Tag Archives: tiny houses

Advantage of a tiny house: you can drive it around and unload it when needed

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The tiny house has this advantage over traditional homes: you can put it on a truck and move it when needed.

Sitting on an unsaleable trailer, Kirsten Shaw and her husband decided to do something radical: following a growing trend in the U.S., they eschewed the Calgary-standard McMansion and instead started to build a portable tiny house. Mrs. Shaw, who works in a Calgary health food store, and her husband, a contractor, are constructing their new home paycheque by paycheque. When it’s complete sometime next year, the fort-like dwelling will take up about 200 square feet. Along with a converted van, that’s where the family of three (which swells to six when her husband’s children from a previous marriage join in) plan to live and travel. The Post’s Jen Gerson spoke with Mrs. Shaw in this edited transcript…

It seems like this tiny houses have become more popular, do you think that has anything to do with what you just described, that people aren’t really getting ahead?

It could be for us it’s that I guess I really have taken a good long look at the fact that you’re very much in a relationship with the government that you’re very vulnerable…If there was an oil crisis and the food stopped getting trained in and trucked in here well we can’t really grow things here in Calgary.

It’s more like giving us the security in that we have the power to do what we need to do to survive as a family and always make sure we’re provided for. If that means picking up and driving somewhere where food grows in the southern states or even out on the islands we can do that and not have to worry.

Here is the twist to this downsizing story: the family is worried that they will need to be more mobile in order to respond to changing economic conditions. Owning a home ties you down too much; not only does it require a much larger financial commitment, it takes more time to move since this involves selling the home, finding another place to live, and doing something with all the stuff one can accumulate in an average new home of over 2,000 square feet. This would seem to match up with some commentary that part of the problems with the recent recession is that possible employees can’t easily go to where the jobs are because they are tied down by underwater homes.

Perhaps we could envision a future where more workers have to be mobile, both to cut expenses but also in order to find temporary work…not exactly the typical image of the American (or Canadian) Dream.

Mayor Bloomberg, NYC want developers to build “micro-units”

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Tiny houses may just be catching on in urban areas: Mayor Bloomberg and NYC are pushing developers to build 300 square foot units.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Monday invited developers to propose ways to turn a Manhattan lot into an apartment building filled mostly with what officials are calling “micro-units” – dwellings complete with a bathroom, built-in kitchenette and enough space for a careful planner to use a fold-out bed as both sleeping space and living room.

If the pilot program is successful, officials could ultimately overturn a requirement established in 1987 that new apartments here be at least 400 square feet.

City planners envision a future in which the young, the cash-poor and empty nesters flock to such small dwellings – each not much bigger than a dorm room. In a pricey real estate market where about one-third of renter households spend more than half their income on rent, it could make housing more affordable…

Modern-day building codes and improved refrigeration and public health have changed what it means to live small, Bloomberg said. A typical mid-19th century tenement apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side might have been larger than one of the micro-units, measuring 325 square feet, but would have typically housed families with multiple children. The micro-units are to be leased only to one- or two-person households.

This could indeed be an interesting adaptation to demographic change. But I wonder: is New York City offering an incentive for developers to do this? Programs for affordable housing often come with some sort of incentive, something like if a developer builds a certain number of cheaper units, they are allowed to build a certain number of market-rate units. The article makes it sounds like there is significant demand for these smaller units in NYC which might negate the need for incentives. However, I haven’t yet seen any indication that developers believe building micro-units is worth it compared to what else they can build.

“The [NYC 420 square foot] Studio Apartment with 6 Hidden Rooms”

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I’ve highlighted innovative small spaces before (see arecent post on a two-level 130 square foot apartment in Paris) and here is another one: a 420 square foot New York City studio has six hidden rooms.

In the Soho neighborhood of New York City, where living space is both expensive and limited, Graham Hill and his team at LifeEdited have turned a 420 square foot studio apartment into the Petri dish of future urban living.

The single room studio apartment has been gutted and remodeled with convertible walls and furniture that transform into six different living spaces. “I wanted it all,” says Mr. Hill in his TED talk from a year ago, “home office, sit down dinner for 10, room for guests, and all my kite surfing gear.”

You have to watch the video to get the full idea.

A few quick thoughts about this:

1. What makes this space work are the movable walls. I wonder if this could catch on in larger homes.

2. There is no mention here of how much a place like this would cost. The suggestion is that they could be made cheaper if mass produced but might the price still be out of the range of many people? Is this primarily for young professionals? If these are seen as fashionable or trendy, it could drive the price up.

3. Graham Hill and Bill Weir suggest this may be the wave of the future in urban living. I’m not so sure. How many Americans actually want this as opposed to would take this only because something larger/cheaper isn’t available?

4. There is mention toward the end of the video that “stripping away the excess found in the McMansion has countless benefits.” Hill gets his facts right: we now have bigger new homes (about 2,500 square feet today compared to about 1,000 in the 1950s) and smaller families. Yet, it is a lot to ask to have people downshift from a single-family home (and the average new size of 2,500 square feet is probably not a McMansion) to a New York City studio apartment.

A Prius can only power a McMansion for a few hours but a Japanese home for four days

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A future study will look at how a Toyota Prius can power a home:

Pull electricity from a Toyota Prius Plug-in to a McMansion, and the lights may go out within a matter of a couple of hours. For a typical Japanese house, though, you’d be taken care of for the better part of a week.

Toyota said it will start testing a vehicle-to-home (V2H) system with the Prius Plug-in in Japan by the end of the year. The trial will involve a two-way power-supply system in which the car could supply the home with power in the event of a black-out. About 10 Toyota City homes will be involved in the testing.

The Japanese automaker says a fully-charged, filled-up Prius Plug-In can supply a typical Japanese house with 10 kilowatts, or enough for about four days. In addition to supplying power to blacked-out homes, the car will eventually be able to power up emergency shelters and other buildings.

Last August, Nissan started testing a similar system with its battery-electric Leaf, which the automaker said could provide about two days electricity for an average Japanese home when the car is fully charged. Nissan said it intended to commercialize the system, but didn’t provide further details.

So, if you are really worried about your power supply, one option is to buy a Toyota Prius and purchase a Japanese-sized home. Figures from 2003 suggest the average Japanese home has about 1,021 square feet. Or, you could go further: pair a Prius with a Japanese or American “tiny house” and have power for even longer!

In the long run, is having the Prius help power your home (or other objects) a greener outcome?

Wired: “Living Large in a 130-Square-Foot Apartment”

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Tiny houses are getting their share of attention these days and I find it hard to resist seeing how people design and live in small spaces (in a country where new homes are roughly 2,500 square feet). Check out this gallery and description of  “Living Large in a 130-Square Foot Apartment“:

The apartment was once the master bedroom of a larger apartment, which should give you a pretty good idea of its postage-stamp size. The idea was to separate the room to create a small studio that could create rental income…

The smartest design trick was to create a split-level floorplan. Baillargeon and Nabucet divided the studio into two levels by building a platform for the kitchen and bathroom, which creates the illusion of separate spaces without using any walls or dividers. The only true partition between living and dining is a long, bar-height shelf that doubles as a functional table for eating. A smart take on the traditionally depressing breakfast nook…

The bed is always a challenge in a studio space. You don’t really want a mess of comforters and pillows in the middle of your living space, and no grown person should really be sleeping on a futon. Baillargeon and Nabucet brilliantly bucked the Murphy bed concept with a bed on wheels that slides elegantly beneath the kitchen platform. The bed can also do double duty, sliding halfway underneath to create the illusion of a couch, thanks to the addition of decorative pillows.

A coffee table, stored along the wall while the bed is in use, slides elegantly out in front of the couch. The convertible bed/couch is Ménard’s favorite feature, as it allows for maximum square-footage for socializing. “It’s a multi-faceted space which can be adapted for watching a movie, working, inviting friends over or cooking.”

Looking at the pictures, the split-level plan seems to make a big difference. So when can Ikea sell all of this as a package? I wonder how much an architect or designer can make for putting together a space like this…

Another thought: can tiny dwellings only really work in communities that emphasize or at least allow socializing in public/private spaces? How much time does the average tiny house dweller spend in their unit compared to people with bigger homes? I could see this as a marketing pitch for tiny houses: you’ll be forced to be more social in public!

Trading in a McMansion for a McCottage doesn’t stop criticism

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One firm argues that the trend toward tiny houses may simply be a shift from McMansions to “McCottages”:

Not to rain on the parade, but let’s have a reality check. Small, very small and microhomes – ranging from 800 or 900 square feet down to 100 or 150 – may be a new trend, a fad, or just the subject of some clever marketing by their builders.

“The McCottage is replacing the McMansion as a home status symbol as more homeowners look to save money and reduce their impact on the environment,” says HSH Associates, the mortgage data firm. While national figures are hard to come by, or don’t exist, HSH quotes builders who suggest microhomes will be the next big thing…

If you’re building a weekend or vacation place, smaller is cheaper and better for the environment. But the HSH story says many people are building microhomes alongside their main homes as an alternative to a more traditional addition…

Finally, consider that the microhome fascination may be a passing fad that will leave owners with white elephants when fashions change in a few years. While many people scoff at the McMansion today, pressure to display wealth and keep up with the Joneses often returns when economic conditions improve. Just think about how people go back to SUVs and trucks when gas prices fall.

This argument suggests there are several ways tiny houses and McMansions are alike. With the prefix “Mc” before mansions and cottages, there is a suggestion that these are simply mass produced. Whether the home is big or small, mass produced is bad. There could be two issues behind this. First, there could be issues with the architectural quality and integrity. In other words, you could order one of these tiny houses out of a catalog, order it, and tow it into your backyard as could thousands of other people. Your tiny house is not unique.

There is a second issue with the mass produced nature of these houses: there is the possibility they are simply a fad and not a lasting trend. A savvy consumer doesn’t want to fall prey to these trends and simply follow along because it is a “status symbol,” even if it is a greener or cooler status symbol than a McMansion. This suggests that a buyer/owner needs to have more legitimate reasons for acquiring a tiny house.

Overall, it appears people unhappy with McMansions and who could get behind tiny houses may just have to fight similar negative generalizations.

 

Trailer for documentary about tiny houses: “Tiny – A Story About Living Small”

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A supporter of tiny houses has put together a new documentary titled “Tiny – A Story About Living Small.” Read a little bit about the personal experiences behind the film and see the trailer here.

Not Christopher Smith, 30, and his girlfriend Merete Mueller who are building the tiny home of their dreams. 

The couple’s house, set in the mountains of Fairplay, Colorado, is ‘about 125 square feet’ and ’19 feet long wall to wall’…

Apparently a ‘good home’ simply consists of a sitting area, kitchen, bathroom and a queen-size bedroom (set in a vaulted ceiling that makes space for a loft). 

‘The interior looks a lot bigger than the exterior,’ Miss Mueller told ABC News.

Not only is their new home economical in space, it’s also energy efficient and runs on solar power and has a composting toilet…

Mr Smith was so inspired by the miniature buildings he visited that he decided to make a documentary about the project called Tiny – A Story About Living Small.

Visit the official website for the documentary here. I’ll have to get my hands on this when it is released.

McMansions as debtor’s prisons

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While arguing for tiny houses, Jay Shafer argues that McMansions are comparable to debtor’s prisons:

“I see myself as freeing people,” Shafer says. “McMansions are like debtors’ prisons for the 21st century. Why pay for all that space that you’re not using, for the heating and maintenance, if it doesn’t make your life better?”

Indeed, researchers have discovered that many people bought big houses without any idea of what they’ll actually do with the room, and ended up living in just a small portion of their costly domiciles. In the quest to fill up the spaces with big-screen TVs and sectional sofas and bric-a-brac, many ended up succumbing to what one market researcher has termed a “claustrophobia of abundance.”

Shafer has a better idea. Sell the Xanadu, get rid of a lot of your stuff, and invest $50,000 or so from the proceeds in an elfin dwelling mounted on wheels, so that it technically qualifies as a vehicle and thus gets around the minimum-size constraints of zoning laws. Put it on a tiny parcel, ideally in some picturesque location on the outskirts of suburban sprawl, perhaps in a location where you can appreciate a little bit of nature.

Two things are interesting here:

1. I’m not sure I understand the comparison to debtor’s prisons. I understand that buying a McMansion can require taking on a lot of debt but debtor’s prisons were quite unpleasant places (some mention here). Are McMansions really that bad?

2. So it is okay if tiny houses contribute to suburban sprawl? I’m intrigued by the last line: you can park your tiny house on the edge of the metropolitan region, and live in nature while still being close to a lot of amenities. The problem, then, is not suburbia per se but rather the oversized houses. Would critics of sprawl be satisfied with this trade-off?

And I also have two questions:

1. Do tiny houses work for families?

2. Has anyone come up with a way to connect tiny houses so you can have a bigger house but that is still movable?

How do we know if there is a small house trend?

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One summary of 2011 makes a provocative claim: “How Small Spaces Trumped McMansions.” The problem: the review has little to no evidence to back up this claim.

Here are ways we could know that small spaces really trumped McMansions:

1. Look at the average size of the new American home. This has indeed dropped. But this doesn’t necessarily mean Americans are buying small or tiny houses, just smaller new homes. And McMansions have been on the decline for the last few years, not just in 2011.

2. Look at how many small or tiny homes are sold. I haven’t seen any statistics on this nor do I know if anyone is actually compiling this data.

3. Look at whether there is an increase in media coverage of small or tiny homes. I wouldn’t be surprised if this did happen in 2011 but this means a change in media coverage, not necessarily a shift in people’s actions.

4. Look at what builders say they will be building in the near future. Builders seem to think the trend is downward but again, I don’t think most of them are really building small houses, just smaller.

5. Look at whether small or tiny homes are drawing the attention of our best thinkers about homes (architects, designers, others) and government officials. Perhaps this has happened but some data would be nice.

Overall, we need some more data about this possible trend. I think there is evidence that McMansions have been on the decline but we need more data about small houses.

The still somewhat large and pricey “Not So Big” house in the Chicago suburbs

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Architect Sarah Susanka has become well-known for her idea of the “Not So Big House.” One of her homes has just been built in the Chicago suburb of Libertyville:

The showcase home, located at the 26-site SchoolStreet Homes development under construction a block east of downtown, is open for weekend tours until May 20. It and the rest of the homes, which are not open to the public, are Susanka’s and developer John McLinden’s take on new urbanism: smaller homes close together, with front porches, a sense of community and walking distance to shops, restaurants and services.

Don’t be fooled, though. When Susanka says not so big, she doesn’t mean small or cheap. The Libertyville home, at 2,450 square feet, won’t be priced until next year when it is put on the market, but other non-Susanka single-family homes on the block start at more than $500,000.

“A lot of builders are building smaller but cheaper,” Susanka said, standing in the furnished home just before it was opened to the public this month. “I believe people are ready for something that is smaller but better.”…

McLinden read Susanka’s books when they were first published and originally invited her to work on one of the houses as a marketing strategy to draw attention to the project. Now they are planning additional collaborations and have been contacted by three other communities about doing similar projects.

In an era where the McMansion is said to be dead and “tiny houses” are growing in popularity, Susanka’s houses stand out for two reasons I’ve noticed before and are also cited in this article. First, these houses are not small. On the spectrum between mansions and tiny houses, Susanka’s houses are very near the national average for the square footage of a new home. As she has said before, the article cites Susanka as saying the homes aren’t small but the space is used well and not wasted. Second, such homes may not be cheap. Perhaps the prices in this story are primarily being driven by being in Libertyville (with a median household income just over $100,000) but then again, Not So Big houses are likely to be built in communities like these.

The emphasis in Susanka’s homes are on two things beyond size and price: quality and fit with the homeowners. Neither of these things are cheap as the homes are not meant to be mass-produced (then they might fall perilously close to tract home or McMansion territory) and the features are customized to the activities and tastes of those who live there. Apparently, there is a market for this.

This could lead to an interesting question: are these primarily homes for educated, wealthy people who appreciate the design features and can afford the prices? Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising as architects do need to make money and wealthier clients (and higher-end builders) could certainly help. Could Susanka help market her homes even further if she could create and market a smaller version that could be affordable (or in terms more palatable for many suburban communities, “workforce”) housing? Would she want to produce a lot of these homes or would these reduce the appeal of status of these architect-designed homes?