1) You could maintain and swap out multiple layout objects, but there's a simpler way. Just add the following to your UICollectionViewController subclass and adjust the sizes as required:
Calling -performBatchUpdates:completion: will invalidate the layout and resize the cells with animation (you can just pass nil to both block params if you've no extra adjustments to perform).
2) Instead of hardcoding the item sizes in -collectionView:layout:sizeForItemAtIndexPath, just divide the height or width of the collectionView's bounds by the number of cells you want to fit on screen. Use the height if your collectionView scrolls horizontally or the width if it scrolls vertically.
If you don't want additional animations brought by performBatchUpdates:completion:, just use invalidateLayout to force the collectionViewLayout to reload.