You have to give Stefan Eberstadt from Germany some real credit.  His concept for the Rucksack House is nothing short of genius.  What this clever design does can best be described as attaching a add-on to an existing structure.  Now while that might not sound like anything to new, it really is.

This tiny space isn’t designed to be a stand-alone home, but more of an add-on to an existing structure that can be placed several floors up on the side of an apartment building.  The Rucksack House is suspended from the roof with steel cables, and the concept was designed to be sort of walk-in sculpture.  Or as Eberstadt describes it, “a hovering illuminated space that looks like a cross between temporary scaffolding and minimal sculpture.”

Eberstadt wants the Rucksack House to be a transportable dwelling component that can be placed on the outside of any existing large structure.  Much of what one has to appreciate about the Rucksack House is that it does wonders to show (and in a visually striking fashion) how sharp minds can put the tiny space concept to good use to make the architectural landscape of tomorrow far more interesting.

The interior of the Rucksack House is a winning concept as well.  Sections of the walls literally fold down to reveal a variety of useful sections, such as a bed area, a desk and even shelving.  The look inside is really quite like something out of a modern art museum with numerous windows placed in unexpected locations and of varying geometry.

There can be little doubt that anyone who sees the Rucksack House hanging from the side of a large building in any downtown area across the world is likely to be left a little speechless.  The Rucksack House has a variety of possibilities and could really serve those living in places like New York and Tokyo very well if the idea ever catches on.  Why just ask anyone living in a crowded New York City apartment if they would like a little more space.  The odds are they would be ecstatic at the idea of a Rucksack House.

Each Friday Coming Unmoored runs a weekly roundup of tiny homes featured on the web and recent news stories that may be of interest to small home enthusiasts.

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Tiny Houses Featured in the Past Week:

• East Coast Houseboats
• Nautilus Organic Habitat
• California Edition miniHome
• FKDA Shed
• Bike Rack Modular Home Design
• Habode Portable Cabins
• Sonoma Shanty to Go
• Arvesund Sheds
• Shepherd’s Hut Retreat
• ic Green Prefab
• Reclaimed Space Prefab
• Pine Hollow Log Homes
• Ob: Lab
• BubbleTree
• The Hermitage

New Small Home Plans:

• BoMoSo #1
• Creating the House You Want with Tiny House Kits
  

Recent News Stories and Essays on Tiny Homes and the Small Home Movement:

• The New Normal: Smaller Homes (13 ABC News)
• How to Start Living in a Tiny House
  

Small Home / Simple Living Websites and Blogs to Check Out:

• Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity
  

MagCloud Magazine recently released a special e-issue of BoMoSo tiny home plans.  The issue includes 14 buildings with 21 floor plans including several that vary significantly in terms of architectural styles from many of the other tiny home plans that are available. The Tuscan designs are particularly unique to anything I’ve seen so far in the Small Home Movement.

There is also a very interesting model of an alternating tread circular staircase included.

The issue can be purchased on the MagCloud website for $15.

You may also wish to check out BoMoSo’s website.  Looks like they have a couple of interesting tiny home designs on wheels.

There is a lot more to building an eco-friendly and tiny home than might initially meet the eye.  It would be easy to say that a tiny home is, well not surprisingly, small.  But tiny homes these days mean much more than just small.

Most buildings and architects that are involved in the tiny home movement are also making sure that their homes have a variety of traits.  While not completely universal, these core set of “home values” pop up a great deal in the tiny home universe.

One core concept in the tiny home movement is that the space is used well.  Architects realize that just tossing up four walls will really not cut it when the space is limited.  Virtually all the architects involved in the movement realize that a tiny home is likely going to be much smaller than what people are generally accustomed to living in.  As a result, architects and builders usually work to make their tiny homes visually interesting or at the least, very user friendly.

Another tiny home element that is popping up in a great many of today’s designs is an eye toward energy efficiency.  The notion that going tiny is only an aspect of the battle again high home heating and cooling cost.  To this end, many architects and manufacturers are incorporating all sorts of energy saving strategies, such as energy efficient lighting, energy efficient appliances, smart use of passive lighting and high-efficiency building materials.

As many architects and builders are concerned about the energy issue, it is not surprising that many are taking the next step beyond energy efficiency and are moving toward solar power.  Many tiny home designs today are seeing solar panels incorporated right into the design.  The thinking is that a highly efficient tiny home, when combined with solar power, equals a home that is using just a small fraction of the energy of today’s average American dwelling.

When all of these different factors are combined they have a very large impact.  By using new techniques and approaches to home building in general, the new generation of tiny home architects and builders are making tiny homes that are very energy efficient.  This movement is great for the homeowner in terms of lower overall living costs and has obvious benefits for the environment as well.

As I slowly get to know my neighbors in the marina, I’m discovering that as colorful as the home renovation stories I’ve already shared about my place may be, there are some even more colorful ones my contractors–perhaps very prudently–decided not to share with me.

For example, I finally met my next-door neighbors, Rod and Jan, who only come to visit on the occasional weekends.  Last summer, I wrote about the colony of bats that was discovered to be living under the siding of my house.  The portion of the story I was told by my contractor, Kenny, was colorful enough by itself but, apparently I didn’t have the full story.  Rod and Jan helped fill in a few more details about the discovery.

Apparently, my marina had become quite accustomed to seeing bats swooping between the houses in evening hours, skimming away bugs from the surface of the river like they were at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet.  No one really knew where they hung out during the day.  But they’d been fluttering around the marina for years, and marina residents had mentally placed them in the same category as other familiar evening callers such as our pair of herons, sea lion, and eagle.  Until the day Gene and Kenny discovered the bats daylight digs, at any rate.

Turns out, the marina’s colony had been happily living under the siding of my house.

To refresh your memory, when I bought my house, the siding was in abysmal shape.  It had been installed by someone who clearly didn’t know what they were doing.  And the weather hadn’t been kind to it in the ten or so years since then. One of the projects I hired Kenny for was to replace my siding.

One day last summer, as Kenny’s assistant, Gene peeled off a strip of siding, out flew the marina’s colony of bats—more than a little bit perturbed to be rousted in the middle of a sunny Saturday afternoon.

The cloud of bats went shooting up into the sky.  Gene toppled backward into the water.  I had thought that was the end of the story. But it only gets better from there.

Here is the the continuation as told to me last weekend by my next-door neighbors, Rod and Jan…

Just prior to the Great Bat Discovery, Rod and Jan had been sitting on their front poor enjoying cool glasses of white wine.  The front doors to their house were thrown open and their ceiling fan was on to draw in some of cool air off the water.  (Most of the places like mine in the marina don’t have AC.)  Their gangly, one-year-old German Shepherd was lazing in the doorway.

Just your typical lazy summer day on the river.  (Or so they thought, at any rate.)

Jan had just gone inside to refill her glass.  She remembers hearing Gene’s very un-Gene-like shriek, followed by a splash, and a soft curse from Kenny.  The next thing she knows, the inside of her house is enveloped in a cloud of very indignant bats who’ve refused to stop for directions.  They are not at all happy about being disturbed in the middle of their night and the house next door is the nearest dark, quiet place as far as they are concerned.

Quiet at any rate, until Jan starts screaming at the top of her lungs.  Then the bats are not any happier to see Jan than Jan is the bats.  They want out.  But they’re no longer certain where out is.

Jan also wants nothing more than to get out of the front door of the house. But that isn’t as simple as it might sound, however, as the panicked cloud of bats are between her and her route of escape.  Moreover, the ceiling fan blades have begun catching random member of the swarm and chucking them in her direction like a batting machine set to fast pitch.

And just as an added level of difficulty, the German Shepherd has decided to come to her rescue and is rapidly tearing apart the house in her attempts to snap at the bats.

Rod–moving with more speed and dexterity than he’s exhibited any time since his high school football days–wins major husband points for diving into the house, determinedly cutting through the swarm of upset  bats, and successfully hauling Jan outside.

At the point where Jan is hopping up and down on her deck, shuddering, and frantically raking through her hair to ensure there aren’t any bats entangled, Kenny shows up.  After fishing Gene out of the water, he has calmly ambled over and is quietly assessing the situation with his trademark lopsided smile.

Kenny’s first suggestion is to turn off the fan.

The second suggestion is to take the dog to the very confused neighbors’ porch and tie her up.

Suggestion three is to open the back door and garage door on the boat well to give the bats another, much quieter point of escape which doesn’t involve a blond woman still breaking into random fits of screams or a loudly barking German Shepherd who wants nothing more than to have them for lunch.

The majority of the swarm decide to take the hint and beat a hasty retreat out the back door.

Kenny and Rod then spend the next half hour or so encouraging the more befuddled and ceiling-fan-stunned refugees to follow the lead of their quicker-thinking counterparts.  And then Jan spends a good part of the afternoon attempting to restore order to her home.

How I managed to not hear the second half of the story of the bats until last weekend, I have no idea.  But now that word is out that I know, I keep running into other neighbors who are delighted to share their own anecdotes about the incident.

I suspect some degree of poetic license may be involved in the retelling at this point.  But the descriptions I’ve received of the bat colony making their final exit from my and my neighbor’s home sounds like it was worthy of a scene from The Birds.

While I am in no way thrilled at the thought bats used to live under the siding of my house, I do feel a little guilty about evicting them without providing whatever the bat equivalent is to 30-day notice.

I hope they have managed to find comfortable new digs somewhere close by.  (Just not too, close by, if you know what I mean.)

One of my friends was asking me recently if all tiny Houses were also environmentally friendly houses, or visa versa. I thought I would focus three Blog posts this week on the connection between the small home movement and the green home movement.  First, I wanted to write about Tiny Homes and indoor air quality. (I have lots of allergies, so I tend to think about air quality a lot!)

No one wants to live in a sick building, whether it is a tiny house or not.  Indoor air quality is often overlooked by most consumers and builders. However, a few innovative architects and builders are focusing on making the interiors of their homes more human friendly as well.

Eco-friendly is increasingly making its way to the heart of the tiny home movement.  It is not uncommon for rain capturing systems to be built into the roofs of tiny homes and for a great deal of thought to be given for the treatment of water in general.  The processing of “gray water” is appearing more and more often in tiny home design.  All of this only serves to compliment the incorporation of solar energy.

While indoor air quality is not as common as solar power and energy efficient materials, many builders and architects are beginning to pay a great deal of attention to this environmental issue as well.  Indoor air quality is often far more polluted than the air outside.  Part of the reason for this pollution is that indoor air quality suffers from all sorts of modern materials that “de-gas” and produce a wide variety of potentially harmful gases.  Many builders and architects are looking to materials such as bamboo, which is renewable, has a comparatively low impact on the environment, and does not produce VOC or Volatile Organic Compounds.  Many materials are being sought after more and more as part of this new, greener movement in housing.

The designs of eco-friendly and tiny homes benefit indoor air quality in another and much more subtle fashion.  Most designs, by necessity, are favoring large outdoor decks in order to augment the space at hand.  This design and space use choice has the added benefit of encouraging homeowners to venture outdoors more often.  When combined with large sliding doors, windows or even retractable glass walls, the end result is a home that should receive more much more fresh and flowing air.

Of course, it should be stated that plants are our friends. One of the very best moves a homeowner can make is to have a variety of air cleaning plants in whatever home they live.  NASA studies have shown that a handful of the right plants, such as ferns, can do wonders to reduce indoor air pollution.

Here’s something I’m willing to wager you won’t run across on any of the other small home/sustainable architecture blogs…  Polly the Inflatible Ho’.

I’m not kidding when I tell you that I never know what I’m going to see when I look outside my front window.  Sunset, in particular, tends to be a time for interesting sights.  Admittedly, Polly is perhaps even a bit more unusual than most.

Two doors down from me is The Snack Shack, inhabited by Paul and Brenda, two of the main culprits in why “E-Walk” has the reputation as party-central in the marina.

Anyway, when I glanced up from my work this evening, Paul was peddling by with Polly the Inflatible Ho’ as his boat-mate. Paul and Polly have been busy paddling around derailing evening traffic in the marina for the last half hour or so.

Apparently this was her maiden voyage in preparation for July 4th weekend when the marina will be flooded with vistors.  (Although, as I’ve informed Paul, I’m not sure there’s anything about Polly that qualifies as “maiden”.)

Female inhabitants of “E-Walk” are currently conspiring to track down a platinum blond wig for her.  I’ve suggested a beer bottle for the mouth.  Although, I can’t really decide if that would make Polly more or less child friendly.

The way that modern society is building homes is likely going to change dramatically.  The idea of hauling material from one end of the country or even the planet just to build a home seems somewhat insane, doesn’t it?  The idea that locally sourced materials are going to play a major part is construction more and more in the coming years is likely to go without saying.  Prefabrication is a good step in this direction, as it cuts down on waste and even transportation/ assembly costs.

Prefabrication is another major reoccurring them that one sees in the tiny home universe.  Prefabrication allows architects and builders to cut construction cost by eliminating waste and by reducing transportation costs.  The notion of being able to put finished tiny, modules or components on the back of semi-truck or railcar is a very attractive idea to builders and architects alike.  Prefabrication also gives builders and architects a great degree of control over what materials are used, thus making it easier to design homes that use less energy and are more environmentally friendly.

Prefabrication has the further benefit of helping architects and builders “go green.”  Adopting prefabrication allows for builders and architects to take full advantage of eco-friendly materials.  Materials such as recycled denim, recycled rubber made from car tires, and all sorts of other recycled materials often make their way into prefabricated homes.  The entire concept of being eco-friendly has evolved well beyond the notion of simply building a “tiny home.”

This move towards prefabrication also comes with some interesting, and perhaps even unexpected, side benefits.  One is variety.  With prefabrication it is possible for architects and builders to make their homes, tiny and otherwise, be much more adaptable to homeowner desires and needs.  The prefabrication movement is increasingly moving towards building home from core components and pieces that can be reassembled in different ways.  The end result is houses differently shaped on the inside and outside.

Another side benefit to the prefabrication movement is that prefabrication has the potential to make homes much more affordable.  Housing costs could be driven down dramatically through using prefabrication techniques.  When further combined by the interchangeability of many of the new designs, it should even be possible to avoid the “cookie cutter” look that has turned so many people off in the past.

Additional Information on Tiny Homes and Prefab:

• The Beauty of Mini Prefab Buildings
• Creating the House You Want with Tiny Home Kits
• Reclaimed Space Prefab
• Small Practical Prefab Living Space

Each Friday Coming Unmoored runs a weekly roundup of tiny homes featured on the web and recent news stories that may be of interest to small home enthusiasts.

Enjoy and have a wonderful weekend!

Tiny Houses Featured in the Past Week:

• Mini Prefabs
• Cargotecture Surf Shack
• Ambleside Bridge House
• Lake Effect Cottage
• Reclaimed Studio Shed
• Hill Farm Shepherd Hut
• EcoPod
• The Field Lab
• DWR Airstream Trailer
• Shanty Boat Build
• Rolling Huts
• Hobbit Holes (and lots of cool treehouses)
• Plankbridge Huts
• 77 Square Feet Living
• Dogtrot Cabin Two Mile Ranch
• Shedworking HQ (Design)
• Snail Shell System

Recent News Stories and Essays on Tiny Homes and the Small Home Movement:

• The Next Little Thing (Continental Magazine)
• The Beauty of Mini Prefab (LA Times)
• Is Small the Next Big Thing? (Washington Examiner)

New Small Home Websites and Blogs to Check Out:

• Small Footprint Living
• Mini-Mobile Cottage
  

If you are considering an eco-friendly tiny house, you should take a look at BuildingWithAwareness.com.  This great site has a lot of really impressive tips and information for those who want to build green or are interested in alternative building materials.  Straw bale house construction and different approaches to energy are given a lot of attention on the site.  They have a nice overview of how to build green with straw bale.  It might come as a surprise to learn that if done correctly, straw bale can be an excellent insulator.  How well insulated?  How about R-35, now that is a pretty high R-value.

Another big surprise concerning straw bale construction is that most straw is simply burned after use.  This, of course, means that this potentially great building material is just “tossed” away.  Earth plaster walls and solar panels are considered to be a vital part in the construction of a straw bale house, and the end result does seem like a very attractive and earth friendly concept.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the site is its breakdown of what it costs to build a straw bale house.  This is where BuildingWithAwareness.com becomes a uniquely interesting site.  They have a pretty detailed breakdown of all the cost with the end tally being about $88,000 to build your own straw bale tiny house.  The largest expenditures are labor and services such as hiring a plumber, which accounts for about $22,000 of the overall budget.  General construction materials come in as the second most expensive cost at $13,000 roughly.  This cost includes concrete, adobe bricks, various other materials and, of course, about 500 straw bales.  The third most expensive aspect of the straw bale house is the photovoltaic electrical system, which ran about $13,000.

Another good source of information on the site is its section on “Green Building Tips for Straw Bale Houses.”  The number one step is one that tiny houses fans will certainly appreciate-”build small and build only what you need.”  As they point out, this does a great deal in reducing heating and cooling costs.  But this tip is just one of many good suggestions on the site.

BuildingWithAwareness.com does have a DVD and book they are selling, and for those who are seriously considering building a tiny home (and most especially building a straw bale home), the DVD and book may very well be a no-brainer.