Mr. Liu's Mobile Feng Shui Living Cube

In honor of Small Cool month here on Apartment Therapy, I have to give a shout out to one of the coolest small spaces I’ve ever seen — Liu Ming’s 8-foot mobile living cube for work, sleep and meditation.

After making its way around the blogosphere earlier this year, and with a recent feature in The New York Times, Liu Ming’s living cube lands smack dab where it belongs - here on Apartment Therapy, where we have a not-so-secret obsession with all things small space.

Located inside his 1,100 square-foot loft in Oakland, California, Mr. Liu’s living cube was devised to separate his personal space from the part of his home where he also teaches Chinese medicine and Feng Shui. Designed by architecture firm SPACEFLAVOR, the cube is based on the Feng Shui concept of Yin (private and closed) and Yang (public and open). The bi-level steel and plywood structure features a cozy bedroom and workspace, separated by a small shoji screen. Atop the unit sits a meditation and tea loft, which is accessible through a hidden staircase and allows Mr. Liu a bit of an escape from life below.

Keeping in line with the principles of Feng Shui, casters add to the functionality of the space by allowing the cube to be turned to face the sun or to simply move it aside as to make room for his students. The best part about the living cube, however, is its ingenious prefabricated design that can be dismantled to fit through any standard 3-foot door, so Mr. Liu can move it with him wherever he goes.

To read more about Liu Ming’s living cube, visit SPACEFLAVOR.com or check out his interview with The New York Times.

Images: Jasmine Rose Oberste, via Inhabitat

Comments (9)

Why does the song Living in a box from Living in a box comes into my mind?

Okay. The fact that you can break it down and take all of the pieces through a standard door is pretty kick ass.

Seems like it would be a fun space - for children.

Very cool. This is actually how shelters should be set up so that the residents could have some semblance of privacy, safety and security.

Nice job of thinking outside the box while sleeping in it. :)

This is just one solution to the problem of "bringing cozy" to a high ceilinged room. Try a canopy bed that creates a 'fabric box' around you as you sleep (I used a pencil post bed with rails all around and then tied beautiful curtains all around it with a semi sheer fabric over the "ceiling"). Or you can build in a sleeping closet at one end of the room a la Rembrandt's sleeping chamber. But I agree with @bodicegoddess that the breaking it down part is truly kick ass!

makes me think too much of my overcrowded freshman dorm, when they'd stick 3 into a tiny room-one bunkbed and a unit like this.

1100 sq ft is small?

Genius!

I wonder how he gets electricity into the box? does it plug into the wall?