A Box of Your Own.(microdwellings in London)(Brief Article)

It was out of desperation that two London architects, Stuart Piercy, 30, and Richard Conner, 29, decided to design themselves a place to live. Neither had the cash to survive in a city where the average price of a modest flat has more than doubled over the last five years, to [Pound sterling]139,838. By accident, the two young urbanites hit upon a solution already well known in Japan, where developers started building many microdwellings during the real-estate bubble of the 1980s. By subdividing a standard apartment into tiny units and applying designs used in yachts to miniaturize kitchen and bathroom fixtures, the two figured they could move out of the suburbs and into one of London's hipper locales.

Little did they know they would help start a craze that might soon dot London with honeycomblike cubbyholes. Piercy and Conner unveiled their unique design in a trade magazine last fall, prompting a media frenzy, inquiries from financial backers and eventually more than 20,000 e- mails and phone calls from interested buyers. Now it seems everybody is talking about their Microflats and a rival firm's Mini Suites. Both firms are in negotiations for building sites and hope to start construction by December.

The real-estate squeeze is on in London. Young urban professionals are being priced out of housing. Most banks refuse mortgages of more than three times an annual salary, and the average London salary is [Pound sterling]28,000. The same basic pressures gave birth to a similar idea in 1970s Tokyo, where cubbyhole hotels and tiny apartments known as one-room mansions are now commonplace.

The London designers say they drew inspiration from their own travails, but now ...