The Hong Kong Housing Estate Collection has been created to stir memories of tong lau - the tenements that spread across the urban landscape from the late 19th century until the 1960s. The models are cobbled together from plastic and paper and are on a scale of 1:18, measuring 290mm x 175mm x 135mm.
There are seven parts to collect, starting with the rooms themselves (top and above right), which you can furnish with bunk beds, wardrobes, a television and a washing line (complete with tiny clothes). The attention to detail is a hoot - there's an old-style telephone perched on a phone book and minuscule bottles of soy sauce. If there was a way to shrink yourself to the size of a Barbie (or Ken), you could probably live quite happily in one of these Lilliputian dwellings.
The tiny tenements cost HK$888 a set and are available from UML Galleria (6/F, Zhongcai Centre, 131 Queen's Road Central, tel: 2885 7232).
Design types like to make big statements. But even we were surprised by the hubris in this little gem from Ernesto Gismondi, founder of Italian lighting company Artemide: "When you see them, you can't help feeling moved; when you understand them, you are full of wonder seeing a future we thought unreachable and couldn't imagine this beautiful."