Tiny house movement

According to an article in the New York Times on 10 September, the ‘bigger is better’ chapter in US history may be coming to an end. One example is the small house movement, which has been around for a decade or so, and is gathering pace in the current gloomy economic climate. Adherents of the small house movement believe that by living in spaces that are smaller than 1,000 square feet – and in some cases, smaller than 100 – it is possible to minimise energy consumption and carbon emissions, as well as maintenance and mortgage costs.

In the US, there is a Small House Society based in Iowa City and several specialist small house suppliers, including the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company in Sebastopol, California and Tiny Texas Houses in Luling, Texas. There is even a blog dedicated to the topic, smallhousestyle.com.

And interest in the movement is spreading beyond the US. London-based designer Nina Tolstrup built the 388 square foot Tiny Beach Chalet, which has been featured on design blogs. The Museum of Modern Art in New York currently has an exhibit called Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling, which includes the Micro Compact Home, a 73-square-foot cube by British architect Richard Horden.

Meanwhile, IKEA has brought BoKlok to the UK. Roughly translated, BoKlok means ‘live smart’. Prefabricated BoKlok homes provides “space-saving, functional and high quality properties at a price that enables as many people as possible to afford a comfortable home”. And as reported previously in this blog, Argos is the first company in the UK to sell attractive and affordable log cabin kits. The basic five room cabin can be built by two people in two days and sells for just under £11,000.