How An NYC Ballet Dancer Maximizes A 345-Sq-Ft Apartment | Small Spaces | Architectural Digest

So I dance with New York City Ballet in Lincoln Center. My apartment is only a seven-minute walk, and it's lovely to have a place that is very close. When I moved here, I didn't have much stuff besides two suitcases, and this apartment had nothing in it. That was the moment I was like, I want something that is me. My name is Chengwei Chen, principal dancer with New York City Ballet. Welcome to my 345 square feet studio apartment in New York City. I moved to New York five years ago, and before that, I was dancing with Houston Ballet for 10 years. And luckily, I was able to recruit with New York City Ballet right after. And so when I find this place, I remember it was during my lunch break. I scooted down here. I was like, I want this place. Although it wasn't the newest in the building, I think I can do something with it. A few years later, I was like, okay, now I finally save enough money to renovate it. So I was like, who can I ask for help? I met Josh Green through SAB Ball Gala, School of American Ballet. I knew that he has such good taste. When I reached out to Josh, he's like, your budget couldn't do much, but let me think about it. So he includes all the furniture here, and he also helped me to design the whole places. So this is my little apartment. Welcome in. This is the entryway, and you can see the two big closets right here. And on your other side is the bathroom. For this side, I put a lot of equipment and also my art supply. While I have some time, I will use the ballet shoes and put the paint on and make art and express through a different way. I dance on it. I slide on it. I turn on it. And so you can see the color. It's reflect a lot of color from how Josh designed this place. This apartment is almost similar size as my bedroom in Houston. Everything I need, it's in this room. Kitchen, living room, dining room, bedroom. With Josh Green's design, I really see the benefits of it to have a big stuff and hiding all the small stuff inside to make my room much bigger. This is my dresser. I keep a lot of my ballet stuff. Since I will be traveling, I will have my makeup kit here. I like to do my makeup myself since I know what to do for my face, and it saves a lot of time. And then you will see the rosin. You have to get it if you go dance in a stage that is not familiar. You don't know where it's going to be slippery. This is a pair of pointe shoes. It hurts so much that I couldn't even move. The guys normally don't wear, but huge respect to all the female colleagues. This is a famous dance belt that the guys wear so that it covers your private place. Some tight shoes, wide shoes for the shows. If I sprain my ankle or anything, I will always have this ready, wrapped up and still go on stage. The show never stops. Surprisingly, you could fit almost everything right here. Vacuum stuff there, you know, electronic stuff. A lot of stuff I don't use, but I think that's just the family culture from China. I should keep everything in case I need it. Talking about minimalism, it's always an ongoing journey. It's something that I have to keep reminding myself to donate or get rid of stuff. I do love this texture of the drawer. It's the texture I would never choose before, but now it's like gave me the feeling of vacation near the beach vibe. The other big storage item, it's right here and it's also my bed. So it's lovely that nobody knows that I storage a lot of jacket hoodie here that I usually give to my friends and students. Right behind me there's a side stand. It was a built-in and it was designed by Josh and I really love that color and how it fits right next to my bed. It's like another storage room and also very functional. Able to put all my favorite books out there and reminds me in Hong Kong where my grandparents live. Their living room have two beds there, but they have a lot of stuff. So I wanted to do something different. Even though my bed is the center of the whole studio apartment, I wanted to make it much more neat and clean and embrace the big item in this small space. This is my bedroom. Also, it's my living room right here. I love this couch. Josh embraced the green and how big it is. So I could actually lay down here in a relaxing afternoon. Before I designed this place, I told Josh, I was like, please leave a space for me so I could stretch, so I could teach online. When I teach ballet class, I will put the camera right there so that they could see my whole body for the demonstration. Meanwhile, I also do some YouTube channel interview. I will put my phone, record me and my guests asking questions right here. On the top of the couch, there is my painting. So I actually made those arts right here and I use the ballet shoes to make those shapes. And I draw with my foot better than my hand. And usually I will move the things away and you can look at the carpet. It's also where I stretch and dance as well. This chair is very functional. It's either could help me to reach out to some places or also it could use as a bar for me to dance. And I will put the camera right there, move this away. So there's a distance I could dance. This furniture, it seems very light, but they're actually very heavy, which I kind of like because I'm a big guy. So I don't want it to knock over with this little space. So right here, it's an art studio, dance studio and also a recording studio. So this is my kitchen and the dining area. And also I use this for work as well. I'm always hungry, so it's good that the kitchen's right next to it. I cook a lot to survive because this space is very small, smaller than it looks. I use only one wok. As you can tell, I use it a lot. And this wok, I can, you know, boil the water, cook noodle, make soup, fry eggs, fry rice, everything in one. Funny enough, it's also a storage room that I put a lot of soya water there. This microwave, I'm not using it for storage because I use this much more often than you think. My friend got me the tiniest cooking tray because everything's tiny. I haven't used it yet. Why? Because I use my microwave much more than my stove. This is supposed to be storage. Do you remember? It's very tall up there. And how do I get up there? My dear friend, he got me this to stand up, to reach up. And of course, this I usually use when I wash my dishes. And this box is supposed to be all the snacks that I have. Right now, I only have the rice cracker. So I do have an air fryer there. I use it once. I go out almost every day. I think that's a good practice to always go out and make connections, to relink with your friends through dinners. I think Josh was the choreographer and I was the dancer inside of this apartment. In the end of the day, I am the one who is living here. I'm the one who is dancing. This place is so relaxing. It really set me up in the best way so I could recharge 100% before I dance on stage. I like small space much more than I imagined.