How serious is the building industry about tiny homes and going green?  Well… a giant corporation like Clayton homes is now involved in both building tiny homes and building green homes.

Tiny and green seem like they are both here to stay.  You might not be familiar with Clayton Homes but they are gigantic, one of the Wal-Mart’s of housing construction.  This massive company has built over 1.5 million homes since 1934 many of them mobile homes and modular homes.  They have 12,000 employees, which they call “team members,” and have 35 different home building facilities.  They also have a big hand in the financing of homes as well.  So who owns Clayton Homes?  A guy by the name of Warren Buffet.  Maybe you’ve heard of him.

The i-House is the concept by Clayton Homes which mirrors much of what we have seen with tiny home and green home pioneers in recent years.  The i-House uses solar panels, energy efficient windows compact fluorescent lighting and energy star appliances to cut down on energy cost.  On the health front, the i-House uses bamboo floors and no V.O.C. paint, both a common fixture in the tiny house and green home movement.  They have even incorporated water saving features such as a tankless water heater, low flow faucets and dual flush toilets.  Additional water is saved via a rainwater catching system.  Interesting.

They have several layouts of i-homes to choose from with catching names like “Layout A,” which is 723 square feet, “Layout B,” which is 991 square feet, and yes “Layout C,” also at 991 square feet.  The homes have a very slick and modern look that will no doubt remind many small home fans of other tiny homes and green homes they have seen.

Having a giant corporation like Clayton get in the tiny home game could be a great thing for the planet.  Clayton produces a lot of homes on an annual basis, and if they were to go green it would have a profound impact on the environment and the housing industry.  Let’s hope the ideas of the i-house are for real and not just pr, as this would be great for all involved.

So, I’m afraid I’m a little behind on my personal updates again. My day-job has been seriously kicking my butt lately.  Probably in part due to this being our busiest time of the year.  I’m going to be really glad when July rolls around and things start to slow down.

Anyway, playing catch-up…

Two of the other writers who are part of the Small Living Journal, Tammy from Rowdykittens and Amanda from Constructing a Simpler Life, came out to visit last week.  Both Tammy and Amanda spent a night with me each, and all three of us got together for a long lunch at the Pearl Street Bakery.

Tammy arrived in town first, and I’m afraid she got the worst of the Portland weather the first day she came out and the night she stayed with me.  She was a remarkably good sport about it, however.  We spent a good portion of the day and evening just chatting. And the next morning as the weather began to clear, Tammy ran around the marina in her pj’s like a madwoman snapping a bunch of lovely photos.  She also took several of Rumi swilling beer.  You can see both sets of pictures here.

Tammy is just as upbeat, energetic, and sweet-natured as you would expect from the writing on her blog.  She had Rumi completely charmed in under a minute flat.  She even got him hamming it up for a camera which is a complete first.  I had to keep a close eye on him when she was getting ready to leave.  Otherwise, I suspect he might have tried to hitchhike along in her suitcase.

As already mentioned, Tammy is a bundle of energy.  Thankfully, the weather cleared up from there and the rest of the weekend was gorgeous.  She spent the next few days of her mini-vacation running over every corner of Portland, managing to cover more ground than I have since moving here.  You can follow the rest of her adventures in Portland over on Rowdykittens.

Amanda rolled in late the following night.  Her flight didn’t get in until close to eleven and by the time she found the marina it was approaching midnight.  I was exhausted from a long week at work (and staying up well past my regular, wussy bedtime).  Amanda was exhausted from being in the final stretch of her graduate degree program.  Somehow, though, we ended up both being wired and yakking for a good two hours until I finally had to call it a night and get some sleep.

This would be all well and good except I then proceeded to wake up around my regular time – 5 AM since I’m used to dealing with clients on the east coast for work.  Amanda, on the other hand, had no such aspirations to be up so early.

If my guestroom had been finished, Amanda might have had a fighting chance at catching a few more hours sleep.  But she was stuck in my living room.  And, to only make matters worse, Rumi was totally into the whole house-guest thing by this point.  After having spent the previous morning with Tammy cooing over him at great lengths, he couldn’t wait for Amanda to wake up and do likewise.  So I’m afraid he kind of tried to help things along.

Amanda is a down-to-earth, extremely approachable, wickedly funny Texan.  Although she’s managed to lose a good portion of her accent from her time in California. Meeting her in-person helped me to understand how she manages to take such wonderfully candid photos of the people in the small home movement that are part of her thesis project.  I can’t imagine there are many people who, in under a half-hour of meeting her, would hesitate to tell her pretty much anything about themselves.

I worked for the first half of the day while Amanda slowly stirred to life.  Then the two of us met up with Tammy at the Pearl Street Bakery, where we had the most divine lunch of roasted eggplant pannini’s on fresh-baked bread.

Lunch with all three of us was great fun.  We gabbed at length about the small home movement and various ideas we each had.  Tammy was too well-mannered, but I pumped Amanda at length about her experiences interviewing various people in the movement as part of her thesis project.  Amanda is a fantastic storyteller, which made listening to her all that much more interesting.  And we chatted about all sorts of other things going on in each of our lives.

Naturally, I lobbied hard for both of them to move to Portland and help me start our own little small home outpost outside of Sebastapol, California.  (With both of them bringing their other halves in tow.)

It was with some regret that I finally had to wrap-up lunch and get back to the marina (and the rest of my work day).  Before heading on to the rest of her trip, Amanda interviewed me and also took some pics of both me and my floating home for her project.  I haven’t seen any of the pics yet.  But just based on some of the ideas she came up with, I’m really interested to see how they turned out.

Then Amanda went along her way and was off to interview Mokihana Salazar in the morning.  You can follow the next leg in Amanda’s trip here.

Anyway, it was fantastic to meet both Tammy and Amanda in person.  I rather selfishly hope they’re both back here soon!

This video is getting a little dated but, as a tiny-houser, I still found it interesting.  Christopher Deam is an architect and designer who drew national attention in 2000 when he redesigned the American icon, the Airstream trailer.  In 2002, he presented an overview of the project to TED.

I imagine Deam’s redesign looks less radical to our eyes in 2009 than it did in 2000.  But it’s interesting to me to see some of the solutions he came up with.  Like most of the architects I admire, he is concerned with purpose, utility, and authenticity.

This video runs only 7 minutes which seemed like a good length for a holiday weekend.  Happy Memorial Day weekend for those of you in the States!

Christopher Deam has also designed for Herman Miller and Target.  For further information on his work, please visit his website.

So all us tiny home bloggers are in a tizzy of excitement right now due to the Tiny House Project.  A group of artists, architects, and people passionate about sustainable living have gotten together on a project to build a mobile tiny home neighborhood that will serve as a traveling art exhibition.

“The Tiny House Project will put out a call for submissions asking artists for tiny house project proposals. Specific criteria for these proposals are being developed with input from members of the Project’s Advisory Committee to ensure that the resulting structures meet artistic, environmental, structural and communication objectives. A qualified selection panel will choose nine tiny house projects from the pool of applicants to receive funding (a more detailed description of this two-stage call follows). Each artist/project team will be given a 7’ x 14’ trailer bed and $23,000 to cover the cost of materials and artists’ fees associated with designing and building a tiny house that will then be incorporated into a temporarily occupied micro-community and a follow-on traveling exhibition.”

So those of you who’ve been dreaming of building your own tiny home but worrying that you simply don’t have the funds–here’s your shot.

I’m really excited to see the designs generated by this project.  In fact, even though I’m already in my own tiny home I’m really tempted to submit my own design I’d just so love to contribute to the project.

In particular, I’d really love to see some designs submitted that would work for the wheel-chair bound or people with other special needs (for example, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity).  In addition, I’d love to see designs incorporating more green materials.

If you’re interested in learning more visit The Tiny House Project . Be sure to subscribe to their RSS feed and sign up on their mailing list.

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.

This week, in particular, has been a bumper-crop of news stories.  Make sure to check out some of the ones below!

Enjoy and have a wonderful holiday weekend! (For those in the U.S.)

Tiny Houses Featured in the Past Week:

• Portland Cottages
• Rocio Romero LVM Series
• Sidekick Homes
  
• LostRiverModern
• Dwelling Shed
• Surrey Traditional Builders
• Tiny House of India
• Smart Container House
• Sonoma Shanty
• Man Shed
• Floating Getaway
• Butler Projects
• Lifepod
• Abito Pods
• 400 sq. ft Barn House

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

• Small Living Journal – Issue 5

New Small Home Websites and Blogs to Check Out:

• Technomadia
• Yonderosa
• Tiny House Project
• HybridSeattle (focuses on hybrid container homes)
• Green Hamlet Eco Village (Poland)

(Picture by Tammy at RowdyKittens)

Modular Dwellings is the brainchild of Edgar Blazona. Blazona is a  furniture designer and builder who is also a San Francisco native.  Modular Dwellings considers itself to be part of the “California new Prefab architectural movement.”  They build custom tiny homes that are focused on being quickly assembled and transported.  They have numerous creative and innovative designs.

The MD 280 by Modular Dwellings packs a lot of style and functionality into a mere 280 square foot package.  Part of how the Modular Dwellings team pulled this off was to incorporate a nine-foot wall that is made of glass from floor to ceiling.  This gives this tiny house an open and bright feel that is bound to impart those living within with the impression that they are in a much bigger space.  The MD 280 is designed to be a guesthouse and comes with a kitchen, bedroom and bathroom.  Moreover the MD 280 is designed with an eye toward easy shipping as it can be placed on the back of a semi truck trailer.

Another design by the Modular Dwellings team was a custom built 10′ x 12′ structure that is has a steel frame and hardwood exterior.  The entire front of this tiny home is opened up with large floor to ceiling windows that like the MD 280 give the space a much larger feel.  The MD 120 is designed primarily to be a bedroom.

A slightly smaller structure is the MD 100, which was designed in part to be a “do-it-yourself” project.  The parts are all easily fabricated and the entire project can be completed using off-the-shelf materials.  Another aspect of the design is that the MD 100 is easy to assemble, making this a great first time project for someone interesting in building his or her own tiny home.

Modular Dwellings designs and concepts should really be a hit with homeowners looking for a tiny home that can be built easily and quickly.  With work like this, there is little doubt that Blazona’s current concepts are just the beginning.

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.)

Loq-kit is one of those grand home concepts that instantly indicates that the home building industry is definitely changing.  What does Loq-kit do that is so different and unique?  The Loq-kit approach wants to literally mass-produce house parts.  And why not?  Isn’t mass production how we build so much of what modern society uses?  Using the Log-kit approach homes can easily be assembled out of a collection of different mass produced parts.  The Loq-kit approach does not mean that all the homes will look alike; to the contrary, the Loq-kit homes have variability built into the concept.

One of the great parts of the design concept is that the parts and component use a “snap-lock” system.  This is part of what makes the concept so exciting, as the home can literally be snapped together.  Even more exciting these snapped together pieces can be separated, allowing for the house to be disassembled and moved.  A house that can be moved, what else can you ask for out of a house?

The fact that Loq-kit homes can be snapped together has several important implications.  This means no wood, no nails in the Loq-kit design.  This also means that the housing parts are reusable and could be used to build a larger structure or change the configuration at a later time.  Or maybe you just want to move your doors and windows as it turns out this too is be possible.  It is even possible to literally raise the roof.  Homeowners could change their roofs, adding more solar panels if their energy needs grow to site but one example.

So what parts are in a Loq-kit house?  There are three main types of components: the modular metal frame, modular infill and modular snap-cladding.  A key aspect of the design is the 6-way connector which enables the components to be locked together by applying pressure in one of six directions: upward, right, left, downward, exterior toward the interior and interior toward the exterior.  Even the wall panels snap into place.

You’re not likely to see too many housing concepts more innovative than the modular and interchangeable designs of the Loq-kit.  The Loq-kit concept underscores what big changes are in store for the entire housing market.

Additional information can be found on the Loq-kit website.

The lastest issue of Small Living Journal has just been released.  This issue’s theme is “Planning for the Future”.

As one of the contributors, I found it interesting that this was the issue several of the regular writers found the most challenging to write.  Still giving some thought to why that might be the case.

Anyway, please come check out the latest issue and let us know your own plans and dreams!

Photo by Tammy of RowdyKittens.

San Francisco based architect Kyu Che has come up with a design that is sure to captive most of those who see it.  The Lifepod concept is a sleek fusion of white curves and ample windows.  The design concept is to take the very best of 21st century technology from the automotive, aeronautic and RV industries and combine them into what Che calls “high tech mini capsule living.”

The Lifepod has more going for it that cool looks.  Che has realized the importance of transportation and portability in the entire prefabricated, tiny house process.  The issue of portability has thus impacted his overall design considerably.  This tiny house is nomadic in that it is collapsible and lightweight.  In fact, the Lifepod is designed in such a fashion that all of its components can be shipped inside of a standard forty-foot container.  This means that a Lifepod could make its way anywhere in the world in days or weeks.

Che wants the Lifepod to flexible enough that it can be put almost anywhere.  In order to meet this goal, he mimicked our four legged mammal cousins and designed different kinds of resting legs for the Lifepod.  There are four different styles of legs with each being more suited to the contours of the landscape.  These different “legs” will enable the Lifepod to sit in water or perch atop an apartment building.

With an eye towards our coming green future the Lifepod plans to be off-the-grid and free from utilities.  In this way the Lifepod can truly go almost anywhere.  If none of this has sparked your imagination consider this for a moment, one of Che’s Lifepod designs is to suspend the Lifepod from cables so its owners can hangout with the tree tops!

A big part of what makes the Lifepod so unique is that Che took a very comprehensive approach to the total design. He spent time factoring in not only the living space design, but also how that design will interact with the environment.  This is part of what makes Che’s designs not just innovative and practical, but quite fun as well.