Tiny House Living

Kelly Hart posted the story behind the earthbag house that’s featured in the header of his blog, Earthbag Building Blog. It’s a Glorieta, a glorified gazebo of sorts, that was built during a workshop back in 2003 in Crestone, Colorado. Local materials, including the dirt around the house, was used to construct this little building.

Earthbag Glorieta

Terlingua, Texas is a remote part of southwest Texas near the Mexican border. Pictured here is a tiny dome structure currently under construction. The blog that is recording the construction story is also filled with interesting ways of adapting to such an extreme desert region and living very close to the edge.

Tiny Dome in Terlingua, Texas

In my internet travels this week I ran across wall tents and thought they looked like great low cost temporary housing solutions. I was especially interested in the little low-cost stoves they sell, but sadly they are not intended for indoor cabin use… just for wall tents.

Wall Tents

Jetson Green has a nice wrap up on shipping container projects. Some are big and some are small but for those who are interested in cargo container homes it’s a nice article.

10 Shipping Container Projects

I’ve been working on a new set of tiny house plans that are inspired by historic dogtrot houses like this on that I found on GreatBuildings.com. A dogtrot is a small house divided in two with a breezeway between the two halves. The purpose of this design was to keep the house cool in hot humid climates.

The plans I’m drawing up will be about 40-pages in length, cost $9.99 and will be available soon at Tiny House Design. To learn more about dogtrots in general read this article about dogtrot houses at wikipedia.

I always learn new stuff while reading Lloyd Kahn’s blog. This week I spotted this funky little tiny house built by the folks at Living Earth Structures in Petaluma, California. These folks build all sorts of earthen structures including benches, walls, ovens, and houses. They also offer adobe and cob workshops for those who want to learn about building in this extremely low-cost and sustainable building method. Below is a video from their website.

Living Earth Structures

I’m starting to think that building with earth makes more sense than any other building method.  I must admit I’m terribly biased because my real professional training and education is in the ceramic arts. The main disadvantage is that they are no portable like so many of the tiny houses I write about and explore through design.

Here’s another great find from Lloyd Kahn’s blog… it’s an article on 10 Amazing Earthen Buildings.

Based in Berlin ZENDOME manufactures the cool geodesic dome pictured here. They are priced a bit on the premium side and not exactly meant to be a year round home but seeing their great photos reminded me of the wonderful advantages of a dome home.

So then I did a quick search for a Ashland, Oregon based dome manufacturer I’d run across in the past called Pacific Domes. These folks make some very nice livable dome kits in addition to the kinds of domes ZENDOME makes. The skins are also textile based but some insulation and weather-proofing options are available. If you’ve often wondered what a small cabin dome home would be like be sure to check out Pacific Domes.

My tiny pallet house construction method got published in the most recent issue of Readymade Magazine. You can see it online and on newsstands. The article was written but Mimi Zeiger, the author of Tiny Houses.

Tiny Pallet House in Readymade

If you have a subscription to Mother Earth News you probably spotted this cute earthbag building. While it’s small footprint (8-foot diameter) is probably too small to be a tiny house for most people it is an excellent example of how easy an earthbag home could be built.  There are lots of books and plans for earthbag homes available but you can find a lot of information on the internet about building with earthbags online.