For 3 years, Mai Tran and Le Pham lived in a 300-square-foot basement beneath the house they’d just bought in the Bay Area. No yard. No car. Very few possessions.

By renting out the main house and living as simply as possible, the architect couple saved enough to build what they really wanted: a 630-square-foot backyard home and studio designed around light, privacy, and empty space.

Tucked behind the main house and surrounded by tall apartment buildings, their minimalist ADU feels like a hidden retreat. Instead of one solid box, they broke the home into two offset volumes connected by a glass bridge and organized around a private courtyard filled with bamboo, trees, and light. Visitors enter expecting “tiny house”… and immediately forget they’re in a dense urban neighborhood.

Designed to be both home and architecture office for their firm, 3R Studio, the compact spaces are highly efficient: a kitchen, bedroom, and bath in one volume; a flexible living/work space in the other; plus lofts, warm wood, and generous windows that blur indoors and out.

This is a story about patience, restraint, and investing in infrastructure over excess—and how living smaller first made it possible to live better later.