A student in his micro-flat

If you ever move into Central Park Towers in the UK’s Plymouth, don’t bring the cat — you wouldn’t have room to swing it. The same applies to Asha House in Loughborough and, from next year, the so-called “Nido Cubes” being built at London’s King’s Cross.

These are all micro-flats, a new trend in apartments ranging from 165 square feet (the size of a small living room) to 250 sq ft (a medium-sized living room). They have been around for years on architects’ drawing boards but now they are being built by developers working with universities seeking more student accommodation.

In the world of the micro-flat, everything is functional and Lilliputian. A typical 250-sq-ft Central Park Towers unit, for instance, has a sofa that pulls out to form a bed; the wardrobe relies on students having only a few T-shirts and jeans; the kitchen table is the size of a tray with chairs tucked beneath; and the bathroom doesn’t have a bath — just a shower and lavatory. The cost is small but not tiny — £67,590 (Rs 59,44,540.50).

Nido’s units will be smaller still, many just 60 per cent of the size of Central Park’s flats. They are thought to be the smallest in the UK — so far — and will see 950 students densely packed into 846 units in converted NatWest Bank offices in north London. In each 165-sq-ft “cube”, there will be a bathroom, kitchenette and what Blackstone, the development company, calls a “sleeping and study area”.

The Nido units will remain owned by the developer and rented to students but in the case of most other micro-flats, students rent from private investors. Where these units are owned by a range of landlords, the college usually manages the lettings centrally.

So what are these places like to live in?

“My flat doesn’t seem small because it’s well designed and space-efficient,” says Samantha van Beurden, a 19-year-old student from the Netherlands, who is just starting her second year living in Plymouth’s Central Park Towers. “I can do my own thing in the room, then go to a common area to socialise.”

Jason Hill, 19, a geography student from Solihull, was offered a place in a coveted hall of residence when he started at Plymouth University in 2005 but turned it down for Central Park Towers.

“Having membership of the gym at the top of the block, having Sky TV and a washer-drier in my room, my own kitchen and bathroom – these are the obvious advantages,” he says. “I miss out on the experience of sharing, but otherwise why would I want to be anywhere else?”

The students fork out tip-top prices for teeny-weeny properties, but don’t seem to mind. “I pay £80 per week, which is £20 more than a room in a shared house,” Samantha says. “But my home is clean with modern facilities — converted student houses are old and dirty and have terrible furniture.”

A further advantage of micro-flats is that they provide the equipment and standards demanded by 21st-century students. Forget the Men Behaving Badly lifestyle epitomised by stacks of washing-up. Some flats have built-in dishwashers, microwaves and full-size ovens.