Posted on 11/01/2017 4:52:08 AM PDT by simpson96
In Helsinki, like many cities, there isn’t enough housing to keep up with demand. Some people blame a lack of land to build new housing, but one design firm argues that there is enough land–if you know where to look. The firm’s new building is designed to fit in a single parking spot.
“The city is not designed because of humans–it’s designed because of cars,” says architect Marco Casagrande, principal at the Helsinki-based Casagrande Laboratory, which designed the new tiny house. “All the streets in cityscapes are based on car dimensions. This I found a little bit strange. We have all this talk about the density of cars getting less and less in cities, and at the same time, we are talking about people moving into cities . . . but we don’t have space to build. Nobody has been questioning car parking spaces. They are everywhere. So this talk about no land to build in cities is nonsense: It’s everywhere, but it’s just for cars.”(snip)
The first prototype doesn’t have space for a kitchen or running water, based on the reasoning that someone living in the middle of an urban neighborhood could get food elsewhere and shower at a gym (it does have a composting toilet). It runs on its own solar panels, and the wood material is self-insulating and warm in winter, so it doesn’t need to be hooked up to the grid. But the architects are now working on designs that can also be connected to water and work more like conventional housing.(snip)
The architects are already getting orders to produce the houses, which cost around $40,000 for three stories. “It’s like [the price of] your average car,” he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at fastcompany.com ...
Well, $40K + you need to by a lot + taxes + utility hook ups + delivery...
I’d rather live in a treehouse with a little land and no noisy neighbors.
I like the concept but it needs running water. I’m not showering at the YMCA!
$40,000? You’d be getting off cheaply.
In Houston they are trying to pawn off 400 square foot microapartments for $125k+. And that probably does NOT include the parking spot at $10+ a day.
The gubermint will find a method of vertical square air footage to calculate their ‘property ‘ taxes.
That’s lots of stair climbing. There needs to have a bathroom on every floor.
It misses the biggest advantage of the Tiny House housing sector.
The best tiny houses are really very upscale mobile dwellings. You can get a log cabin built on a trailer that is insulated and durable like standard housing, but which can be moved across the country to follow the job market.
If you work on pipelines, you can move your house from Texas to South Dakota for the or four years, then to where the jobs are after that. But the house has to meet highway standards so one story plus a loft is about it.
They could sleep in their car, too.
On the plus side, it has lots of skylights.
And, all that up and down on the stairs has to be a fitness plus (unless your knees and hips are shot).
Looks nice, but needs running water.
The Tiny House fad is just another example of how Gen X and Millennials have never grown up and in fact is still playing ‘house.’
These things are a blight and many municipalities are enacting ordinances against them—as they should imho.
Kitchens cause obesity.
Agree. I don’t know why anyone would spend $40K on a tiny house when they could buy a very nice travel trailer for half the cost. Tiny houses are not made to be hauled around on highways; they certainly aren’t aerodynamic.
Millenials around here like fresh eggs. Where is the chicken coop on this mini mansion?
LOL...We used to get empty refrigerator boxes from behind Sears and tape them together with duct tape to make forts. Put them under a bridge and you basically have the same thing.
Just think of that, a 20-story "tiny" house, with a ground footprint of a parking space.
Hmmm ... well, cow-tipping has always been popular out here in the sticks. Maybe "house-tipping" may become a popular team sport for the yutes there in the city.
Looks like it would tip over in a high wind IMO.
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