“With a footprint of just 29 square metres, (312 sq. ft.) the house is officially the smallest in the city.…the home was shoehorned into the space between two existing properties by Arthur Weeden, a contractor…The tiny parcel of land was originally marked out for laneway access but somehow the curb stones were never lowered to allow vehicular access, rendering the gap useless.
Weeden pounced, building a pint-sized home, barely an arm’s span wide, for him and his wife. They lived there together for 20 years, content in the tiny space, tending to their vegetable garden and bunking down for the night in the single rear bedroom behind the kitchen.…”
I found this aged photocopy while going through a box of files from years past. It was tucked in with folders of research notes, press releases, rough drafts and galleys of articles for various publications and several rejected or killed stories that I’d had vague hopes of placing in other print media; all this from the days before the Internet. Everything looked so crisp and quaint, especially the neatly typed articles on 20 lb. bonded stationary.
Times do change. Something that has held fairly constant for me my entire more-or-less adult life though is an interest in vehicular living in long or short form.
I had already been doing it in station wagons and a van by the time I came across this book in my local library. “Roll Your Own” by Jody Pallidini and Beverly Dubin was a classic of nomadic literature, a period companion piece to “Caravan” by Stephen Gaskin and “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa” by Ed Buryn. I never once found a copy of “Roll Your Own” outside that lone library copy. I ran this copy off a dried-out, tattered, yellowed, and bug-eaten copy of the Whole Earth Catalog if memory serves me. It came out maybe 40 years before Tiny Homes on the Move, proving to me at least that good things never go out of style.
Nels Norene
Thanks, Nels, I was able to track down a used copy on Amazon for our archives.- LK
“100 Wild Huts is an experimental challenge I’ve set myself to build 100 small survival shelters on any piece of ground that harbours enough natural resources for the build. I intend to sleep rough in each shelter for one night and blog about the experiences. I intend to experiment with the huts form, structure and materiality in the hope that in due course this site will become a useful resource for budding adventurers and outdoor enthusiasts alike!”
It is a 2003 Mitsubishi Fuso that is one of the original expedition campers…It has been to more countries than I can name, from Antarctica to the arctic…Around Australia and lived in full time for two years.…Pretty hard miles when the new owners got it and hand it over to me for a change…I was given a lot of creative space and the results are something I am especially proud of.…Have a look…”
Ran across this last night on Netflix, and is it good! It also seems to be available on Amazon. I knew about Muscle Shoals, but never put it all together. Excellent documentary about background musicians for some incredible singers and songs.
If you happen to watch it, listen to what Rick Hall says at the end, about imperfection. He says that in the studio there will sometimes be mistakes. Like the drummer might drop his sticks, “…but it’s OK with me if he gets right back into the beat.” Then he says something like we need more imperfection in recording, meaning the human element in this digital world. Warmth of vinyl vs. sterility of digital. (There will be people who know exactly what I mean here.)
We are doing layout of our next book, Small Homes, right now, and we’d like to get more people living in cities, large and small towns, and—yes—suburbs to contribute. Whereas the paradigm for owner builders in the ’60s and ’70s was a home in the country, it makes a lot of sense these days to fix up small, modest homes in populated areas. Relatively quick, often more economical than starting on a bare piece of land.
Please contact me if you or someone you know is living in a small dwelling of any kind in cities or towns, and which is unique, creative, inspiring, aesthetic, etc.: lloyd@shelterpub.com
“With a footprint of just 29 square metres, (312 sq. ft.) the house is officially the smallest in the city.…the home was shoehorned into the space between two existing properties by Arthur Weeden, a contractor…The tiny parcel of land was originally marked out for laneway access but somehow the curb stones were never lowered to allow vehicular access, rendering the gap useless.
