For anyone who may have missed this video over on Ryan Mitchell’s The Tiny Life, Jonathan Bellow’s has posted a video of his customized Fencl in the process of being built.

This is probably my favorite of the Tumbleweed designs so I was excited to see how someone has modified one for his own purposes.

Last month, the Guggenheim Museum and Google teamed up for a very innovative online design contest.   That fact in and of itself is interesting as it is a very interesting and unexpected team-up. However, what is even more interesting is the fact that the contest, entitled the “Design It: Shelter Competition” involves designing the best tiny shelter.  Participants are encouraged to design a virtual 3d 100 square foot living/working space using Google’s new Google Sketch Up software, and then place the house on a map with Google Earth.  Both Google Earth and Google Sketch Up are free to download and use.

The  contest asks participants the questions: where would you build your shelter?  And how would you respond to the environment around your shelter? Obviously, Frank Lloyd Wright was inspired by the connection of a house to its environment. The Design It: Shelter Competition seeks to reflect and incorporate Wright’s fascination with the natural elements surrounding a house.

This contest is running in conjunction with the Guggenheim’s new exhibit, running until August 23rd, entitled “Learning By Doing.” The art exhibit features shelters that were designed by students of Taliesin, the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture.  Through the design process, the students learn various important issues involved in design.

The Design it: Shelter Competition is open to amateur as well as professional designers. You can read more about the contest and even enter the contest at the Guggenheim’s website. Entries are being taken until August 23rd which coincides with the last day of the Learning by Doing exhibit.  (If you happen to be in New York City between now and the end of August, definitely check out this exhibit as it sounds pretty intriguing.)

The Design It: Shelter Competition rules include the following:

You can build your shelter anywhere on Earth: from city to desert, hill to valley. You cannot remove any existing buildings, but you can add on to existing structures.”

Keep your shelter small—the interior/sheltered space can be no larger than 100 square feet (9.3 square meters), and entire shelter no taller than 12 feet (3.6 meters).

Your shelter must offer protection from the elements and provide a space for one person to study and sleep. Keep it simple—no water, gas or electricity allowed.

The students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture will choose the finalists and public voting will take place from September to October 2009.

Many of you might be familiar with my Coming Unmoored Blog posts on tiny houses and sustainable housing. This week I thought that I would mix it up a little and cover some topics related to small space living.

Obviously, if you are trying to decide on your appliances for a tiny house, it is key to start paring down the big things.  Things like full sized washer dryers and massive refrigerators are simply going to take up too much space and will need to go by the wayside. (Yes, if you have a grand piano, you very likely might need to say goodbye and take up a smaller instrument!)

In keeping with this theme, a company called The Laundry Alternative, based in Middletown Springs Vermont, has come out with a very tiny and also very green approach to doing laundry in small spaces.   The Laundry Alternative is selling their Wonderwash washing machine for only $42.95. This gadget, which you can basically fit on a countertop, claims to easily cleans a 5 lb load of laundry in just a few minutes.. and with no electricity.  Thus, not only are you reducing space, but the amount of energy necessary to do laundry is also dramatically reduced.

The Wonderwash measures about 12″ x 12″ x “16, and has a patented pressure system. What happens is that detergent is forced into the fabric at a very high speed. You simply add hot water to the Wonder Wash and the air inside the drum expands from the heat. The high level of pressure is created as a result. In the process, the machine also uses 90% less water and detergent. The Laundry Alternative makes the assertion that this device pays for itself through your savings after only 8 weeks.

The Wonderwash is being marketed to a crowd that includes college students, rv owners, environmentalists, singles and frugal people. And their logic definitely makes sense. If you are trying to reduce your power consumption or if you are just one person doing  laundry for yourself, the standard sized washer and dryers are indeed excessive.

The company also makes an energy efficient and compact Spin dryer as well.

MetroShip isn’t just a pretty face that photographs well.  This cutting-edge house boat concept is hand-made in the United States and inspired by the open floor plans of New York City loft spaces.  Stating that a great deal of thought and care went into the MetroShip would be an understatement.  From concept and design to a finished product, the MetroShip took seven years.  What emerged from those seven years of development was a well-thought out and well-executed vision of how flexible and stylish a houseship could be.

Materials play a vital role in the concept of the MetroShip.  The hull is made out of either of aluminum, fiberglass or steel hull, with translucent aluminum grid panels.  There is a one piece fiberglass roof system as well.

Much of the MetroShip concept revolves around the fact that the designer wanted to the MetroShip to feel like a “updated Frank Lloyd Wright home but with an open New York Loft condo style.”  The materials selected for the concept thus went hand in hand with this design goal.

Interior design was of paramount importance with a major goal being to avoid the “RV at sea” look that is often found in floating homes.  With this goal in mind, tremendous attention was paid to the design of the kitchen and bathroom.  The look, feel and functionality of the kitchen was key as was the idea that the bathroom needed to be full-sized and not scaled down as found on most boats for example.  Another critical aspect of the interior design was light.  The interior space needed to be flooded in light.  Often houseboats are lacking in windows and thus lacking in light.  The MetroShip concept was one were light needed to flow freely.

The tagline for MetroShip is “The Original Modern Houseship.”  And this tagline certainly fits.  The MetroShip has a look and feel that is often missing from most houseships or floating homes.  Complete with engines, the MetroShip is capable of moving under its own power.  At 48 feet in length and 12 feet wide, the MetroShip has plenty of room to not only stretch out but do so from almost anywhere.

We have previously covered commercially available toilets equipped with a toilet tank sink as one small space living solution.  Well, apparently one enterprising home owner, Greg Neely, figured out how to build his own and he’s written a series of instructions.

The great thing is that this approach can be used with a variety of commercially available toilets.  In particular, I like his approach because he uses easily available tools and recycled materials (which can later be reused again).

Greg’s instructions can be found over on Instructables.com.

Demonstration of the Sink:

(Before you freak out, he doesn’t actually use the toilet.)

Alright, dear readers.  I happen to have an extra, shiny, brand-new copy of Jay Shafer’s lovely Small House Book on hand.

As wonderful as this book is, those of you who’ve been following my story will understand that the last thing I need in my life is a duplicate copy of a book.  (Especially when I actually have two other copies of my own.)

So, for the next week, I will be running a contest to find a new, appreciative home for this book.

In order to “enter”, all you need to do is leave a comment on this post giving me your wish-list of what you would like to see on Coming Unmoored.  (For example: more info on how to build your own home, more personal anecdotes, less personal anecdotes, more pictures of Rumi.  What have you.)

I’m in the process of planning where my blog will go from here and I really want to make it something that is both entertaining and useful to our regular readers.

Next Wednesday, I will randomly select someone from everyone who’s taken the time to comment and mail the book to them.  (So please make sure to leave an email address where I can reach you!)

I look forward to hearing your feedback.

(And if you don’t happen to win the copy of the book, it can now be ordered from the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company website.)

As many tiny homes are built off-grid, I wanted to share this excellent reference article.  It was written by Heather and originally published on The Greenest Dollar a few months back.  If you’ve never read Heather’s website, I encourage you to go take a look.

Many people have a lot of misconceptions when they hear the words “composting toilets”. Immediately they think “outhouse” or imagine a hole in the ground. Yucky, smelly, and a little drafty.

Well, the composting toilets of 100 years ago (the outhouse) and the composting toilets of today are completely different creatures.

Today’s composting toilets are sleek, efficient, and entirely odor-free. So hang on. We’re going to go take an in-depth look at our stinkier side, and learn how composting toilets can allow us to become more eco-friendly and completely “waste free”.

The Facts On Our Waste
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, septic tanks are a big cause of groundwater pollution. On average, a family of 4 puts 150 gallons of water into a septic tank each day.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, septic tanks are a big cause of groundwater pollution. On average, a family of 4 puts 150 gallons of water into a septic tank each day.

You’ve probably never really thought about it, but where does all that water go, anyway?

Well, septic tanks are designed to have a “leach field” or “drain field” around them. Here’s how it works:

Most septic tanks are 1,000 gallons or larger. Wastewater flows in the tank on one end, and is drained into the surrounding area through the other.

At the bottom is the sludge layer. I’ll let your imagination tell you what’s down there.

At the top is the scum layer (no I did NOT make up these terms, that’s really what it’s called).

In the middle of those two yucky layers is the wastewater that gets drained out. That is, the excess water is drained into the dirt below, and the solid “waste” is left behind to dissolve in the tank.

Think that excess water is 100% pure? Hardly. It’s loaded down with pollutants like bacteria, phosphates, and nitrates, all of which harm local watersheds. Yuck.

According to the “Humanure Handbook“, up to 1,460 billion gallons of this water is leached out of septic tanks each year in America.

That’s an awful lot of dirty water that’s going into our streams and rivers. Yikes.

Now, the soil is a natural filter. Out in the country, there’s plenty of open space for the land to naturally filter all these contaminates out. The problem comes in densely packed urban areas, such as subdivisions. If 30 homes in a neighborhood all have a septic tank, the soil can’t handle all the leach water. So, pollution occurs.

Benefits To Using A Composting Toilet
The cool, amazing thing about composting toilets is that they cut all of this mess out. There’s zero pollution, zero waste, and zero lost water.

Here’s the rundown:

Envirolet estimates that composting toilets reduce household water use by 60%

In fact, Sun-Mar composting toilets estimate that an average family of four flushes 70 gallons of water down the toilet every day, which is a whopping 25,000 gallons per year. They estimate that based on all the composting toilets they’ve sold in the past, their company alone is saving 6,103 gallons of water every minute.

They also keep you from “depending” on your septic tank or city wastewater treatment facility. Ever been in a natural disaster, when the city couldn’t process your water (and thus you couldn’t flush your toilet)? That dependence is completely eliminated with compost toilets.

You can also use the system to compost food scraps and lawn clippings. Try putting those things down your current toilet. Yeah right.

They’re truly environmentally friendly. Neat.

Now the only downside here is that if you live in an apartment, or you’re renting a home, installing a composting toilet isn’t going to be an option. But perhaps your landlord might be interested to hear just how much water these babies save per year. Those savings really add up, and these composting toilets pay for themselves in just a few years.

How Do Composting Toilets Work?
Composting toilets work by quickly dehydrating 90% of the liquid that’s in our waste, and then composting the remaining 10% solids that are left. We can then use those solids, called “humus”, as additive for lawns.

Think I’m kidding here? It’s no joke. You really can turn your poo into garden soil. Let’s continue onward for more detail…

Types of Composting Toilets
There are 2 broad “types” of composting toilets.

Batch systems, or self contained systems (like the picture up above, on right), are “all in one” units. The waste is composted in a tray at the bottom. See that pipe sticking up behind the toilet? That a ventilation pipe. A small wind turbine that’s at the top of that pipe, on your roof, is what keeps the unit completely odor-free.

These systems are designed for lighter use (two person households, or occasionally used vacation cottages). They’re completely waterless. And don’t worry; when you lift up the lid, you don’t see what’s composting in the tray. These toilets have a cover that separate your eyes, and your bum, from what’s being broken down below.

Another perk to these system is that they require no winterization. If you live in a cold climate, then you don’t ever have to worry about your pipes freezing.

Batch systems may only have one tray for composting, or they may have several depending on which model you choose. And how often you have to empty these trays largely depends on how much you use the toilet, and how many people are in your household.

Continual process systems are designed for larger households (pic on right). These can handle more waste, and are perfect if you have a basement or your house is built above ground.

The picture on right is part of a waterless system by Envirolet. It can handle waste from up to 10 people per day, and only has to be emptied every six months or so.

Low Water Systems
Some companies, such as Envirolet, also make low water composting toilets. If you squirm at the thought of letting your waste just go down a hole, then you might want to consider these systems.

They work on the same design as the continual process systems in the sense that there is a large composting unit outside the home. But the difference is that your waste is “flushed” down with a mere pint of water. With the Envirolet system, you can install up to three low flush toilets on one line.

Can I Put Toilet Paper Down There?
As far as I can tell, you can put unbleached toilet paper into composting toilets. But, feminine hygiene products are a no-no.

How Much Do Composting Toilets Cost?
Composting toilets run anywhere from $500 to $2,000. Just like anything else, you’ve got your choices. Every brand and maker is different, and they’ve all got different bells and whistles.

Of course, you could try making your own for far less money. Many people do (see the Resources section below…)

Composting Toilet Resources
These vendors make good composting toilets:

• BioLet
  

• Envirolet
  

• Sun Mar

• Phoenix Composting Toilet Systems

• TreeHugger.com’s video, “Operating A Composting Toilet”

And here’s some resources if you want to try making your own…

• Build Your Own Humanure Toilet

Last Word…
I never, ever thought I would actually have “feelings” for a toilet, but I truly love these systems. You can bet I’m incorporating a waterless compost toilet into our micro home design, and I can’t wait to get one!

Innovative architects and designers continue to amaze us with what they are able to do with today’s tiny homes and tiny spaces. Take the Maff Apartment in The Hague, The Netherlands. The Maff Apartment is located on the top floor of a large mansion in the center of The Hague, and is within walking distance of government buildings, cinemas and restaurants.

This tiny space looks very much like something out of the mind of the set designer of the film Minority Report. This sleek, largely white space is full of cool curves and decidedly futuristic touches. Anyone skeptical about what how impressive a tiny space can be, need look no further than the Maff Apartment. There is ample light getting into the space through the numerous large skylights, which only serve to add to the feeling of space one gets while visiting the Maff Apartment.

The Maff Apartment sports many touches not usually found in hotels and short stay locations. For example, the apartment offers a private entrance with an intercom system, free wireless and high-speed Internet access, a DVD player with a 100 movies thrown in, as well as a dishwasher.

Having free Internet access and a DVD with 100 movies included is a nice touch. For anyone that has done a great deal of globetrotting, the idea of having all of these perks thrown in on top of the great look and feel of the Maff Apartment is a most welcomed plus.

But it’s the look of the Maff Apartment that makes it an easy sell. In fact, the Maff Apartment is worthy of study for anyone considering building a tiny home.

What was perhaps most surprising about the Maff Apartment is the cost to stay overnight. One night is currently running about 145 Euros, but that price drops to only 105 Euros for stays over two weeks or more. Considering what one is getting for the price, this is an exceptional bargain. There are some minor restrictions, such as no shoes and no pets, but considering the value for the dollar this seems to be minor consideration.

I just had to share this lovely little drawing that Rima Staines posted over on The Hermitage this morning.  While I’m not sure I’d like a tiny home that small, I find the drawing utterly charming, like a lot of Rima’s work.

The artist also happens to be a tiny home dweller herself.  She and her partner, Tui, live and travel around the U.K. countryside in an old wooden van they’ve remodeled to look remarkably like a hobbit hole and dubbed The Hermitage.  We have featured their little home previously on Coming Unmoored.

You can follow Rima’s adventures and work over on her wonderful blog, The Hermitage.

Drawing by artist Rima Staines

If you are in London, England are looking for a luxurious tiny home experience, we have just the place for you.  The Lux Pod in South Kensington, which is in Central London, offers a very unique experience.  If you are not familiar with South Kensington, it is a fantastic spot to use as your home base in exploring London.

South Kensington is a very safe neighborhood and is strategically placed in London.  The Lux Pod is within a short walk of so many of London’s key attractions, such as The Victoria, Albert Museum, Kensington Palace, Royal Albert Hall and Hyde Park.  In fact, all of these attractions are a five to ten minute walk from the Lux Pod, making its location excellent for any vacation to London.

The Lux Pod couldn’t be more aptly named.  Just a quick glance at this amazingly decorated luxury holiday apartment will quickly show just how innovative the Lux Pod is.  The decor is decidedly modern, sleek and high-tech.

How high-tech is the Lux Pod?  There are touches absolutely everywhere.  Lutron interactive mood lighting is available for ths space, as is Sky+ HD to go with the Bang & Olufsen BeoCentre High Definition Television. There is free Wi-Fi to boot! This is an impressive amount of tech packed into this small space.

The luxury touches don’t end there, as the Lux Pod has other stylish creature comforts as well.  The minimalist design and furnishing are a definite hit, as will be the Tempur-Pedic mattress (after the long flight!).

The Lux Pod is a great example of a small space done correctly.  Careful attention has been put into every aspect of its design.  Everywhere you look, the space has been used in an optimal fashion, literally taking advantage of every inch of space.  In my mind this is a key element of the small home and small space movement- taking a relatively small space and absolutely getting the most out of it.

Fact is, Lux Pod is done so well, it is worthy of study.

To get a taste of how truly awesome a tiny space can be go to www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/luxpod.  Small home enthusiasts, who love minimalistic design, will no doubt find the Lux Pod a great treat found right in the heart of London.