SEATTLE — The smell of garlic rises from the frying pan as two women in flannel pajama pants and beige slippers sauté shrimp and noodles on a range top in a shared kitchen just inside the main entrance to the apartment building.

As they cook, a steady stream of sneaker-clad tenants, some walking dogs, stride down the hall toward the elevator. They barely glance into the kitchen despite the pungent aromas and the conversation taking place around the square, steel table that dominates the room.

The women make fast work of the cooking, then quickly clean up and head back to their apartment to study over steaming bowls of noodles.

“They’re the only ones I’ve seen use the kitchen, but then, I really don’t use the physical space that much,” says Jesse Yem, 21, a psychology major at Seattle University who has lived here for five months. “I come here to sleep, and that’s about it.”

Yem, whose thick black hair hangs over sleepy eyes, occupies one of the 92 micro-units at Alder Flats, a clean, modern, seven-story complex that occupies a city block a few blocks from Seattle U, where old multifamily housing once sat.

It’s Yem’s first venture in solo living, and he’s still adjusting to the silence and the cost of living: $1,000 for 200 square feet, utilities and Wi-Fi included.

Tiny apartments are hardly a new thing, but they’ve attracted attention and controversy here because developers have been building them at a quick clip — sometimes over the objections of neighbors — and filling them quickly with people seeking rents that match their circumstances and mobile lifestyles.

A loophole

The first of the breed, an aPodment development, opened in 2009 with 46 dormlike sleeping rooms with common kitchens.

It was the brainchild of the late developer Jim Potter, who found a loophole in Seattle’s building regulations.

At the time, the city allowed up to eight unrelated people to live in one “dwelling” with a shared kitchen. The code didn’t say the rooms had to be tied together as a single unit, so Potter built a cross between an apartment building and a boardinghouse, where someone could rent a sleeping room as small as 100 square feet with a private bath and share a kitchen with up to seven others renters.

A micro-housing building spree ensued that gave Seattle more such units than any city in the country. At last count, 782 micro-housing units were cleared for occupancy in Seattle, with another 1,598 units in the pipeline. No other American city comes close.

Architect Jay Janette was at ground zero for Potter’s first micro-housing project, and has designed 21 micro-housing projects in the Seattle area.

“I didn’t realize it was going to take off like a rocket,” he says of his first project with Potter.

We’re seated at a conference table in the modest storefront office of Janette Architecture Planning Design, a residential architectural firm. It’s an open space that feels larger than its footprint thanks to south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows, and a floor plan that places employees in close quarters, their desks pushed together in groups.

Janette lives in a two-bedroom bungalow with his wife and their three children, so personally and professionally, he’s steeped in the challenges of living small.

Micro-living requires a ruthless eye for economy.

“What the micros have taught me is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t have as much stuff as I do and don’t need that stuff,” Janette says. “I mean, think about how much of your living space just goes to storage. Footprint (a micro-housing developer) has this great tagline: ‘It’s just what you need.’”

International fame

Seattle’s most famous small-scale apartment owner has moved again.

Steve Sauer, a Boeing engineer, attracted international attention when Pacific NW magazine featured his 182-square-foot apartment that includes two sleeping lofts, a full kitchen and a bath, a video-viewing station and a platform where he could sit by the window and read a book. The room, in the basement of a co-op, had been used for storage.

The article was translated into dozens of languages. He had a movie-star moment at a cafe in Istanbul, where a Russian man overhead him talking about his apartment and said, “I know your place. I love your place!”

Sauer says the apartment, which he started building 12 years ago, is less a lifestyle statement than an experiment that allows him to create something cool and indulge his contrarian ways.

“Conventional housing creeps me out,” he says.

Still, the apartment “is kind of a giant lie. I do have this space, and I have the (storage) space next door, which is piled with junk and tools I need.” He also has a nearby condo filled with the detritus that comes with being a bicycling hobbyist and tinkerer.

“That’s a huge struggle in my life, because I really love stuff,” says Sauer, whose job moved to California in December. “I feel that burden all the time, and that’s why I’m relishing this move.”

Erin Shingler is rosy-cheeked as she enters the Alder Flats building, a blue yoga mat cradled in the crook of her arm.

Having just come off three 12-hour overnight shifts at the hospital where she works, she’s catching up on her workouts before kicking back for much-needed rest. Later, the 29-year-old registered nurse might order a meal through BiteSquad.com, the restaurant delivery service, or head to the Thai restaurant down the street.

For now, she’ll take the polished steel elevator up to the apartment she’s been renting since she moved in June. She makes a mug of tea and surveys her domain.

“I got a job here and needed a place rather quickly,” she says. “This was available and affordable.”

With 10-foot ceilings, a nook for her queen-sized bed and a north-facing window that provides a view, the space feels larger than its 200 square feet. It’s homey, filled with framed vintage photos. The black-and-white decorating scheme complements the white laminate cabinets, the shiny subway tile in the compact kitchen and the distressed gray laminate flooring.

For now, that’s all she needs.

“I certainly don’t want to live this way forever,” she says, “but at this point in my life, it makes it easier. I need to stay close to work, I need free (street) parking, I need something affordable and just the convenience of being in the city. A space like this allows me to be in the city without breaking the bank.”

Besides, she says, “I know I’m going to be moving soon, so it’s going to be that much easier to move again.”