Hold that excess: A mini-revolt is brewing

Like hemlines and lapels, the scale of designed objects in our culture is subject to the swinging pendulum of fashion. After decades of conspicuous consumption and a “more is more” economy, designers are responding with a celebration of the small -- tiny residences, minuscule cars and electronic devices that have all but disappeared.

Within the next few months, a crop of coffee-table books dedicated to the style of small spaces will be released. Although it’s not unusual for books with a similar theme to arrive at the same time, the interest in residences of less than 1,000 square feet seems to reflect a larger current of undersized design.

On any given day, legions of Mini Coopers bob and weave through the Southland’s snarled streets, soon to be joined by Scions, Toyota’s new line of diminutive cars. Meanwhile, cell phones parody themselves as barely there fashion accessories.

Something undeniable in the collective aesthetic is underway, even though the supersizing of everything from houses to SUVs to hamburgers is the more frequently cited societal theme.

In the case of residential architecture, the books -- Alejandro Bahamon’s “Mini House,” Michelle Kodis’ “Blueprint Small” and Alastair Gordon’s “Beach Houses: Andrew Geller” -- rebut the notion that bigger houses mean better lives. The tiny residences run the gamut from Cape Cod-style cottages on the edge of pristine wooded landscapes to corrugated-siding and exposed-plywood cubes in Tokyo and London. According to these authors, the appeal of these minute dwellings, both modern and traditional, is at once voyeuristic and aspirational.

The architecture in these books consists mainly of ordered boxes unfettered by the thoroughly American aspiration for space and land. Indeed, “Blueprint Small” and “Beach Houses: Andrew Geller” are perhaps the most challenging of the books simply because they focus on American structures. America is “the land to which God granted Costco,” says John Chase, the city of Santa Monica’s recently appointed urban designer.

The 1950s wooden beach shacks of New York architect Geller that are highlighted in “Beach Houses: Andrew Geller” illustrate what Chase describes as “architecture that changes your scale.” The book’s faded ‘50s color photographs of his upwardly mobile New York clients standing next to their miniaturized beach homes make the angular, shingled structures look cartoonishly petite.

“Blueprint Small” is perhaps the most pointed illustration of America’s love affair with the cute house. Running the gamut from prototypical Northern California hippy shacks shingled with old license plates to John Pawson-esque minimalist hideaways, these residential structures seem to have one thing in common: They are iconoclastic.

In contrast, the 25 European and Asian homes highlighted in “Mini House” bear a notably different structural attitude. Europe and Asia have had a longer affinity for all things small, whether out of love or necessity: Auto manufacturers such as Mercedes-Benz and Toyota have successfully marketed positively Lilliputian versions of their cars for decades there. So it’s no surprise that smaller houses would find an enthusiastic audience outside the U.S.

The homes in “Mini House” are what one might think of as “high design” in that they are devoid of the vernacular of the precious, so often seen in the American small house. These European and Asian dwellings are decidedly postmodern. Although not all of them are sandwiched into urban environments -- in fact, many homes in the book are in rural and wooded locales -- the aesthetic of high urbanism is obvious in the consistent use of glass sheeting, metal siding and an overall attention to right angles.

Witold Rybczynski, professor of urbanism and real estate at the University of Pennsylvania, says small houses “are vacation and second homes, which tend to be smaller, which means they can take [design] risks.” The homes in these three books bear this idea out.

The aspiration to live in a house of less than 1,000 square feet is often the provenance of the upwardly mobile. “Why would a middle-class person want a tiny house?” asks Chase. “It’s a class issue: It’s the idea that one can be above that. It’s anti-populism. It’s beyond consumption. It’s Thoreau and Walden Pond.”

And it’s true: We simply do not live this way, for the most part.

Although the eye of popular culture has settled on tiny things in design, in reality, America likes its residential architecture supersized. “The National Assn. of Home Builders reports that houses are not getting smaller; they are getting larger,” Rybczynski notes. “People don’t want to live in smaller places, but books like these satisfy the element of ‘I wonder what it would be like to live that way.’ ”

Small houses are obviously not a new phenomenon. The archetypal hunting cabin, the writer’s retreat and the twee stone cottage in the English countryside have existed for centuries. But with the “mansionization” of U.S. neighborhoods and the sight of 8-miles-to-the-gallon Hummer H2s lumbering along, there seems to be an extra push toward the aesthetics of smallness. Americans may like things to be gargantuan, but they also like to rebel.

As Adrian van Hooydonk, president of DesignworksUSA, BMW’s Newbury Park, Calif.-based design think tank, says of its Mini Cooper: “The Mini is anti-big, which stands out in America. The Mini is an underdog; it makes a statement. And even if you’re cutting someone off, you make them smile.”

The idea that small design is not only functional but also intended to appeal to a rebellious streak may have only recently been exploited by carmakers, but it is not a new concept in electronics. “Early adopters,” those customers who are willing to pay top dollar for the newest and tiniest devices, have long been the target of “less is more” marketing.

The cell phone has in the last few years secured a place in America’s visual lexicon of cute. Phones like Motorola’s sub-palm-sized V series appear to wither by the centimeter each season. The smaller these phones get, the more expensive they become, and often, the more desirable as well.

Ulias Lucaci, a design manager for Motorola, says that “phones will, with innovations like distributed architecture, most certainly get smaller and smaller -- and will eventually become integrated with the user.” Meaning they will achieve the ultimate in small: They will disappear.