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Artist Lives Small for Earth Week Exhibit

For 2 weeks, U Street storefront will be artist's tiny home

By John Schriffen

| Monday, Apr 19, 2010 | Updated 8:30 PM EST

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Artist Lives Small for Earth Week Exhibit

John Schriffen, NBCWashington

Andrew Wodzianski

For the next two weeks, artist Andrew Wodzianski will call a storefront home.

In the 1300 block of U Street NW, he’ll be eating, entertaining and sleeping in a 100-square-foot cube -- a living, breathing art exhibit called "Pop-Up Living."

“So far so good,” Wodzianski said Monday. “U Street is a remarkably diverse and dynamic scene, and it changes by the hour.”

The open space inside the cube can be transformed into a living room with a pop-up sofa, a dining room with a pull-out table, and a bedroom fitting Wodzianksi’s 6-foot-5-inch frame, even with a little privacy.

“With the idea of condensed urban living, we need to do more with less resources,” said Wodzianski.

The artist calls this project a metaphor for the future of U Street. A property developer, an architect and a non-profit group all teamed up to make this possible and hopefully make people reassess their own living spaces.

“For instance a living room for someone in a big suburban home, that’s probably used a minor percentage of the time,” said Brian Pilot, Associate Principal of Studios Architecture. “Can they live with less that’s better designed in a way that takes up less space?”

Wodzianski and his cube will be on display until May 1. Passers-by are not allowed inside, they can only look in from the street.

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Living in a Cube