At first glance, it is just a door atop a 1950s residential building in the centre of Rotterdam. Behind it unfolds a complete, self-contained world—compact in size, yet expansive in experience. The Cabanon is a fully equipped 6.89m² apartment—likely the smallest in the world, certainly the smallest with a spa—created by adaptively reusing an unused attic storage space.

The Cabanon is an experiment in voluntary reduction, never understood as austerity, but as an “epicurean” minimalism—a search for modest joy.

The inside dimensions of the Cabanon are H: 3 m, W: 1,97m, L: 3,6m. It has a 6m² window overlooking the city. It is divided into four fixed spaces, rather than relying on temporary partitions, so each space can be fully functional. The spaces are radically different in height, material, and colour: a 3m-high living room with kitchen, a 1.14m-high bedroom with plenty of storage, a toilet with rain shower, and a spa with infrared saunas and a whirlpool bath. Each space is dimensioned according to the height and width required to perform its function, turning the apartment into a temple in the proportions of its owners. This principle of precise calibration extends from the body to the scale of everyday objects. The bedroom was designed with a specific mattress in mind; the spa according to the bathtub length; the kitchen based on the mini-fridge depth, in order to avoid the need of customized objects, but rather the other way around: the Cabanon would adapt to standard and affordable products.

The Cabanon takes its name from the eponymous cabin of Le Corbusier at the Côte d'Azur. Like the Le Corbusier cabin, the Cabanon of Rotterdam has been conceived by the same architects who will use it: Beatriz and Bernd. It is 6,89 m², half the size of Le Corbusier’s unit and – unlike his Cabanon – fully autonomous and designed for a couple.

What initially seemed illogical for a space of this size proved essential: vivid colours allow the mini-apartment to “grow” and unfold as a carefully composed, narrative sequence of spaces, almost cinematic in character. Within just 7m², colour creates space where none existed. The shower is wrapped in blue mosaic; the living room in coral tiles; the spa lined with black marble; and the bedroom in mint green.

The Cabanon unexpectedly challenges conventional ideas of space, functionality, and luxury. Architecture is not measured in square metres, but in the intensity of experience it creates—and in the capacity of colour and materialisation to expand perception and transform even the smallest space into a place of wonder.
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The Cabanon could help optimizing housing and costs but in no way does it advocate towards the reduction of surfaces as the only strategy towards affordable housing, neither it pretends to become the “house of the future”. However, we can extrapolate some of its strategies in order to make current housing production better and cheaper. Some of these are: the optimisation of space–optimisation not understood as ‘reduction’ but as ‘maximisation’ of the possibilities of one space; the modulation of heights of certain spaces in order to superpose some functions; the anticipation of uses: such as by integrating utility connections in attics, storage rooms, or unused spaces, where the additional cost of these measures is minimal, yet they open up significant possibilities for future transformation, and the detachment towards possession and consumerism, so we are less inclined to buy and accumulate useless objects that clutter our houses and minds.

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To date, The Cabanon has received more than 30 international prizes and distinctions. Among them are Best Interior of the Year by Architectenweb (NL), winner of Living Interiors at the MIX Awards (UK), Public Winner for Interior of the Year at the Archello Awards (NL), and a longlisting at the Dezeen Awards (UK). At the FRAME Awards (NL), The Cabanon was named Winner of the Month (February 2025) across all categories and subsequently achieved Second Place in the Small Apartment category at the 2025 annual awards. The project has been featured in over 250 print and online publications worldwide, including twice in The New York Times, as well as de Volkskrant, Arquitectura Viva, Abitare, El País, Domus, and Architektur. In addition, The Cabanon has been presented in international documentaries and television programs, including Architectural Digest, Germany’s Galileo, RTL News - Editie NL, and Rijnmond TV.

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CREDITS + DATA
The Cabanon
Location: Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Programme: Living unit + spa
Date: 2014-2024
Type: Renovation
Surface: 6.89 m² (net.) – Volume: 21.19 m³
Design Team: STAR strategies + architecture & BOARD (Bureau of Architecture, Research and Design)
-Team STAR: Beatriz Ramo with Geoffrey Clamour; Images: Efraín Pérez del Barrio, Ivan Guerrero Jiménez
-Team BOARD: Bernd Upmeyer
-Thanks to: Ana Beatriz López- Angulo, Javier Ramo, Ana Ramo, and Danae Zachariaki + Claudia Consonni from BOARD.
Construction : Midwinter - Timmerwerk & Decoratie (Arjen van Caspel and Mirjam Groenendijk)
Photos: Ossip van Duivenbode
Models-Dancers: Guido Dutilh and Boston Gallacher

The Cabanon video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqgtDM7YRw4
Architectural Digest documentary "How an Architect Fit 4 Rooms Into a 74-Square-Foot Rotterdam Studio": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiHF_4Czuf4