The Globe and Mail is Catching On

Jeff pointed out this article in the Globe, discussing the Tiny Home trend. From the article:

"Like a growing number of people, the couple have decided that a modest house is better for their quality of life than a mansion in the burbs. On the extreme end of the trend are people who live in minuscule houses, sometimes not much bigger than a typical suburban bathroom. Motivated by environmental concerns, convenience and tight finances, they are saying goodbye to 1990s-style monster homes."

It's really good to see the press on this trend continuing. I'm reassured that this isn't just a fad, it's a trend in how people will live their lives in the coming decade.

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?

Small, prefab homes out of Surrey!

We're seeing it happen more and more in Vancouver- Smallworks, Inhabit, and now this!

This is a globe and mail article reporting on an architect named Tony Robbins, who started showing his tiny prefab homes in BC recently. From the article:

"We've had over a 130 inquiries already," says the architect, who recently revealed his design for a 500-square-foot unit in a palette of steel, glass and wood to an enthusiastic audience at a B.C. home show in Vancouver.

It's a very minimalist and open design, which I think is the key to making tiny seem huge. It's also really exciting to see this movement coming to Canada. With all the  space, we have a lot of potential for urban sprawl- so I like the timing of it. 

Right now, I'm getting all amped up for Jay Shafer's workshop- it's a 2day design-your-own kinda setup. Hooray! In fact, that really needs it's own post at this point. 

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?

Jay Shafer and Living Density

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbRvsWuWNUM

I'm getting all pumped up for Jay Shafer's visit to Vancouver, on May 9 and the workshop he'll be holding at Emily Carr University. Designing Tiny Homes is something that's pretty hard to find proper instruction in, in a University context (unless of course you were lucky enough to be in that 3rd year class with Christian!)

Also that weekend is the Living Density forum at Grace Gallery, as part of the Exhibition our project will be participating in. Our group is very excited about all the pros who will be giving talks that day.

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.

The Economist profiles the US tiny home movement

The tiny house movement continues to gain more and more attention from mainstream popular media!

It's a very short article, but the Economist has such large distribution that it's nice to see.
It specifically quotes the founder of Tiny Texas Houses and Tumbleweed Tiny House company.

The comments on this article include some intelligent discussion on land and current outrageous housing sizes. But they also show people who can't seem to believe anyone could live in a tiny house comfortably for long periods of time, which just goes to show that there is a long way to go before people will change their mindset.

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.

Communities

So I've been trying to find some existing online communities which would be interested in the project, or already have some resource which we may be interested in. One that I've come across is the Tiny House Forum, where there is lots of chatter about the specifics of building tiny homes from people who have done it or are doing it.

Tiny House Village Network

The tiny house village network has a brilliant idea. They're working to network tiny (mostly mobile) home owners with people willing to host them on their properties. This was my original plan for land to put the house on, so I'm so excited that someone is already on it.

Check them out here.

A tiny home design: Ontario

Aesthetic: follow up

I'm really digging the simplicity of these.

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.