The tiny house movement.... I like it. What say you?

[Vic Vega]

the key to the tiny house movement is to have less shit

i've been ebaying stuff for months =X

I agree with this, though I still don't like tiny homes. Getting rid of useless shit is nice.

 

[Dubb]

< will be a licensed architect shortly.

I think it's more about how efficiently/appropriately you can use space than about how much space there is.

fairly few single family houses in the US are laid out with spatial efficiency in mind. It's quite a bit of work for whoever designs the layout (be it architect or builder), so those are typically the design hours that aren't done, to save money up front. And since homes are more or less priced by the square foot, you can make more money selling lots of inefficient space.

But that pretty quickly results in expensive 3000 square foot houses that feel very cramped, a ton of square footage eaten up by hallways, dead-dog spaces, and spaces that can only serve a single use.

Also-the more energy modeling I do, the more I'm very surprised at just how much raw square footage ups your H/C bills. For that reason alone homebuilders should start working towards more spatially efficient designs (and some have).

My dream house (if I decide to live in a single family house) would be pretty small (1200 s.f), with a large unconditioned (or minimally conditioned) garage / workshop for building stuff.

Check these.

john pawson:

I thought this was pretty cool if only for its smart use of ductless HVAC units (but a bit too much hallway):

http://www.archdaily.com/136242/low-cost-low-energy-house-for-new-orleans-sustainable-to/

the japanese and the dutch seem to do this stuff by necessity.

http://www.archdaily.com/140026/v-house-gaaga/

 

[vi edit]

When my wife and I retire and or if I were a single guy something like that would be ideal. But married and with kids and having family and friends over regularly tends to make those types of arrangements less appealing.

What I think a lot of people have backwards is building up instead of down. We build two story homes and then stick the bedrooms upstairs. Then we try to cool that in the summer and heat it in the winter. And it's a just about as innefficient of a living space as you can get. If we placed our bedrooms in the basement where it's already dark, much cooler in the summer, and easier to keep heated in the winter (yay radiant heat!) then we'd have much, much lower energy bills.

But for some reason we have years and years and years of programming telling us that basements are dank, nasty places that aren't fit for living space. They don't have to be. They are ideal for sleeping.

 

[Ns1]

< will be a licensed architect shortly.

I think it's more about how efficiently/appropriately you can use space than about how much space there is.

fairly few single family houses in the US are laid out with spatial efficiency in mind. It's quite a bit of work for whoever designs the layout (be it architect or builder), so those are typically the design hours that aren't done, to save money up front. And since homes are more or less priced by the square foot, you can make more money selling lots of inefficient space.

But that pretty quickly results in expensive 3000 square foot houses that feel very cramped, a ton of square footage eaten up by hallways, dead-dog spaces, and spaces that can only serve a single use.

Also-the more energy modeling I do, the more I'm very surprised at just how much raw square footage ups your H/C bills. For that reason alone homebuilders should start working towards more spatially efficient designs (and some have).

My dream house (if I decide to live in a single family house) would be pretty small (1200 s.f), with a large unconditioned (or minimally conditioned) garage / workshop for building stuff.

Check these.

john pawson:

I thought this was pretty cool if only for its smart use of ductless HVAC units (but a bit too much hallway):

http://www.archdaily.com/136242/low-cost-low-energy-house-for-new-orleans-sustainable-to/

the japanese and the dutch seem to do this stuff by necessity.

http://www.archdaily.com/140026/v-house-gaaga/

I'd love to live in places like that, too bad they're so goddamn expensive.

 

[Zebo]

I feel your pain brudda but it's the fuckin we get for the fuckin we got...plus they make us better.

Our house is ~5500 sq ft with 26' ceilings but I deal with it even though I'd be happy in a single wide.

 

[ShawnD1]

Nothing exemplifies the age of opulence we live in more than people going back to cavemen diets and pretending they are poor.

Pretending you are poor is how to stop being poor.

<average american> I'm not poor, that's why I buy a new car every 5 years and I only buy brand name products. Retirement? 401k? wtf is that? I also have 5 credit cards, all of them maxed out </avreage american>

 

[Zebo]

< will be a licensed architect shortly.
snippy[/url]

Dude you got shit growing in your house.

Seriously I've built 23 luxury homes and never seen that.

 

[BurnItDwn]

960sq foot house with 960 sq feet in the basement (basement is about 70% finished.)

I have 2 rooms upstairs that I don't very often. One is a spare bedroom I was renting to a friend, other is where I store junk and where I put my server, printer, extra dresser, and extra twin bed.... just in case.

More than enough room for me, comfortable for 2 or 3 people, and gets crowded with 4 or more, though I do have a second bathroom in the basement with a shower ... so it's not too bad when I have family from out of town staying over.

 

[Dubb]

I'd love to live in places like that, too bad they're so goddamn expensive.

The middle one is an affordable housing project for the lower ninth ward. In my area I'd estimate construction costs at ~$110k give or take, depending on finishes.

Pawson's house is pretty swank, but it's mostly in finish materials. He used a lot of limestone and plaster, which would get a great deal cheaper in the US as wood, tile, and GWB. He also put a lot of his storage in cabinetry rather than closets, which can work reasonably affordably with ikea cabinets, or some of the new lines of powdercoated MDF cabinets. But adding some SF for closets would still be cheaper to build - which gets you into those judgment calls about upfront costs vs energy costs over time.

I have no idea what the V-house cost, but it's probably up there, again mostly in finish materials. The roof would be cheaper as a simple shed and you could still have the sloped ceiling and skylight. Nonetheless I think it's a good example of a smart spatial strategy - making the most of less area.

And don't forget, if you have XX budget, a smaller house gets you higher end materials at the same price.

 

[Dubb]

Dude you got shit growing in your house.

Seriously I've built 23 luxury homes and never seen that.

Pawson's house actually a renovation of an old English row house; that picture is of the back. Trees and ivy-lattice for privacy - here's a pic facing the other direction:

if you ask me, that'd be a pretty bad ass place to entertain.

 

[roguerower]

I think that an ideal living space would be a two story house, 1 above, 1 below, with the living spaces/garage below and the kitchen and entertainment spaces above. You reduce all of your MEP in-wall because your primary runs are all horizontal and your vertical runs are for branches only. Easiest thing to do is to make a chase in the middle of the building separating it into two distinct halves. The chase contains the main HVAC run, your main plumbing runs, a cable tray for your comm runs, all of it leading back to a mechanical/electrical room in the garage.

Your "second story" would be nice and open with minimal closed off space. Ideally I would like to see at least half of the exterior wall with thermally insulated and tinted windows for natural sunlight but heat retention/reflection.

You install a geothermal grid to provide conditioned hydronic liquid for a water source heat pump and a radiant heating system (basement concrete floor). Tankless water heaters feed the kitchen & bathrooms. Some sort of pitched metal roof with gutters draining into a water reclamation system takes care of your landscaping needs.

Just a few ideas...

 

[IcePickFreak]

I wouldn't mind a small place at all, just no ultra tiny. If I had the money I'd have a big garage/shop with a small loft to live in lol.

 

[Ns1]

ideal space for me is a 1400SF loft.

 

[BoberFett]

Whatever happened to the geodesic dome? Wasn't that supposed to the energy efficient but spacious feeling design of the future?

 

[Dubb]

I think that an ideal living space would be a two story house, 1 above, 1 below, with the living spaces/garage below and the kitchen and entertainment spaces above. You reduce all of your MEP in-wall because your primary runs are all horizontal and your vertical runs are for branches only. Easiest thing to do is to make a chase in the middle of the building separating it into two distinct halves. The chase contains the main HVAC run, your main plumbing runs, a cable tray for your comm runs, all of it leading back to a mechanical/electrical room in the garage.

Just a few ideas...

Central chases only sometimes work in single family houses. Depends on where the utilities come in, but moving everything to a chase like that would usually mean some hefty layout trade offs for not all that much of a reduction in ducts/electrical/plumbing.

One of the reasons I posted that lower 9th ward house was because the use of twin ductless split systems in that layout is genius for an affordable house. Small, efficient, and offers significant savings over a traditional ducted unit. Best way to save money on ducts is not to have any.

Your "second story" would be nice and open with minimal closed off space. Ideally I would like to see at least half of the exterior wall with thermally insulated and tinted windows for natural sunlight but heat retention/reflection.

good windows are key, but if you have seasons, sometimes you want that heat gain. That's why almost all passive houses you see have overhangs over the windows - they'll block high summer sun and let in low winter sun.

You install a geothermal grid to provide conditioned hydronic liquid for a water source heat pump and a radiant heating system (basement concrete floor). Tankless water heaters feed the kitchen & bathrooms. Some sort of pitched metal roof with gutters draining into a water reclamation system takes care of your landscaping needs.

I never recommend tankless water heaters. They're expensive, the only decent ones are gas fired, which means you have to run gas lines to each fixture, have additional electric and ventilation requirements, and only net you about a 20% improvement in efficiency over a typical tanked installation. I think you can do better for less with a standard inexpensive tank and going to a small diameter pex / manifold distribution system. With the small diameter tube you still get hot water pretty fast (less water sitting in the tube,also less to radiate away when you turn the hot water off) and it's much cheaper/easier to install.

Interestingly enough, you can now get heat pump water heaters. Expensive, but an improvement in efficiency.

 

[PaperclipGod]

Nothing exemplifies the age of opulence we live in more than people going back to cavemen diets and pretending they are poor.

+1

 

[yh125d]

I thought this was pretty cool if only for its smart use of ductless HVAC units (but a bit too much hallway):

http://www.archdaily.com/136242/low-cost-low-energy-house-for-new-orleans-sustainable-to/

Seeing this made me want to start a 3d model starting with this as my basic design and customizing from there, will finish in my free time and post pics later