The Tiny House Movement

explain why its not just a trailer park for hippies

http://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/life-10k-home-friends-backyard.html

idk man; big plot of feral land and a 1 BR/Studio + sized house sounds pretty sweet to me

You have to separate the idea, which is fairly sound, from the execution, which can result in a trailer park for hippies or not, depending on who pays the piper.

Out here where I live, the trend has been toward ever-larger homes with showy features and shoddy materials. My own house is 950 sq ft on the main floor with about 800 sq. ft. of unfinished basement. That's more than sufficient space for two people (until family visits). For comparison, he many new houses that now surround us run about 4000 to 5000 sq ft. I envision a future where these have been partitioned for tenements or taken over by squatters.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31jeypeNlXL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

I'm all for tiny houses even though i'm tall and bump into things.

i build these tiny houses in the Sims a lot. There should be a Sims class in public schools to encourage innovation in sustainable building/planning

how are they shitting in these tiny houses? that is my main econcern

hole in the wall, drops to a pit out back

the only tiny-house dweller i've known decided to compost/"re-use" her poop for...? gardening? she didn't like to talk about that too much because she's a pretty huge advocate and knows how much that skeevs people out lol

also she only took showers at the gym b/c she had to use the shower as a closet. also the tiny house was just sitting in the yard of a normal house, so she could go in there if necessary.

i stayed in one of these (through same friend at a "tiny house hotel") and the bathroom was pretty nice actually. they just shared a septic system iirc, there were 5 or so houses in total

a friend of mine was a co-founder of the first tiny house community in the united states - a small (naturally) plot of land by a graveyard. one of the obstacles they had to deal with was getting buy-in from their neighbors across the street. most of them were cool with it, but apparently one lady just hated the entire concept and thought the tiny house community was an eyesore and was very vocal about it.

zoning was also a huge issue.

re: shitting, there are a number of options, but incinerating toilets seems to be the way to go

at what stage in the process do the flames turn on??!?

Afaict the "tiny house" movement was kind of built on the "not-so-big house" movement, which has been around for a while and resulted in some neat ideas about how people can live in spaces that feel really good and use/cost less. Of course this is still a boutique-level of service and philosophy b/c developers can make more from selling giant boring "luxury" houses with less craftwork in them, so interest in it is largely limited to higher end clients, ironically. But once the idea is introduced, it's a lot more practical than the 100-sq ft trailer or whatever, pretending that being one step above camping and having a composting toilet is a reasonable life choice for most people in the USA.

http://www.notsobighouse.com/

Sorry, I didn't explain that very well: interest in the not-so-big house planning with a higher level of uh intentional design and probably high-end craftsmanship of the details is still largely limited to higher-end clients, because unless someone starts out with that plan and insists on it and has some money or personal time and skills to sink into nice details, it's easier for developers to make their $$$ from selling big, boring wastes of space with granite counters and no room that feels welcoming enough to sit in.

So while it would probably deliver greater proportional benefit to lower income homeowners in terms of meeting their family/emotional needs AND conserving money and energy costs and stuff, it's still mostly pursued by niche clients.

"at what stage in the process do the flames turn on??!?"

the fire actually is fired up the ass - eliminating teh wastefull act of defecation altogether

I sense an episode idea for Trailer PArk Boys in all this

Why do people make inhuman dogmatic decisions so often when building housing? Small is great, and I was very happy when I lived in a studio apartment, but when you build a house with less than 100 sq. ft, and you got no place to shit and no place to shower, you're disrespecting the body and mind of the human animal who is going to live there, even if it's yourself.

the thing i don't get is - if ppl are truly committed to the environmental benefits of this kind of thing wouldn't they be living in modular micro-units of a similar size but at much higher densities? where they could share infrastructure, etc. i feel like tiny houses are very fun and obv farrr less of an energy problem than most single family houses but the appeal seems to be mainly "your house is small so you can have a big FARM! or FRIENDS in other tiny houses on your lot!"

i know there are a million architecture concepts out there for modern, tiny modular houses that can stack together or w/e, that seems like it would be way more enticing, have a better carbon footprint, not just be for hippies, etc.

Seems ideal for http://www.boklok.com/about-the-BoKlok-concept/

It also mirrors a number of shipping container communities around Europe.

Ha ha like Americans are going to live cheek by jowl with their neighbors, get real. Shared housing is for yuppies with no kids and the probably non-white poor people in "inner cities."

yeah i mean it seems more enticing to ME. i don't have any trouble imagining why most americans wouldn't want to live in dense modular units but that's what a legit hippie would do imo

isnt the best thing to re-sue existing structures anyway? tiny house/fort -its like a kids playhouse - grow up people! shit in toilets!

Nah, legit hippies would be all about setting up their tiny house out in the middle of nowhere so they can "get back in touch with nature".

I knew guy who had a trailer in the middle of no where in northern maine - it had no electricity or plumbing either

it was probably pretty sucky in winter

of course there was the maine hermit who lived in a tent for years

Can't even imagine what it would be like to live that way. I wish I was a yoga, tiny house, minimalist type person but I am into stuff, privacy, baths and showers. Pinterest makes the tiny houses look awesome but ugh, I need space for things and space to d stuff with my things. I want a house and I want a neighborhood but I also want 2 mini goats, 4 chickens and a garden but not be out in the country. One day the compromise will present itself.

i would ask if these people read but i guess even thoreau had a library (and went to the library, all the way to cambridge sometimes)

i'd buy one of these tomorrow (unfortunately the land to put it on would probably cost multiple times the price of the actual thing)

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3026691/tiny-prefab-50000-homes-could-make-outrageously-expensive-cities-affordable

I'd liek a tiny hosue inside a mansion

Would take any of these tbh: http://www.weehouse.com/

there are some stunners on that site but the site itself is p hideous.

Wee house, hehehehehe

i'm too big to live in a tiny house

http://www.treehugger.com/tiny-houses/when-it-comes-tiny-houses-it-takes-village.html

I have a dishwasher and washer/dryer for the first time in forever, I can't imagine going back.

Yeah, I don't think I could do a <500 sqft space, but I could totally get by with a house that's 750 or 800 sqft. Need that w/d and dishwasher for sure.

the thing i don't get is - if ppl are truly committed to the environmental benefits of this kind of thing wouldn't they be living in modular micro-units of a similar size but at much higher densities?

Yeah, it almost seems like a bigger "fuck off" gesture than actually building a large house in the same space.

Good point

dude who wrote this is a pal! had no idea he wrote articles at all

there are pals in tiny houses!

what if you have some big freakin g dog - wtf do you do - you cry yoru ass off! no !

i think my ideal personal living space could be 500 sqft but not much smaller. at least half of that would be the kitchen

I have lived and could live again in a 500 sq ft space (I liked the requirement of everything being just so and the aesthetics of a tidy small space) but I definitely need a shower and a toilet.

And I have zero interest in living in the middle of nowhere.

Basically tiny houses only appeal to me if they are stacked up on top of each other in the same building aka apartments.

Colchester's 'tiniest' house is put up for sale

I slept in a loft for two years in college and I am never climbing a ladder into my bed again. For one thing, I would die.