Given the task of remodelling a badly planned 1,100 sq ft lost apartment situated in a former steam engine factory in California, designers Lynda and Peter Benoit (of Melander Architects) came up with the idea of an entirely custom 16-by-17-by-10 ft wooden box that accommodates a bookcase on the outside, a bedroom on the inside, and a dressing-room mezzanine above.

By creating this wooden box (nicknamed the "box-within-a-box), the room is at once broken up and opened up, giving the residents separate spaces in which all surfaces are serving a purpose.

www.melanderarchitects.com