I read this book straight through last night. It’s a charming and informative account of Kelly and Rosana Hart’s many nomadic vehicles over the last 4 decades: trailers, a van, a pickup-truck-with-camper, and several buses.
Kelly’s first bus was covered in our book Shelter (p. 89) in 1973, and his earthbag/papercrete house was in our book Home Work(p. 88) in 2004. He’s been creating new mobile (and stationary) homes ever since. Plus running the info-packed website https://greenhomebuilding.com/.
The tone of writing is conversational and friendly, there are building tips for those inspired to do likewise, there are details and photos from a bunch of trips (including to Mexico), and there are a few hundred color photos. A homemade book in the best sense, made in the USA, $12 at Amazon here.
“A few years ago, Swedish student housing company AF Bostäder had a young woman from the city of Lund inside live in a tiny house-box–not even 10 square meters large–to test the idea of a cheap, cheerful, and environmentally friendly “smart student unit” that included a toilet, kitchen, and bed. “I think she still lives there,” says Linda Camara of Tengbom Architects, the company behind the 2013 iteration of the living pod–a petite vision in pale wood offset with lime green plant pots, cushions and stools.
The premise for the cube, which has been in the works since 2007, is reasonable enough: students live and die on cheap housing, but everyone needs a toilet. It’s taken six years to whittle the tiny houses down to the current cross-laminated wooden test model form. The large kitchen was squirreled away in the original blueprint, but Tengbom redesigned it as the prime area after student feedback. The current space-efficient design, complete with a patio and vaulted sleeping area, lowers standard rent rates by 50%–music to the ears of any economically bereft twentysomething.…”
“The Daily News’ Matt Chaban lives with his wife in one of the Bloomberg administration’s 325-square-foot mini-apartments…
“‘My wife and I are intimate again — thanks to the Bloomberg administration’s latest housing initiative.
That’s not kissing and telling: The missus and I got a chance to spend a night inside one of the city’s new “Mike-ros,” a 325-square-foot studio apartment that the mayor thinks is the future for young urban couples.…'”
“…the treehouse SunRay built in Portland in a 300 year old fir tree in the middle of a suburb. When one of the neighbors complained and brought out the building inspector he apparently fell in love with it because he told them to take the stairs down and put up a ladder so it wouldn’t be a deck because he had no authority over treehouses that weren’t decks with stairs.”
“That almost impossibly tiny house in Toronto…has found a buyer after just three weeks on the market, though it sold for well below asking price.
The property at 30 Hanson St. on the east side of Toronto’s inner city got a lot of publicity on real estate sites and blogs as an example of just how tight the city’s housing market has become.
So tight, in fact, that a house the size of a typical backyard tool shed went on the market for $229,000, enough money to buy a large suburban home in some Canadian cities.
But it sold this week for $165,000, the National Post reports, a good 28 per cent below asking price.…”
Do you know about “Tipi Village” near Ashland, Oregon? It’s a semi-nomadic collective of tipi-dwelling families and individuals that has been around for almost 6 years. They live simply and lightly on the land, demonstrating that it is possible for modern humanity to return to a more traditional way of life.
The tipis are made with hand-cranked sewing machines, for members to live in, or to sell to support the village. The “Big Lodge” is a 27 ft community tipi where friends and travelers can visit awhile, learn more about the tipi lifestyle, or perhaps consider if they might want to create their own tipi home and stay.
“Turns out, Golden Gate Park isn’t the only desirable place to live if you’re a teeny tiny someone. Bernal Heights has become the latest hot-spot for the new fairy houses that have been springing up in San Francisco this year.
As Bernalwood notes, the neighborhood has spotted a few teeny tiny tree houses of their own in recent days. They’re as small as the tree houses found in Golden Gate Park, although, we noticed the architecture takes on a more quirky bohemian appearance, reflective of the human-sized houses you find in Bernal Heights.…”
Article in SFWeekly by Erin Sherbert, photo: Badass Bernalwood Press
Two of the mightiest men in the tiny house movement, Kent Griswold (Tiny House Blog) and Deek Diedrickson (Relaxshacks) visited Shelter a few weeks back. We did a homestead tour, then had dinner.
I read this book straight through last night. It’s a charming and informative account of Kelly and Rosana Hart’s many nomadic vehicles over the last 4 decades: trailers, a van, a pickup-truck-with-camper, and several buses.
