Marien.  See: http://www.bookmarc.com.au/blog/fabre-de-marien-architects-double-garage-converted-into-an-uber-home/

  • [jlargentaye]

    And according to their page, this is in Passage Buhan, in Bordeaux, France.

    (“Point P”, the panel seen in one the pictures, is a French firm.)

• [Lydia9]

  More here:

  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/20/greathomesanddestinations/on-location-in-bordeaux-a-garage-converted-to-a-bachelor-pad.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

• [Felipe Esquivel Reed]

  My first appartment was something very similar. It was tiny but cosy.

• [Joshua Ochs]

  My only practical concern is what the heating/cooling efficiency of such a structure is going to be like – especially from the floor. But it’s still an incredible retrofit of space.

• [jtropp1]

  “Of course, it begs the question: Where do you park? (I’m kidding.)”

  Buddy, you’d best be “kidding” about using the expression “begs the question” that way.

  Please. Think of the children. Aren’t there enough fallacies floating around already?

  http://begthequestion.info/

  (Counterpoint: http://www.qwantz.com/comics/comic2-724.png )

  • [greebo]

    That page on logical fallacies is delicious, as it exemplifies both uses of the phrase:
    1) Their argument is a begging the question logical fallacy, as it has the form “The correct use of ‘begging the question’ is this way because here’s our definition”
    2) The whole argument just begs the question: who gave them the authority to restrict the use of a common English expression in this way?

    When will these pedants learn that the English language is a living language and is only defined by the way its used?

    • [howaboutthisdangit]

      You beat me to it and you said it so much better than I could have.  Dictionaries and textbooks do not define language, they simply document its most common usage.

    • [jayson]

      “English is a living language” is not an excuse for being ignorant.

      Want to coin some neologisms, turn a clever phrase, or bring some wonderful new loan words in from another language? Congratulations, you’re participating in English as a living language!

      Fell asleep during class in high school and can’t use basic grammar and proper word choices? Don’t lash out at others, look for opportunities to learn.

      • [Clark]

        There’s something to be said about doing things “right” in the conventional meaning of the word.  English is a living language but it doesn’t mean it has to be destroyed with abandon.  I appreciate convention because it is what gives us a common language.  If you use a more progressive version of English than someone else does, at which point are you no longer speaking the same language?  And I’m not just talking about a cultural gap but a real linguistic one.  

      • [wysinwyg]

        But this is already a pretty common usage of “begs the question” and I’ve never seen a case where the meaning was ambiguous because of the two usages. 

        Using “ambivalent” incorrectly is a problem because it actually means just about the opposite of what it’s used to mean.  This correction on “begs the question” is, in my opinion, unnecessarily pedantic.

        • [cellocgw]

          No, people use “begs the question” incorrectly because they’re illiterate but desperately trying to look intelligent.  This has nothing to do with evolution of language or slowly-changing word meaning (see “vulgar” or “gay”).     

    • [Clark]

       Thank you!  I have been using it incorrectly all this time.  I appreciate learning the real and correct meaning of this term.

  • [Bruce Dickinson]

    Well, I suppose that begs the question, jtropp:
    if it’s used more often to mean “raise the question” than “a fallacy of presumption”,  doesn’t that suggest that the definition of the phrase has evolved?

    • [jtropp1]

      Proper use of a phrase doesn’t evolve.

      “I could care less” isn’t “more evolved”; a mistake, common though it may be, is still a mistake.

      And there’s nothing (racially) offensive about calling someone “niggardly.”

      • [wysinwyg]

        Proper use of phrases very obviously does evolve.  For examples see Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” especially the part on cliches. For an example I got from a Stephen Pinker book, the phrase “coming to a head” is a reference to the formation of zits. I bet you’ve used that phrase and I bet you’ve never thought of it as a metaphor comparing your situation to the formation of a zit.

        The use of the word “contact” as a verb has only been accepted as proper usage in the last few decades so any phrase using “contact” as a verb is a product of the sort of evolution you are denying ever happens.

  • [jtropp1]

    Best way to irritate a philosopher even more than by misusing “beg the question” –> Say something to the effect of: “It’s all relative!”

• [jandrese]

  It looks like a waiting room.  

  • [Clark]

    I agree and more precisely, it looks like the waiting area in a German brand auto dealership.

    • [wysinwyg]

       Yup, just like an Audi dealership.

• [Churba S]

  Impressive. Most people just convert their garage into an enormous mess.

  • [Gilbert Wham]

    I did that with my living-space.

• [s2redux]

  I suspect you could re-redefine as livery space some of the space in this newly redefined living space, serving the need for both parking and mild irony…but then it would become a post-modernist apartment.

  • [xian]

    Interestingly, the city law there requires every residence to have a parking spot, and the open air patio they created fulfills that requirement – so that’s basically what they did!

• [Joseph Brenner]

  Converting a garage into a modernist apartment?  What’s the difference? 

• [Kenmrph]

  It looks quite nice, but I’d be tempted to put the god-knows-how-much spent on all the fancy designy bits towards, you know, a bigger apartment.  But I’m a shlub with a bunch of junk.

  • [Anon_Mahna]

     I’d go the other direction, just sleep on a cot in the corner and buy another motorcycle to park in the house :)

• [Little Mouse]

  I find it interesting to see what they did within the predefined space, but it seems to be playing far too heavily on the idea that it’s a crazily small space and we should be amazed at how luxurious it can be. The problem I have with that is that this just seems like a classier looking version of every central city apartment that has ever existed where space is at a premium. 

• [abhishek727 mishra]

  Here is a link to a video about this house. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBYS3ZsC-cY

  Dickie Anginson correctly notes that this was a part of ‘we the tiny house people’

• [David Pescovitz]

  Thanks all for the provenance info!

• [The Life Of Bryan]

  I loved it until I noticed the profound lack of proper cable management. I still love it, but now that’s all I can see.

• [CH]

  Is that really 41m^2 living space? It just looks much smaller. My first apartment was 27,5m^2, and compared to that this apartment seems like a lot less.

  It’s really cute from the outside, but from the inside it leaves me a bit… disappointed. Like all the energy went into constructing the “box” and nothing was left for the rest.