Far from Kyoto’s temples and tourist attractions, the Nishinoyama House sits at the edge of the city surrounded by single-family homes and small agricultural plots.

A sympathetic design raises the bar for affordable housing in a not-so-affordable city. Affordable housing in Santa Monica sounds like an oxymoron. In 2013, the city's average monthly rent of $2,328 was the priciest in Los Angeles County. Adding insult to injury are local homeowners who fear that buildings for lower-earning households will be eyesores that drive down property values.

Adapting to a changing program, an inventive project in Seoul mixes micro and small apartments with arts-focused functions. Although they used repetitive units and simple construction in their Songpa Micro Housing in Seoul, Jinhee Park and John Hong of Single Speed Design (SsD) brought variety and style to the 5,500-square-foot project by animating the spaces in between and around the tiny apartments.

As cities wrestle with an affordable-housing crisis, some people see micro units as one option to explore. Chances are, if you live in a city, you live alone. More than half of all adults living in New York, Austin, Denver, and Seattle live by themselves; in Washington, D.C., 71 percent of adults are single.

A new condominium building in an old waterfront section of San Francisco sparks up the neighborhood with its serrated facade. 'When I was looking for an apartment, I saw the facade and immediately called my real-estate agent,' says Mark Chila, a resident of 616 20th Street in San Francisco. 'I was lucky: the condominiums were almost sold out.'

A low-income housing project brings together seniors and families in a residential development designed to respect its neighbors and accommodate the sub-tropical climate.