“…Tiny houses aren’t just houses – they are a movement. A vibrant online community attests to this movement, more visibly perhaps that the tiny houses themselves, which are often hidden in backyards or rural outcroppings where code enforcement can’t find them. Apparently, county and city codes commonly establish a lower limit for allowable square footage of homes, with 600 square feet being a typical minimum. To get around this constraint, “tiny home” dwellers – including Smith – tend to build on wheels, so that their abodes fall under RV rules rather than those for buildings with foundations. These houses are often constructed with reclaimed materials; outfitted with gray water systems, composting toilets, and solar panels; and designed by creative, forward-looking architects. As such, their selling points rest comfortably in a nexus of affordability, sustainability, and aesthetic appeal. They tend to be darling, almost like tiny Disney cottages; they also tend to allow the natural landscape around them to take a starring role.…”
Click here.
And click here for info on the new documentary “Tiny: A Story About Living Small,” by Christopher Smith and Merete Mueller.
"…Tiny houses aren’t just houses – they are a movement"
So, I had to look up what a movement actually was and so I am still not sure. There are political and social movements described as a coordinated group action as a response to a particular issue in those realms. So a movement is different from a trend? It's coordinated because there are online communities?
Or are tiny houses the denouement of the McMansion era? and therefore more of a continuum than a movement. Is it a conscious response to the pressures humankind places on the environment, a counter-culture to consumerism or is it a necessary adjustment to a new normal of economic inequalities, under-employment and jobs shifting overseas?
Will we be reading about Tiny Housism in the early 21st century in history books a hundred years hence?
What are people's thoughts?
Tiny reminds me of the book "God of Small Things". thanks for sharing such nice stuff.
– Herman Swan
to daltxguy…
back in high school my Physics teacher talked a bit about the phenomenon of two, or sometimes more, persons making the same scientific discovery at the same time… He gave us several incidents of such… and how each would “expand” to make connections….some of us were taken with the idea
— maybe a Tiny House Movement is something similar? something of such quality, value, need, beauty that many are individually inspired to create Tiny Homes… and eventually they start to connect.
@Anonymous. I see what you are saying. Perhaps the conditions are right for many to see this at the same time.
It's my opinion that the 'tiny house movement' is not a movement. It's always been there. It's been dormant for a while but always lurking in the background because it is as old as mankind. It's more of a reawakening. The connections being made now are perhaps, simply more visible and more accessible. The idea of a 'tiny' house is in each one of us.
At some point, I also trust that we will move away from the tiny house on a trailer and the monolithic design which has come to dominate as we will rediscover our human creativity and demolish the laws which have designed us into a corner.