Recycled Home Builder: Dan Philips

Here's a great youtube video.

Project updates!

How time flies!

We're at the halfway point in the Living Density Exhibition and forum, and its only getting better!

What else have we been up to?
-we entered the formshift competition
-Rachel attended the Tumbleweed Tiny House workshop with Jay Shafer, and learned an enormous amount about the details of building and designing a tiny home
-Scott attended the Living Density Forum, and learned all about.. well- I'd like to hear it from him:)
-we held a potluck: sparsely attended, but Jay and Mik from the workshop came by. Lots of lively conversation was to be had.
-we're developing an entry for the prefab 2020 competition
-we're continually refining our design, based on input from different people and different experiences

We're at the gallery Monday Wednesday and Friday from 11 am to 2 pm and 4 pm to 6 pm. There will also be an end-party, which is sure to be a blast. That's on the 22nd. We'll see you there!

Parallels

Over the course of May, while also working at the gallery exhibition, I'll be working on a personal project funded by the Millennium Foundation's Grants. The goal is to create links between organizations involved Urban Agriculture in Vancouver, to give the community as a whole greater strength. I've been thinking about what other groups would benefit from becoming more involved in Urban Agriculture- groups like the Tiny Home movement and what I'm going to call the human-powered movement (people who get around on their own energy.) What I'm wondering is- what are good ways to get people cross-pollinating?

Patrick's summary of us

"When we think of ‘home’ we naturally gravitate towards the architectural interior and furniture. Yet, we know it is not just the interior, furniture or even the building that produce a sense of home. Home, as Emily Carr University’s TinyHome Group suggests, is ‘a series of systems rather than an object.’ By treating home in this fashion the TinyHome Group was able much better visualise the complex forces that constitutes the built environment and even that of home. ‘Home’ for them is a realm created by the positive interaction of natural and artificial forces, particularly an interaction that fosters a sustainable mode of living. This notion of home-as-a-system is partly investigated by the TinyHome Group through an installation/performance where they will interact with the audience and together explore how community and home may be produced through design. The TinyHome Group also aims to expand this dialogue onto the Internet, notably a blog. In fact, the blog, insofar as it is a site for interaction, is not unlike a contemporary variant of an agora."

--Pulled from the draft of his essay he's planning on presenting. I like how he puts things, especially as a description of the projects' goals. (It's neat that one of the best descriptions of the project was written by someone for a completely different purpose...)

Tiny House Village Network

This looks pretty interesting. Unfortunately, to join, you have to pay a "donation" of $10. I think that it's reasonable to charge a fee for the hosting of a network, but I'm also unsure as to what I will receive in return. Is it simply access to communication with other people in the network? How do I know if I will get more than what I can access on facebook?
Should I set up a network for Canadian tiny-homers?

Starting to model the house!

Terribly exciting, no? I've started to work up some of our early drawings in 3d, using google sketchup. We'll be producing lots of these images in the next little while, and learning how to make our 3d models available to anyone who wants to edit them as well.

We've also gotten our hands on Sketchup 7 Pro, so we can export to CAD and all that jazz.

Facebook Post!

Here are some of the facebook groups we follow!

the tiny home movement- rachel started this group to begin bringing together people involved in all aspects of tiny homes, from building and design, to interested individuals, to parallel interests like green roofing and community gardens.

Architecture for Humanity Vancouver- local chapter of the international organization. terribly sexy. need we say more?

Smaller houses= smaller carbon footprints- a collective of people who love tiny houses and their tiny carbon footprints.

Eco-design + Sustainable Architecture Aficionados- name says it all.

Sustainable Urban Planning Forum- A place to discuss urban planning in an environmental context.

A tiny home design: Ontario

Modern or Traditional?

Lately, I've been thinking a bit about the aesthetics of the actual house itself. (Strange that this would be one of the later things I've considered, but up until now I've been so concerned with how it will function as a system. )

Thoughts:
Do we want a very streamlined modern aesthetic?

Or should we go more in the direction of a traditional home?

What I'm thinking is that many of the homes with a streamlined modern aesthetic have some of the same design issues as a computer. They look great all shiny and new, but once you get that first scratch, they're never the same. They aren't made to age gracefully.
They are also not very cozy or comforting, qualities which I think are important in a home.

On the other hand, the traditional aesthetic doesn't translate as well to the tiny home design. It looks... crowded, and gives the impression of disorganization.

I think that we need to find some happy medium. Simplicity is vital, but the ability for the user to adapt the home and "make it their own" is absolutely imperative.

Micro Compact Home

This is an image of the micro-compact home, designed by a group of students at Technical University of Munich. It's 2.6 metres squared. A "case study village" was built, and a group of students each got their own to live in as a part of the project.

This is really amazing. There are lots of photos around of the interior, both on the site, and on the web.

More infos!

more photos from will pederson's building of a tumbleweed tiny home here.

Zack and I are sitting around right now chatting about alternative energy sources and passive solar heating. We've been discussing different ideas for heating systems that work to both heat the house and produce hot water- things like a system which works off a tiny fireplace, channels the heat and carbon through the water heater, then into an algae container to process the carbon.

I've also thought about doing a composter that takes advantage of solar heat to reach high temperatures, then passing the water through a coil inside the composter and then though the rest of the house. That way, you get hot water and heat for the house, as well as a way of processing organic waste.