This tiny home composed of two shipping containers is designed for off-grid living

The Mansfield Container House is an L-shaped tiny home composed of two disused shipping containers that merge together to form a tiny, off-grid cabin.

Shipping container homes have redefined modern architecture. Designers and architects across the globe have turned to disused shipping containers to convert into insulated, tiny homes. Cost-effective, eco-friendly, and modular by design, shipping containers provide the ideal template for designers and architects to have at it and let their creativity fly.

Designer: Robbie Walker

In the foothills of Australia’s Victorian Alps, Melbourne-based architect Robbie Walker merged two disused shipping containers together to form a tiny, off-grid cabin for family holidays and solo rendezvous.

Named Mansfield Container House after the town where it resides, Walker’s tiny home is comprised of two 20-foot shipping containers that amount to 30-square-feet in total. Coated with heavy-duty paint, Walker hoped to maintain the industrial personality of shipping containers on the outside. Inside, natural, polished plywood clads the interior walls to help brighten the exterior’s heavy-duty look.

Forming a right angle, the two shipping containers are connected by an external, hydraulics deck that folds down from one of the two shipping containers. Just in front of the fold-down deck, residents and guests can make use of the outdoor space with an expansive fireplace that can be used year-round.

Stationed behind the fold-down deck, the tiny home’s residents enjoy enough room for a living room, bathroom, and kitchen, which is equipped with a fold-out table as well as a fold-out guest bed.

In the other container, the main bedroom can be found, where a fold-down double bed and triple bunk are located with self-inflating mattresses. To save space and avoid unnecessary crowding between the two containers, a bathroom and kitchen sink can also be accessed in the bedroom container.

Stocked with all of the necessities for off-grid living, the Mansfield Container House has the means for solar power as well as water treatment systems. Solar panels were placed on the roof to generate and store solar power, while water bladders were built into the roof to preserve 1,000 liters of rainwater. Then, an integrated steel screen produces some shade for the sunny days the tiny home’s residents want to lounge out on the deck.

Since the cabin is off-grid, it does come with its own catalog of operational duties, as Walker explains, “It’s similar to the way a sailor must operate a yacht—you need to open a window to catch a breeze, and close down at the right time to avoid the bugs. But that’s part of the fun. It brings you closer to the elements and nature in this beautiful part of the world.”

The tiny home is a familiar sight on the farm, where several shipping containers plot the land. 

Inside, natural, polished plywood lines the walls for a warm contrast to the home’s industrial exterior.

The post This tiny home composed of two shipping containers is designed for off-grid living first appeared on Yanko Design.

This DIY tiny home on wheels is a modernist haven inspired by desert architecture!

Lola is a tiny home on wheels that’s part of designer Mariah Hoffman’s larger multi-disciplinary design studio and brand Micro Modula, one that explores “home, place, and the self.”

There hasn’t been a more opportune time for tiny homes on wheels to take the spotlight. In an effort to feel closer to nature and embrace more eco-friendly lifestyles, we all seem to be downsizing these days and itching to travel without leaving our home comforts behind.

Enter tiny homes on wheels, small living spaces stripped down to their bare essentials that can move anywhere the wind blows, so long as there’s an open road. Joining the movement, self-taught spatial designer and overall creative, Mariah Hoffman planned and constructed her own tiny home on wheels called Lola.

Over the span of five years, Hoffman gradually transformed an old utility trailer into a 156-square-foot mobile tiny home. Born out of a daydream to build her own home, Hoffman built Lola to “learn all the necessary skills for [her] personal and creative survival.”

Particularly spurred by the essentialist edge of desert modernism, Hoffman turned to construction materials that aesthetically met the bill and also provided some functional elements for the home to brace the seasons as well as the local critters.

Located in sunny San Diego, Lola’s external facades are sided with exterior-grade, Shou sugi ban plywood that was chosen for a minimalist, charred black profile and for its resistance against damage brought on by bugs, fire, and the weather.

Outfitted with solar panels for electricity and power, Hoffman positioned Lola “so that [the] largest windows face North/South to maximize passive solar,” which means, “the low winter brings bright morning days,” as she describes in an Instagram post.

To complement the home’s dark exterior, Hoffman clad the open-plan interior walls in light-toned birch panels. Merging the bright walls with exposed black-steel structural framing, Hoffman planned the interior in honor of the midcentury design that helped inspire Lola’s final form.

Then, throughout the home, Hoffman integrated multifunctional furniture and hidden storage spaces to optimize the available living space, helping the tiny home on wheels to not feel so tiny.

Designer: Mariah Hoffman x Micro Modula

Mariah Hoffman planned and built Lola over the span of five years. 

Lola was transformed into a tiny home on wheels from a disused trailer.

The post This DIY tiny home on wheels is a modernist haven inspired by desert architecture! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 40sqm sustainable tiny home built using repurposed materials features a 30-degree solar-paneled roof!





Built with an angled roof, the galvanized clad tiny home accommodates travelers near and far who want to get closer to rural Australia.

The tourism industry has seen some major changes in sustainability in recent years. Hospitality companies like Airbnb and homeowners alike work together to progress tourism into an industry that doesn’t disrupt pre-existing landscapes and cultures but embraces them. Gawthorne’s Hut in New South Wales, a tiny home in Australia available on Airbnb, is one example of sustainable hospitality. Designed by architect Cameron Anderson, the two-person, off-grid tiny home was built to engage with the history and context of the farmland on which it’s located.

Gawthorne’s Hut is stationed on an expansive plot of Wilgowrah’s farmland, right beside a small, quaint pond. The tiny home was born out of Wilgowrah’s desire to introduce the possibilities of alternative income sources for farmworkers. Designed in a similar form to other farmland structures like hay sheds and outbuildings, Gawthorne’s Hut’s 30-degree roof hosts an array of north-facing solar panels to provide the farmhouse with internal and external power.

Since the project aimed to create a sustainable, off-grid tiny home, Anderson needed to get the solar panels’ orientations facing a direction where the greatest output could be stored for use. The solar panel roof angles at 30-degree and faces the north to acquire the most solar output. With the solar panels facing the farm’s north side, double glazed timber windows and doors direct the views to the farm’s south end and offer natural ventilation on hot days as well as insulation for the colder nights.

Architect Cameron Anderson took to the farm’s preexisting and surrounding material to curate the array of building material for Gawthorne’s Hut. In addition to the solar panels, the home keeps a 6.6-kilowatt off-grid solar system containing 12 kilowatts of battery storage behind a large opening panel that remains hidden from view when closed. Rainwater storage systems also collect 40,000 liters worth of rainwater, 20,000 of which are allotted for firefighting.

Leaning on sustainable energy practices like the use of solar panels, passive solar shading, and even the thermal mass that comes from the floor’s polished concrete slabs, each work together to position Gawthorne’s Hut as an eco-friendly tourist destination with views of Australia you can’t get anywhere else.

Inside, rich and textured timber panels stretch over the walls and ceilings, giving Gawthorne’s Hut a cozy, nesting atmosphere. Gawthorne’s Hut’s micro floor plan of 40m2 feels larger than its measurements thanks to an open floor plan that extends throughout the home, with the one exception being the WC. Throughout the tiny home’s interior, repurposed bricks and rich timber panels line the walls, ceiling, and furnishings. The king-sized bed’s head post, for example, was handcrafted from recycled brick leftover from the lot’s previous building.

Stationed beside a small pond, the tiny home is as quaint as it gets. Repurposed brick from previous farm structures divide the different spaces inside Gawthorne’s Hut – the bed’s headboard doubles as a wall for the basin. Simple, unique, and cozy – this tiny home grows beyond its tiny design.

Designer: Wilgowrah, Cameron Anderson, & Callander Constructions

The design of Gawthorne’s Hut is meant to be intuitive, so the kitchen was kept small and filled with only the essentials.

A wood-burning fireplace welcomes guests into the tiny home and immediately fills the home with a cozy ambiance.

The toilet room is the only section inside of Gawthorne’s Hut that incorporates a door and dividing wall.

Polished concrete slabs line the floor and walls of the shower and bath areas.

The solar-paneled roof provides the home with enough energy to power up the minimal appliances needed to enjoy a stay in NSW’s back country.

Hidden away inside the home’s exterior side-opening panel, a solar system and battery pack insure the home with stored power.

The king-sized bed is located closer to the tiny home’s vertex to enhance an already intimate sleeping experience.

This sustainable tiny home creates one modern multifunctional living space to reduce its carbon footprint and cost!

Nowadays, most of us are thinking tiny, especially when it comes to living spaces. Tiny homes and prefabricated cabins have spread across the globe like wildfire and for good reason. Many of us are still eager to travel and can do that with a tiny home hitched to the back of a truck, then some of us prefer tiny homes for their cost-effectiveness, and the rest of us hope to reduce our personal carbon footprints by taking up less space. Johannesburg-based architect Clara da Cruz Almeida designed her prefabricated tiny home, Pod-Idladla with the idea of creating a tiny living space for young graduates without the means for a downpayment.

Before the manufacturing process, Pod-Idladla was conceived by Clara for young professionals to have a sustainable, affordable, and multifunctional living space. Inside, the living areas form one fluid space, rather than individual rooms. Walking through the unit’s front door, vertical storage solutions line the unit’s veneered walls and universal brackets allow the plywood storage bins to be moved around the pod. Even the pieces of furniture, from the kitchen table to the living room sofa, have dual purposes to optimize the unit’s space allowing residents to customize the space however they like. To merge practicality with convenience, the shower is even located in the passageway, which is outfitted with duck boarding, or slatted wooden flooring to keep the timber from getting wet.

Speaking on the unit’s multifunctionality, Clara says her tiny home contains, “spaces, not rooms. You could use the task room to store clothes or to keep your sports equipment. You could have an upstairs study if you don’t want to sleep on the mezzanine.”

Coming up with Pod-Idladla, Clara created a prefabricated modular home that could either stand by itself or attach to additional modules. Measuring a mere seventeen square meters, Pod-Idladla was built to fit into most backyards or small outdoor areas. The frame of Pod-Idladla takes the shape of an upright trapezoid to easily cozy up against any wall or attach to additional units. Each tiny home is built from standard drywall materials, including steel, aluminum, and wood. Outside, the home is clad in timber that can last up to 100 years with the proper care and maintenance. To save on transportation costs, the prefabricated components of Pod-Idladla are constructed in a Johannesburg-based factory and assembled on site.

Designers: POD-iDLADLA

Inside, the unit feels more like one multifunctional space, containing the functionality of the kitchen just below the mezzanine bedroom.

Small enough to fit into most backyards, POD-iDLADLA measures 20.52 square meters including the outdoor deck.

A ladder brings residents from the ground level to the mezzanine that can keep the bed or be morphed into an upstairs office.

The kitchen and dining area merge into one with the help of multifunctional furniture, like the expandable kitchen table.

Vertical storage solutions punctuate the unit’s veneered walls throughout.

Plywood boxes make up the unit’s storage spaces and can be moved throughout the unit.

Clara chose Dokter and Misses to design the interior for their industrial, yet quirky design schemes.

Even the unit’s light fixtures can be moved from their sockets and placed elsewhere in the home.

This cozy tiny home with a family of three share their tricks to live big in tiny spaces!





Finding out if tiny living is for you can be done in different ways. For Swiss couple, Pierre Biege and Lea Biege, finding out happened after watching a documentary on Netflix called Minimalism. After considering what’s most important in their lives, the couple went through an extreme decluttering process which led to their testing out different tiny spaces, ultimately finding their way to Holger, a tiny home with plenty of storage built by Wohnwagon perched somewhere in the Swiss Alps.

Walking inside Holger, the tiny living space is completely open to house a kitchen, sleeping and dining areas, as well as a play corner for Pierre’s and Lea’s daughter. While hidden storage areas are plenty inside Holger, the family of three live in a minimalist lifestyle by choice, so the home itself remains open and holds onto an air of spaciousness. The sleeping area keeps a big square bed that measures two meters in width and length, with the longest side jutting out an extra quarter of a meter, large enough for Pierre, Lea, and their daughter to sleep together.

Just below the family’s bed, long and voluminous pull-out drawers keep each of their wardrobes hidden from view unless pulled out. Moving to the next room over, Holger’s dining area sits below three porthole-style windows that bring in enough natural light to make the living areas feel that much more open. Positioned in the center of the dining area, a kitchen table unfolds to a full-sized dining table, accommodating up to six people. Some additional space-saving tricks can be found in the kitchen, where Lea uses a flat-pack step stool that folds and tucks back into the kitchen’s cabinets and a cutting board system called Frankfurter Brett allows the family to cook and clean with more efficiency.

While watching Netflix inside their 861-square-foot apartment, Pierre and Lea decided to declutter their living spaces and move into progressively smaller homes, going from their large city apartment to their 344-square-foot tiny home called Holger nestled in the Swiss Alps. Built by the Austrian tiny home builders Wohnwagon, Pierre, Lea, and their daughter all live together in Holger, where they’ve remained comfortable and happy in a home that’s nearly half the size of their previous apartment.

Designers: Wohnwagon x Hallo Holger

Pierre and Lea live in their tiny home somewhere in the Swiss Alps.

The home’s three porthole-style windows provide views from the dining room.

The dining area functions as more of a multipurpose room, with enough space for a play space, dining table, and working area.

The bed, which reaches 2.25-meters in length is where Pierre and Lea co-sleep with their daughter.

Beneath the bed, large and voluminous pull-out drawers store each of the family member’s wardrobes.

The kitchen features more hidden storage areas and tricks, as well as a woodfire stove for heat.

A flat-pack step stool unfurls from the bottom kitchen cabinets so Lea can reach the heights of the top kitchen cabinets.

Hidden underneath the kitchen floor, a floor door reveals additional storage compartments.

The bathroom shower is tiled with handmade mosaics.

The bathroom also features a composting toilet.

Positioned high up in the Swiss Alps, Holger’s views are unparalleled.

This ultra modern tiny home comes with a full-sized kitchen and high ceilings to make it feel anything but tiny!

The recent surge in popularity over tiny homes is arguably the best thing to come out of 2020. Just the other day I noticed a tiny home in mint condition parked right in front of a house for sale and I couldn’t help but consider making the switch myself. Tiny homes on wheels are ideal for smaller families, single households, or couples hoping to ditch lifestyles filled with excess for a type of tiny living that makes thriftiness and sustainability their top priorities. Living Big in a Tiny House, a YouTube channel that documents those who have successfully made the jump from large-scale city living to eco-conscious tiny living, recently showcased a couple’s tiny home in Australia that doesn’t feel so tiny.

Just like the rest of us, Matt and Lisa of Tailored Tiny Co. have been dreaming about tiny homes for quite some time and Living Big in a Tiny House caught up with them soon after they constructed one of their own. Nestled high above an Australian forest, Matt and Lisa’s jet-black, two-floor tiny home was constructed by the couple with help from a few friends. The tiny home’s black metal siding surely stands out, but amidst high eucalyptus treetops, it offers a more inconspicuous appeal, tying it up artfully with recycled hardwood trimming for the home’s protruding gables. Matt and Lisa’s home-on-wheels measures almost 30 feet in length and just about eight feet in width – the ceiling reaches sweeping heights of 14 feet, slightly above average for the conventional tiny home. But then tiny homes are anything but conventional. Coming from a builder’s background, the couple brought modern amenities to their tiny home such as cable, electricity, and running water, as well as a few playful outdoor features like an attached cat’s run.

Walking through the home’s front door, it’s obvious that Matt and Lisa took full advantage of the interior space to include a spacious den, bathroom, dual storage area, and full kitchen. The den features a roomy loveseat and flat screen, along with a biophilic lighting fixture that laces plantlife between grids on a recycled steel barricade. At the opposite end of the home’s single hallway, the bathroom is impressive for a tiny home as it appears larger than most – broad mirrors reflect the bathroom’s double-door shower – and comes equipped with an underground septic system to provide flush for the toilet. Matt and Lisa also enjoy a full kitchen with a deep sink, compact dishwasher, four-burner gas stove, and microwave on one side, and then an oven and refrigerator merge snugly into the open space beneath the staircase. Occupying the full 14-feet available, Matt and Lisa integrated a cozy loft, where the master’s king-sized bed for Matt and Lisa and the guest loft are kept. Plenty of skylights also offer warm, natural lighting to permeate the home and an expansive outdoor deck provides this tiny home with enough space to accommodate visitors. And yes, we’d like to visit, please.

Designer: Tailored Tiny Co.

This entirely self-contained + portable prefabricated cabin uses green energy storage system to be an eco-cabin!

The tiny home movement of today has garnered a lot of attention for many reasons, but most seem to form out of the environmental benefits that come with living in a tiny home. It’s true that downsizing to a tiny home will in turn downsize your own carbon footprint, but some tiny homes take it another step further. The Majamaja Wuorio, built by Pekka Littow of Littow Architectes, is described as an ‘eco-cabin’ for its use of green energy storage and a closed-circuit wastewater treatment system.

Pekka Littow’s Majamaja concept was born from life on Finland’s archipelago and essentially speaks to a building tradition that prioritizes harmony between humans and nature. Majamaja Wuorio units are prefabricated, transportable, and by making use of off-grid technologies such as solar panels and a recirculating water treatment system, the units can be situated anywhere. The tiny cabin’s closed-loop water treatment system collects both rainwater and air humidity in order to store it, then send it to the integrated water purification system for residents to use in the shower, kitchen, or bathroom. Waste from dry toilets is also composted and reused as fertilizer. The water purification system is powered by solar panels and a fuel cell, which also provides green energy storage for additional household appliances such as stovetops, air conditioners, and light fixtures. The Majamaja Wuorio Eco-Cabin stands as a pilot design cabin and part of a larger off-grid village currently in development. Beginning in 2021, Littow Architectes has plans to open Majamaja eco-cabins up to short term rental periods, so that guests can experience the simple joys that come with living simply in a tiny home on the coast of Finland’s southern capital, Helsinki. Since Littow’s tiny homes are transportable, potential environmental damage during pre-construction periods is entirely avoided. Opting instead for easy assembly and disassembly, Majamaja as a concept commits to “sustainable spatial planning projects with light infrastructure,” as described by Littow.

In constructing self-contained, tiny homes for Finland’s coast, Littow aimed to build Majamaja Wuorio as an example for future housing solutions. Each unit is built from prefabricated wood elements without the need for heavy-duty tools or too much elbow grease. Each unit’s lightweight infrastructure and easy assembly give way to installation possibilities in even the most remotes areas – all that’s needed is a helicopter, or dingy to hop between islands on the archipelago.

Designer: Littow Architectes

This tiny, prefabricated home travels with you from the coastlines to the mountain tops!

I think it’s safe to say that we’re all itching for a change of scenery. With stay-at-home orders ramping up again, planning a quick trip somewhere off-the-grid seems to be our favorite mode of distraction. Modern-Shed, a leader in innovative, sustainable, prefabricated structures, heard our 11:11 wishes and designed Dwelling on Wheels, or DW for short. Their Dwelling on Wheels is a 220-square-feet tiny home on wheels that buyers can bring with them on the road and situate on coastlines or nearby riverbeds for overnight stays and views.

Built to withstand varying climates and temperatures, a steel rib cage and standing seam metal siding wraps around the exterior of DW for a durable and weather-tight finish. Complementing the industrial cottage design, red cedar wood accents warm up the walls, eaves, and even the tiny home’s awning that hangs overhead a durable, ironwood deck, accessible through the dwelling’s double-pane glazed gable door. Positioned on top of the steel-tube roof, Modern-Shed installed solar panels to further their efforts in maintaining a small carbon footprint. The full unit measures in at 8.5 feet tall by 26 feet long, with widths up to 16 feet, and rests on a custom-built trailer from Tumbleweed. In order to further enhance DW’s low-carbon commitment, each tiny home buyer can also install both a water tank and a composting unit.

The inside of Dwelling on Wheels hosts all one might need to feel right at home away from home. When you first walk into the DW through the floor-to-ceiling, double-pane glazed gable door, a wood-burning stove in the home’s living room welcomes you on your right while birch face ply interior walls open up the small living space inside. The home’s kitchen is also lined with birch cabinetry and comes equipped with slim wall heaters, infrared cooktops, both a built-in sink and seating, and a removable dining table. Sliding past the living area’s kitchen and dining space on DW’s sustainable, linoleum flooring, buyers will find sleeping arrangements for up to three people, utilizing the dwelling’s built-in lofted two-bed setup. The two beds, an almost-Queen on the bottom, and a twin-sized bed above it come with integrated storage space just beneath the bunk bed unit. Sleek and bending sky wall windows line the walls and ceilings of DW’s interior, offering unfettered views of the outdoors from anywhere inside the tiny home.

After two decades of proving themselves leaders in the world of backyard sheds, Modern-Shed, based out of Seattle and founded by Ryan Smith, brought the shed to the road with The Dwelling on Wheels. The DW offers a classic rendition of a recognizable home with a resilient gable form, and a clever, energy-efficient design that provides all one needs in a compact 8x30ft tiny home, all that there’s left to do is find out exactly where we’ll be getting that change of scenery we keep talking about.

Designer: Modern-Shed

This award-winning tiny home uses Passive House construction methods to stay toasty warm in winter!

The design concept behind Kirimoko can be traced back to a bike trip, taken by the tiny house’s clients, Will and Jen, which required both of them to live completely out of pannier bags. Kirimoko, designed by Condon Scott Architects is a tiny home located in Wanaka, NZ, which has received several awards, including the New Zealand Institute of Architects 2019 Southern Architecture Award and a bronze award at the 2019 Designers Institute of New Zealand Best Awards, for the measures taken in the home’s Passive House approach during construction.

Condon Scott Architects utilized Passive House construction to bring Kirimoko to life. Passive House is a fundamental concept that provides indoor, thermal comfort by using energy sources of heat from inside the building. This construction concept requires solid, high-level insulation, and airtight design. Describing the details of the home’s build, Condon Scott says, “With a combination of Passive House measures and structural insulated panels, virtually no additional energy is required to maintain a consistent level of thermal comfort against the backdrop of the unforgiving Central Otago climate.” The builders installed structural insulated panels for the roof and walls of Kirimoko. SIPs are ideal for prefabricated structures because they maintain a solid foam center and are exceptionally airtight, requiring no thermal bridging, which is a form of heat transfer and a major source of energy loss.

The structure’s external cladding is showcased with a combination of larch weatherboards and asphalt shingles, providing a very subdued, and coy energy for the outside of the home. The seclusion of Kirimoko was achieved by keeping three-quarters of the building’s whole exterior closed, but entirely opening up one of the four facades to a floor-to-ceiling, glazed window. The window of the home’s north panel offers a full view of Kirimoko’s insides and was chosen specifically because, in the Southern hemisphere, sunlight comes from the north, so during the winter months, ample sunlight can be gained for indoor heat, but during the summer months, Kirimoko’s deep eaves help mitigate overheating. Additionally, inside Kirimoko, every corner and piece of furniture offers expansive pockets of storage so that despite the compact size and Passive House measurements, this home still buzzes with energy.

Designer: Condon Scott Architects

The decision to migrate to a 30-square-meter plot of land in Wanaka, New Zealand’s gateway to the Southern Alps, dawned on the couple after living happily for months on a cycling tour on just the bare essentials contained in their panniers.

However, even with both the small amount of land occupied by Kirimoko and the structure’s no-frills attitude, this little home still “packs a punch,” as Condon Scott puts it, and makes smart use of every nook and cranny.

While the decision to live with less stuff could certainly lend itself to a sustainable sort of lifestyle, the couple let their own experience on the road and their intuition guide the design process. According to the couple, living with less is not so much a frugal statement, as it is a natural tendency and this sentiment shines through the home’s construction process.

Situated within a busier, suburban neighborhood, privacy inside the insulated walls of Kirimoko was essential.