small homes I'd like to visit (or own, that would be very pleasant too)

I give credit to Kozan's posts for making me think about small spaces/homes - this has fast become my favourite websurfing topic.

I love this conversion project in Bordeaux - an amazing living space from an old garage - I am writing down ideas in my "someday" book.

L.

TREE HOUSES!!! There are many wonderful photos on the web of tree houses - and also some great photo books.

Lise I will try and get some photos of small cottages that my friends live in very close by me,I will show you an old one that I love to see this is part of an old iron age settlement

http://www.megalithics.com/england/carneuny/carprs11.htm

This is close to where Bill Picard lived. My actual favorite is the merry maidens which is not a house

http://www.stone-circles.org.uk/stone/merrymaidens.htm

I will try and photograph some of my neighbours houses they are very small

Now, I am in heaven--thank you Lise!

My two favorite topics: liberated spiritual practice--and small houses, as a means of liberated dwelling--on the same website!!!

Lise, the project in Bordeaux is one of the better small house designs I have seen recently. Thank you for the link! The architect uses two of my favorite design strategies:

1. A tight integration of storage, bathroom, furniture, and loft spaces, inside a simple volume, that optimizes space use efficiency while eliminating visual clutter. Beautifully done in this project.

2. The integration of indoor-outdoor space through the use of courtyards. Again, very well done here.

The only thing that I would add to this project, would be a second sliding door outside the first, consisting of a series of spaced horizontal slats, or adjustable louvers, made from the same species of wood, and the same stain, as the current doors and facade. The new door would provide a combination of view and visual privacy; as well as security at night, allowing both the solid wood door and the sliding glass doors to be left open for enhanced cross ventilation in really hot weather. (The open courtyard roof and kitchen window are probably sufficient most of the time.)


Josh, I also love tree houses; and, as you say, there are many good sites and books available now.


Michael, I could not connect with the first site/ link for some reason. Great to see the Merry Maidens stone circle. I look forward to seeing photographs of your neighbor's small houses!


I am almost ready to begin construction of my next tiny house, with just under 120 square feet of enclosed interior space (although, given the time of year, I may end up having to put off construction until Spring).

The house will be octagonal in shape, and include kitchen, bathroom, closet, and office/design studio storage, each within a 64 cubic foot modular box with doors (2ft x 4ft x 8ft high). The house will have window-doors opening to the four directions; and it will have a central, 3 ft diameter round table that lifts out of the floor, with leg space beneath (like a Japanese Kotatsu). At night, two double upper bunkbeds can fold down from opposite storage modules to provide sleeping space for two to four people, with space for another two to four below. Curtains provide visual privacy for the four bed-rooms--each with access to bathroom, kitchen, and entry doors.

So, it is, in essence, an open meditation pavillion, with views in four directions, that can morph into a four bedroom house. The same basic pattern works for any larger size house as well, except that for larger sizes, the pattern provides for four quadrants (bath/ kitchen and up to three bedrooms) and a center octagonal living-dining space with views in the four directions. This option becomes possible at 336 square feet. The overall configuration of space, circulation patterns, and windows, makes it possible to subdivide each of the three bedrooms into two single-bed bedrooms, for a total of 6. At around 400 square feet, all 6 bedrooms, and the rest of the house, are fully wheelchair accessible.

The octagonal house, in turn, sits inside an octagonal greenhouse and/or shade house. The space in between accommodates four water storage cisterns, workshop and storage space, and greenhouse space on the south side. These nested structures in turn, sit at the center of an octagonl garden or mini-farm space, wrapped by a courtyard post and beam wall frame. This frame supports whatever form of fencing or enclosure might be required for crop protection. It also supports four canopies that can be extended out from the center house to maximize rain collection (and crop protection). All of these components together comprise the full LifeSupport Dwelling.

The LifeSupport Dwelling then provides the basis for cluster neighborhhood community, and an optimized public transit, integrated farmland and natural habitat settlement pattern (all of which are infinitely adaptable to specific conditions)...but that's getting a bit beyond the scope of this topic ;-)

I was out at sunrise with a camara Kozan, some of my favorite ones have been extended a little I will try and get some on here later.
Absolutely brilliant project.We pay so much for housing when we do not need to, I like this thinking outside the boxes and potentially solving a lot of housing issues. Personally I do not like the idea of making vast sums of money out of housing.
I loved it when I lived in a bombed out caravan, with other bombed out caravans and patched up beach chalet type buildings,and near destitute people I was the only person that worked and earnt money.Nobody locked their doors as there was nothing to steal. All my neighbours thought I was a red Indian,Although I was part of the community,I was left alone to live my quiet life.

hi again, I don't mean to be absent so long - family came to stay for a few weeks and life got busy. Boy, did it ever.

Michael, I loved the links, I hope to visit that area some day, hopefully on the next trip. It's odd, though - I feel a tremor of something when I look at Carn Euny and the maidens. Not quite foreboding, I'm not sure what it is. I may find out by going there and walking the fields -

Steve, forgive me if you've already posted a link to your design work elsewhere on the forum, but would you mind sharing it again? If you've got a website I would love to see project pictures.

I am very interested in the idea of space and fixtures that adapt to changing needs, for instance, when you have your large extended family coming to stay once a year, but have no need to keep multiple guest bedrooms set up all year round. No more wasted space in my next house -- that is my mantra, actually a battle cry, I feel that strongly about it. Small, efficient, sustaining -- I know there is so much a person can do in planning the right features.

More pictures here of small houses - some of the tree houses are a bit of stretch, visually (I think they look silly) but as a design exercise they're interesting. I like the modern, minimalist cabins and also the shipping container dwellings.

I'm sat here trying to puzzle out what a house means to me, beyond the obvious - shelter for the family, a welcome zone for friends, refuge from the nonsense of the outer world. There's more to it than that, for me - hmmm.

I must apologise as I have taken photos of little houses and waiting for my daughter to download them, with her new baby time is short ,I am not top of the list of priorities soon I hope i will put them on here.
Carn Euny the maidens they are something else very very old.The merry maidens means alot to local people what exactly I could not say,But it is pleasing that they touched you Lise.I would like to show you someday. Her is an area that is beautiful,and tough at the same time as people have struggled to survive here for a long time.
A continuation of Cornwall is the scilly Isles, have you heard of them? The off islands are inhabited by very few people. I missed a boat back once from the isle of Tresco to St Mary's ( main island) I was waiting at the quay for one of my kids who had walked off, when Prince Charles Diana and the 2 princes cycled up, no security,fantastic place for peace and quiet,everyone there and Cornwall, leaves you alone to be yourself

Michael, I've heard of the Scilly Isles, never been - I would love to go. I like the image of the royals having a quiet family day without hordes of guards, what a nice thing to see.

I will accept your offer of a tour to see the maidens, on my next visit. It's been 4 yrs and I'm overdue. It would be great fun to meet you and I hope to get that chance.

Michael, I look forward to your photos!

Lise, welcome back! I have been so busy myself lately, that I am only now getting around to a reply.

And thank you for the newest link!

Unfortunately, I do not yet have a web site up, or even internet links to my work. I have been in design research and development mode for a while, focused on overall pattern and system design, rather than "one-off" house design. In consequence, I haven't (yet) taken the time to put together images of the Life-Support Dwelling pattern, systems, size and geometry spectrum, or specific prototype designs for the two primary building systems that I tend to focus on (nock-down prefabricated panels, and the folding panel trailerable systems). The overall pattern-system however works for all building materials and building systems--whatever is appropriate and desirable for one's situation.

You wrote:
I am very interested in the idea of space and fixtures that adapt to changing needs, for instance, when you have your large extended family coming to stay once a year, but have no need to keep multiple guest bedrooms set up all year round. No more wasted space in my next house -- that is my mantra, actually a battle cry, I feel that strongly about it. Small, efficient, sustaining -- I know there is so much a person can do in planning the right features.

YES!!!

You also wrote:
I'm sat here trying to puzzle out what a house means to me, beyond the obvious - shelter for the family, a welcome zone for friends, refuge from the nonsense of the outer world. There's more to it than that, for me - hmmm.

As a designer, I tend to focus on strategies that achieve an optimum with a minimum--but the reason that I am drawn to do so runs much deeper. Your words here remind me, through a sense of resonance, of why I am so passionately involved with the dwelling. I don't know if the following relates in any way to your above thought--but it is what came to mind for me when I read your words:

I think that we all have an archetypal sense if dwelling--an intuitive sense of cozy, yet expansive, dwelling-as-nest--that not only fits us like a glove, but accomplishes an optimum with a minimum to support life, while being able to adapt effectively to changing conditions. As such, it also functions in synergetic cooperation with our neighborhood, community, local ecosystem, bioregion, planet, solar system--and the cosmos.

In this sense, I think that the essential dwelling becomes the cosmos in microcosm. A number of pre-industrial Vernacular Dwelling traditions (including those of the tipi, hogan, and yurt) spoke specifically about this concept. I think that this concept also underlies the role and concept of the hermitage in the contemplative traditions. The examples are too numerous to mention here, but they are prominent in the Buddhist, Hindu, Taoist, Christian, Jewish, and Sufi traditions. In Soto Zen, Ryokan wrote elequantly about life in his hermitage. Some of the best hermitage designs are Tibetan. The 7th Ox Herding Picture--the Ox forgotten--depicts the contemplative sitting within the cottage, as the original dwelling place.

I am convinced that we all have this archetypal sense of dwelling, which is simultaneously our innate ability to recognize dwelling pattern that fits us and our needs, and which accomplishes an optimum with a minimum of resource, to thereby not only support our lives (and enable us to avoid a life-time of unaffordable housing debt-wage-enslavement)--but to bring us into synch with the planet, the universe, and Awareness itself.

At any rate, that is what comes to mind for me, in response to your thoughts. Hope it makes some kind of sense! And I would love to hear your thoughts (and anyone else's) in response!!

mmm, riches, I love this topic.

"I think that we all have an archetypal sense if dwelling--an intuitive sense of cozy, yet expansive, dwelling-as-nest-- . . ." Yes, a nest, a burrow, a bolthole, even a snail shell we might live in and carry on our backs.

I can't really organise my thoughts well tonight so I'll give in to randomness:

I used to want a house that could hold and store "stuff", the more the better, as the weight of "stuff" seemed to me an anchor against the world's instability or insufficiency. Now I want light and air flowing through open space, I want clear walls, and only the smallest stores of practical stuff that is, hopefully, also beautiful in some way. To subtract from possessions is the best feeling, and I am hooked.

I like that my current house is molded into a hillside and looks/feels as though it grew from it. Not jutting from the landscape but nestled into it. I can't get too attached, as it's a very temporary rental, but the image and memories I can keep -

Photos hurry up please.
We have an ecology center close by. they make ecological homes. including a very small one I think a little bigger than yours Kozan, simple construction rather than hermitages they are called studios.
One of my friends has brought his family up in an 8m x 3m wooden shack, It blew down last year and he has built one of these ecological houses the same size but with a few add ons. The nice thing about it is the gentle feeling of the building. It is an unusual feeling of lightness which must be due to the materials used. What I like about both buildings he has lived in,is the unassumedness of them,whilst his old shack was creeking and on it's last legs, he liked being there,he is very artistic, and had paintings of well known artists, and some gold discs from when he strutted the world guitar in hand. He always reminds me that not everybody wants to live the way we assume they should

This post isn't really about the kind of house you live in, but about their impermanence. My daughter's home suffered a tree limb penetrating the roof in a storm and landing in a vertical position (like a flagpole) right in the bathroom just a few feet away from where everyone was sleeping. Now THAT is a teaching about annica!

I would love to have something like this hobbit house - son and husband need a spring/summer project I think

this small homes site
brings great delite!
i feel much calmer
a welcome dharma!


if only i could write like basho
make a grateful readers gassho.

Ikuko, I love Basho too. His poem below might fit my hobbit house pretty well, if I don't keep an eye on the workers -

Spring rain
leaking through the roof,
dripping from the wasps' nest

Lise wrote:

I would love to have something like this hobbit house - son and husband need a spring/summer project I think

Lise, this house, and this particular view, is probably the most widely recognized image on the web right now, of what I think of as our innate archetypal sense of dwelling. The fact that it is now, perhaps, THE iconic image of natural building seems to attest to the extent to which some of its qualities seem to resonate with so many people.

I suspect that what it evokes as an image--a sense of dwelling at one with the local ecosystem, with natural processess, with other beings, with the planet, with the cosmos, and therefore, with the ground of Awareness itself--is more powerful than how the building might actually function as a dwelling!

I designed strawbale houses for clients, and taught natural building (as part of a larger EcoDwelling curriculum) to both BA and MA students for eight years. Simone Dale describes it as easy, and makes it look easy--but only because he has considerable skill and passion!

My own ongoing effort is to combine the functional qualities of easy to build, universally affordable, efficiently adaptable, life-support self-reliant housing design--as form that, similar to Simon's, resonates and harmonizes with our own being, our archetypal sense of dwelling-nest, and the planet.

A fair number of my friends are natural builders and Permaculture designers. Whenever I find myself becoming a little too focused on my idea of efficient design, I come back to Simon Dale's website!

Thank you for posting this link!

Steve, I thought the same, that Simon D. must be quite talented and there is probably much more to raising such a dwelling than the appearance suggests. I want to see one being made.

Yes, a house that is snugged into its surrounds does resonate with the more primal parts of the mind & spirit.

Strawbale . . . I have two books on that, love to peruse them . . . also PISE construction (Pneumatically Impacted Stabilised Earth? something like that). I like the look of PISE and am researching the insulating properties. Would love to heat and cool a house with very little purchased energy -

ooh, I want one of these treehouses. Maybe all of them. Greed! Greed!

OOOH aaaaah that so cuddly hobbit house ........want it want it want it .............................

yes, isn't the hobbit house marvelous - building one would be so cool.

I would put a big soft chair in the middle of the house, and curl up in it, under blankets, with a book and coffee. And biscuits.

I came across this site with treehouse building tips-http://www.burnlaw.org

I will never build a treehouse though !

Lise wrote:

...and curl up in it, under blankets, with a book and coffee. And biscuits.

McVities Dark Chocolate Digestives - the only way to fly...

yes they are, mmm, where did I hide those in the cupboard - since I do not share

Lindt milk chocolate v.satisfying too.

Further musings-there is an idyllic tree house village at Damanhur Community in Italy.I will search for some visuals-anything is preferable to doing the work I should be doing!

just saw this piece in the New York Times. seems like something that Kozan would be interested in:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/garden/cordwood-masonry-gains-new-fans.html?ref=style

also, at the Barnes and Noble store at Union Square this weekend, they had a display of books about small houses - there were a bunch of them out -- and i saw on amazon.com they have quite a few books on small and tiny homes that are environmentally advanced.... they looked terrific. Makes me think about how much STUFF i have..... too much...

time for a yard sale, then! Or whatever you call it in New York, a sidewalk sale? You go first and tell us how you get on, then I'll have a try at loosening the grip of attachment

Loved the article on cordwood building. Must must MUST try this, it looks simple enough on a very small scale.