Links relevant to Microhome Living

This startup wants to put a free tiny house in your backyard: Rent the Backyard will get a tiny house into your backyard in a matter of weeks—and hopes it can add some cheaper apartments in cities to help alleviate the housing crisis.

October 2, 2019: Why I hate living in my tiny house: Small backyard houses get a lot of attention as a solution to the housing crisis, but it's a different idea in theory than it is when you try to put it into practice.
Excerpt: “… doing anything — getting the vacuum from a tiny closet … — often involves a Tetris-like game of moving multiple other things out of the way.”
Comment: I minimized this problem by inventing solutions that fall into four broad categories:

  • Household items — beds, for example — that require very little space when not in use (not a Murphy bed, which stores vertically but still consumes a large volume).
  • Items with multiple functions.
  • Home components (such as walls, floors, and ceilings) that serve multiple functions, dynamically adapting to your needs at that time.
  • Expandable spaces that go beyond slide-out walls in RVs.

December 2, 2022: Why a Tiny House Might Not Be As Affordable As You Think
Comment: Tiny homes often come with not-so-tiny prices despite them not being very spectacular and utterly lacking in impressive innovation.

Popular Science April 1980 (page 84): The liberated house — no hookups — it rolls anywhere and lives off the sun and earth

June 17, 2022: Low-income renters can't afford rent in nearly 45% of America's largest metro areas
Comment: Obvious answer: microhomes.

July 3, 2022: Local real estate developer constructs ‘micro homes’ as solution for housing crisis in South Fulton
Comment #1: Smart.
Comment #2: Small homes, BIG price. They appear beautifully designed and built, so it is difficult to criticize them, yet with my construction methods, they could be built for a small fraction of that price and be even nicer in some ways. To each his own.

Dwell July/August 2022 issue: Is There a Way Out of Hawaii's Housing Crisis? The Aloha State is drowning in a flood of the same factors creating a housing crisis all over America. It will either become a model for solutions or a cautionary tale.
Comment: Microhomes would help.

March 29, 2022: See Inside a Luxury 350-Square-Foot 3D-Printed Tiny Home in Austin

This House Costs Just $20,000—But It's Nicer Than Yours: Rural Studio’s $20K House has such innovative design that it's changing the entire housing system – from mortgages to zoning laws.

Lunar Lander micro-house is out of this world

This $115,000 2-story home on wheels was created to disrupt the tiny-home market — see inside the 'Henderson'

Gallery: Micro-houses, dumpster dwellings and the art of extreme downsizing

The $300 House: A Hands-On Lab for Reverse Innovation?

These DIY micro-homes on wheels start at $7,000 — take a look inside

These Lego-like modular houses can grow along with your family: Need to add a third floor? Just pop the roof off and slide one in.
Related: Module: Redesigning homeownership for the 21st century

Humanity Can and Must Do More With Less, Experts Urge

Scientist Discovers What Makes People Go 'Green'

Book: Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts: And Whatever the Heck Else We Could Squeeze in Here

Tiny homes catching on

Tiny Homes for the Homeless an Occupy Madison Project

Towable home doesn't skimp on sleeping space

Pair of engineers design pet-friendly off-grid tiny house (check out its gorgeous interior)

Maine floating cabin is 240 square feet of summer heaven

Is the Y:Cube a solution to London's housing crisis?

These Tiny Wooden Houses Are The College Dorm Of The Future

Weighing in: Ten of the best lightweight houses

Size matters: Gizmag's Top 10 tiny homes

14 Tiny Homes That'll Make You Want to Move in ASAP

This “pocket neighborhood” has 8 houses on a lot, instead of one McMansion: The Atlanta suburb of Clarkston is about to undertake an experiment in smaller living, with a development of 250- to 500-square-foot houses that cost less than half the average home in the area.

Would You Live In This 182-Square-Foot Micro-Micro Apartment?

The Rise of the Backyard Office

Rebuilding a girl's dream home after tragedy: Beginning at age 12, Sicily Kolbeck built a 128-square foot tiny home and now blogs at La Petite Maison.

Ella's littleyellowdoor blog: A spunky musician and artist with a work-to-live approach to life builds a microhome designed by Jay Shafer, the pioneer of the tiny house movement and owner of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. (Ella Jenkins slideshow: Tiny House, Big Freedom)

tinyhousesmallspace.tumblr.com: Lots of great ideas to get your creative juices flowing! :-)

Kristie Wolfe is building a Hobbit House micro-community

Kristie Wolfe builds a tiny slice of paradise on a shoestring budget

Thinking small: Celebrating the very best in tiny houses

'Squatter' secretly builds incredible (but thoroughly illegal) treehouse hidden in Canada's Whistler forest just yards from multi-million homes

Canadian couple trading in family home for tiny house on wheels (see Tiny House Calgary)

Family of four lives in a 168-sq. ft. “Tiny House”

Joys of living in a 120-square-foot house

The $300 House: It is Not Charity. It is Innovation.

This couple built their own tiny home for $10,000

Tiny houses entice budget-conscious Americans

This tiny house is big on luxury
Comment: And price: $79,000 to $95,000 for 240 square feet!

Finca Bellavista treehouse community

How This Colorado Couple Built a Spectacular Treehouse Village in Costa Rica

Design tips from a tiny Swedish apartment

Small-space wisdom from Swedish homeowner Karin Karlsson

Micro-dwellings: Part of the solution or just more problems?

Zoning Codes Petition

How to get around Building Codes and Zoning for Tiny House Living

10 Ways to Micro-Size Your Home

Jay Shafer: The Politics of Tiny Houses

Far out hippie-style homes

Hobbit Hole-inspired Bux End takes 2019 Shed of the Year

Floating off-grid home looks fit for a Bond villain
Comment: A floating microhome — why not? :-)

Consumerism and Its Antisocial Effects Can Be Turned On — Or Off
Excerpt: “Money doesn't buy happiness. Neither does materialism: Research shows that people who place a high value on wealth, status, and stuff are more depressed and anxious and less sociable than those who do not.”

Can't Buy Me Love: Study Shows Materialistic Couples Have More Money and More Problems

The Honeymoon's Over: Consumers Overestimate Enjoyment Of Products based on Anticipating Adaptation to Products

In Children And Adolescents, Low Self-Esteem Increases Materialism

Can Going Without Money Hurt the Economy? One Man's Quest to Be Penniless

The Man Who Quit Money

Perspective: Would getting away from civilization help us really live?

Less Stuff Equals More Happiness

But Will It Make You Happy? (a must-read article)

Happy: the movie & the movement

Active, Outdoor Teens Are Happier Teens: Study

Scientists call for rethink on consumption, population

George Lucas proposes building affordable housing on property

Tiny, futuristic microhome installs in 4 minutes via helicopter

World's tiniest house available for rent

San Francisco Proposes Tiniest Apartments

Would you live in these tiny apartments?

Five Homes That Take "Micro Apartments" to the Country

How a Couple Lives in a 240-square-foot Apartment

Flat-packed Mini House takes two days to install

Why clutter matters and decluttering is difficult

€7,000 circular home built using corn cobs

About-face: Former climate change skeptic now says global warming is man-made
Comment: Want a practical and effective solution to global warming? It's just two words: microhome living.

Facit Homes claims to build world's first "digitally fabricated" house

7 Ways to beat the high costs of home building

Eastpak Sofa has more storage than you'll know what to do with

Deep Thoughts With the Homeless Billionaire
Excerpt: “… he no longer wanted to be weighed down by physical possessions.”

Moving up: dream house or money pit?
Comment: The latter, trust me! I've been there, done that, and regretted most every minute of it.

Small families, big houses: Population bomb may be defused, but research reveals ticking household bomb

Edgeland Residence: a modern take on the Native American Pit House

10 Unexpected Buildings Architects Turned Into Homes

Family of 14 gives up everything to live in RV

Winning micro-housing design on display in NYC

Mayor Bloomberg announces tiny housing design competition for NYC

How a Family of Four Manages to Live Well on Just $14,000 Per Year

There's small, and there's too small: OTIS tiny house offers a new take on the American Dream

Taku-Tanku portable tiny house can be towed by bike

Up to three groups of people can live in this rusting small home

Amazon sells a $24,000 tiny home that expands with the click of a remote — here's what it looks like inside
Comment: Just as ugly as it does outside.

Women escape to backyard She Sheds (female version of man caves)

A Millennial's Version of "The American Dream"
Excerpt: “We're just not that into cars. And we're just not that into houses, either.”

The Atlantic: The Downsizing of the American Dream

Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Book: Resource Revolution: How to Capture the Biggest Business Opportunity in a Century

U.S. housing policies increase carbon output

Dunkin' Donuts built a tiny home that's powered by coffee — and it cost just $10 a night to stay there

Stable, affordable homes don't just help patients, they save taxpayer dollars

Denali tiny house makes small living feel much less cramped

A $52,000 tiny smart home looks like a space ship and can sleep a family of 4 — see inside

How One Tiny-Home Designer Makes a Small Space Feel 10 Times Bigger

Tiny houses look marvellous but have a dark side: three things they don't tell you on marketing blurb

Tiny Home Hacks We Learned From 200-Square-Foot Dorms

July 5, 2021: The Tiny Homes going up on oddly-shaped slivers of 'virtually unusable' city land to shelter LA's unhoused

July 11, 2021: 'Worldwide phenomenon' prefab tiny home maker Nestron just started shipping overseas — see inside its $77,000 units

October 19, 2021: Mini 'mod' homes can help rough sleepers get off the streets for good: study
Comment: Rough sleeper is an idiom referring to someone who sleeps on the streets because he/she is homeless.

December 24, 2021: Schwarzenegger donates 25 tiny homes to homeless vets in LA

April 6, 2022: Effectiveness of tiny pod villages as alternative shelter for people experiencing homelessness

April 26, 2022: It's not all nomadland: How #vanlife made mobile living a middle-class aspiration

June 15, 2022: Researchers urge New Zealand to think outside the box on housing for sustainable future

February 20, 2023: Think small: Amazon has tiny homes back in stock for Presidents' Day

Printing homes

www.contourcrafting.org

A Chinese Company 3-D Printed 10 Houses In A Day

These 3D-printed homes can be built for less than $4,000 in just 24 hours

April 23, 2023: See inside a 600-square-foot 3D-printed tiny home in Maine made of recyclable materials

Environmental science

October 1, 2021: Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Build a smaller house with no basement

Jet contrails affect surface temperatures based on The impacts of long-lived jet contrail ‘outbreaks’ on surface station diurnal temperature range

Miscellaneous

Mass timber: Thinking big about sustainable construction: MIT class designs a prototype building to demonstrate that even huge buildings can be built primarily with wood

Tiny houses have a dark secret: It takes more than changing the size of a home to change the mentality of the people who live inside

August 2, 2020: These 43-square-foot pods were originally for travelers to take a nap at the airport, but now the company is selling them for $50,000 each

8 Creative Ways People Kept Cool Before Air Conditioning
Comment: One of the methods (dogtrot homes) could be adapted to constellations of microhomes with each serving a distinct function, as I described in my book. When everything is combined into one integrated space, as it is with modern homes, it needlessly increases construction, maintenance, energy, and insurance costs as well as wasting more time for cleaning.