On 7th September 2023, Roca London Gallery hosted a private view of the new exhibition Small Spaces in the City: Rethinking Inside the Box, in the company of curator Clare Farrow (Clare Farrow Studio).

Small Spaces runs until 27th January 2024 and looks at the challenges and innovative solutions for small live-and-work spaces in the city, featuring content from Royal Ballet Principal, William Bracewell, Proctor & Shaw, Intervention Architecture, Satoko Shinohara, Takeshi Hosaka, the Kuma Lab, Gary Chang, JCPCDR architecture, Paola Bagna, White Arkitekter, nArchitects, Studio Noju and Colin Chee of YouTube’s Never Too Small.

Whilst there is much said about the negative impacts of micro-living – from issues around loneliness and isolation to health and wellbeing – households continue to shrink.  In response, architects and designers are rethinking small spaces, developing innovative solutions that are flexible, healthy, modular, mobile and playful.

Clare Farrow brings a brilliant array of these designs to Roca London Gallery, with models, illustrations and film that show how designers from London to Tokyo have responded to the challenge of small spaces.  The exhibition also asks how these small space concepts can be applied across housing typologies; as well as whether a small space can only work for a single person or young couple, with minimalist minds.

Click here for more information about the exhibition.

About the Exhibition Curator

Clare Farrow is an interdisciplinary curator and writer, working with architecture, design, art, poetry, and music, and is the founder of Clare Farrow Studio. Her multisensory exhibitions have been shown in international festivals, museums and galleries, including London Design Festival at the V&A, London Design Biennale, Milan Design Week, and Roca London and Barcelona Galleries. These projects include: ‘Childhood ReCollections: Memory in Design’ for Roca in 2015-16, ‘Bamboo Ring: Weaving into Lightness’ by Kengo Kuma at the V&A in 2019 and Milan Fuorisalone in 2021, ‘Reinventing Texture’ by Toshiki Hirano at London Design Biennale 2021, and most recently, The Humanitarian Pavilion ‘Paper Sanctuary’ by Shigeru Ban at London Design Biennale 2023.

Image © White Arkitekter, multiBO – Student Living, Concept design for a new model of student housing, courtesy the architects