Tag Archives: tiny house

This zero-emissions tiny house makes your ultimate micro-living dreams come true for $50,000!

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I will take a smart tiny house over a big apartment any day and that is why I am forever on a quest to find one. Right now, Microhaus tops my list – it is the ultimate affordable, modern, energy-efficient apartment for one. You could be living your best flexible lifestyle while traveling across the country or just want to drop your anchor in your backyard, either way, Microhaus is a super convenient solution. Haus.me is known for building some of the best 3D printed, autonomous mobile homes and this latest addition to their range comes at an affordable price of $50,000 so that more people can be homeowners even if they are in their 20s! The 120-square-foot dwelling comes with a fully equipped, high-tech living space that can run self-sufficiently. Want to step inside and take a look? You can – enjoy the 3D house tour!

Designer: Haus.me

Microhaus has been constructed using 3D-printed structural components and arrives move-in ready with a kitchenette, double bed, bathroom, and plenty of storage. “The Microhaus also comes with our fully integrated Cloud Self-Diagnosis System, which provides a new generation of Smart Home amenities, full remote control, and machine learning,” explains Haus.me CEO, Max Gerbut.




The Microhaus measures 120 square feet and can be fully assembled within a few minutes! The composite structure is supremely durable, its yacht-inspired exterior is made from fiberglass, stainless steel, and teak. It has a modern, futuristic yet overall minimal aesthetic.

 

It is one of the most advanced micro-apartments in the world and to complement its high-tech capabilities, the tiny, portable dwelling has a sleek exterior and interior. The exterior is composed of rounded fiberglass and stainless steel whereas the interior is layered with warm wooden details and illuminated by natural light.




“The unit comes with an array of high-tech features, including a motorized door, touchless access, touchless faucets, adaptive lights, and air-quality sensors” adds Gerbut.




Not only is it mobile and flexible, it is also energy efficient and has low operating costs. The durable unit is made from eco-friendly materials that are safe for both people and the environment.

The mobile home is durable but also lightweight, making it a far better choice than any other trailer home or glamper on the market.

Mirohaus’ interior has a sun-kissed vibe thanks to its extensive glazing and large windows. It features white custom cabinetry contrasts with the natural wood elements found throughout the space.




One of the most futuristic details about Microhaus is the keyless entry and a tight security system that can be all controlled via an app.

The sleeping area has plenty of storage space and includes a floor-to-ceiling cabinetry unit with a lit wardrobe.

The bed is cushy and has a TV installed for an optimized Netflix and Chill experience. Under the TV is a spacious niche for books or snacks!

The sweeping windows bring in plenty of natural light and your favorite views so park your home wisely!

There is a large mirror across the kitchenette which helps to visually open up the interior space some more.

Microhaus has a lot of hidden storage and the cabinet separating the sleeping area and the pantry can be opened up into a sliding desk.

The studio home is perfect for one person who leads a flexible and sustainable lifestyle.

The kitchenette is also fully stocked with utensils and includes a smart waste disposal bin.

The sleeping zone also doubles up as a living space during the daytime.

The tiny house features a cozy bathroom with a full-sized shower and toilet.

“We designed the Microhaus to be the perfect income-producing asset. “Offered at an affordable price, the structure requires no additional approvals or construction permits, and it comes with very little maintenance costs. Overall, it has the potential to provide a fully remote-controlled business, if desired, with a fast return on investment,” says Gerbut. The best part? No roommates, fully furnished, and full freedom to move anywhere while taking your little home with you!

Designer: Haus.me

This spaceship from the 1960s was restored for guests to stay for some Jetsons-inspired staycation!

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Nowadays, our gaze is set on outer space. Modern times feel eerily similar to the thrill of the days during the 20th-century Space Race. While the goals of the Space Race change over time, our interest in the starry sky remains. On earth, we watch films like The Jetsons and marvel at Elon Musk’s Starlink, if only because it looks like a moving constellation, just to feel closer to Outer Space. Today, artist Craig Barnes restored a saucer-shaped structure, designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen in the late 1960s, calling it Futuro House in his ode to the cosmos.

Landed in Somerset’s Marston Park for guests to rent out, stay the night, and pretend they’ve landed on Mars, the Futuro House is a tiny home can accommodate up to four people and features an array of earthly amenities. Barnes happened upon one of Suuronen’s 68 saucer-shaped structures while out in South Africa, bringing it back to the UK, where he began restoration work.

Easily transportable, Barnes describes how he managed to bring Futuro House to Somerset, “Some workers were knocking down a building nearby and we thought perhaps they were going to tear it down too. It was a wreck, there was no front door left, the windows were smashed in, but they let us in. It was horrible and grotty, but we found out who owned it. On an impulse while on top of Table Mountain, we agreed to buy it. So we bought it and shipped it home.”

Sparing Suuronen’s retrofitted relic from a future spent in obsolescence, Barnes restored Futuro House into a sparkling ski lodge, allowing guests to stay the night for £400–£1,200 ( around $550–$1,412) per night, a rent scale depending on the number of adults staying inside the ship. Inside and outside the saucer, guests can enjoy plenty of onboard amenities, like private bathrooms, fresh linen, and towels, hot water, changeable mood lighting, midrange studio monitor speakers, food services, options for coffee and tea, as well as an outdoor fire pit where guests can sit around and recline into the night. Going on to note his thrill over his own interpretation of today’s Space Race, Barnes says,

“It was always important to me that wherever it goes, it functions as a space to live and experience – an inspiring place that everyone can see. I never wanted this to be something that you cannot touch. I believe in the power of art and architecture and how it affects us. We have never opened [the house] up as a rental before; we hadn’t found the right home for it. At Marston Park, they want to make unique experiences and there is a realm for artworks you can stay in and people are interested in that. It is the fulfillment of a longstanding dream to offer this womb-like structure for people to stay in and be in this otherworldly space.”

Designers: Chris Barnes x Matti Suuronen

Stationed beside a quiet lake amongst the trees of Somerset’s Marston Park, Futuro House appears as a UFO landed for a pitstop.

Inside, the 60s space themes continue with spaceship seating arrangements and oval-shaped windows that wrap the entire circumference of the saucer.

Tulip kitchen seats hearken back to the 60s when the Space Race reached a peak.

While there is only one main sleeping area, four people can stay the night.

Come dark, the spaceship glows into a golden lantern.

While on a midnight stroll in the park, onlookers could even mistake Futuro House for a real UFO.

Stationed against orange night skies, guests can pretend they’ve landed on Mars.

This micro resort in remote Finland is made from three prefab tiny timber cabins!

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How many people wish they had their own little retreat? Studio Puisto has developed a new, modular accommodation that it believes would make it easier for people to open a small, sustainable resort anywhere.

The Helsinki-based architecture firm designed its new, prefab units in collaboration with nature tourism entrepreneur Kari Vainio and installed the first prototype in the forest of Hyvinkää, Finland. One U-shaped, 1,205-square-foot Uni Villa, as the design is called, consists of two studio units along with a larger suite. Each unit comes with a keyless check-in system and readymade furniture. Uni means “dream” in Finnish; as such, Studio Puisto wants other aspiring hospitality entrepreneurs to be able to realize their dreams of running their own micro-resorts.

This first Uni Villa is tucked into Kytäjä Golf, which won the title of Best in Finland in 2020. Two courses designed by Canadian golf course architect Thomas McBroom are set in an unusual natural forest and lake environment. Kytäjä Golf is only 45 minutes from the Helsinki airport.

The prefabricated, U-shaped blocks can be delivered via standard truck and are designed to sit on a compact foundation. The dark exteriors feature cross-laminated timber to blend into the forested areas. “The cladding is treated with a breathable and ecological dark oil stain that creates uniformity with the environment,” architect Sami Logren told Dwell. The designers created distinctly different looks for the suite versus the studios. The suites are furnished in dark wood and earthy textiles, while studio décor is much lighter in color. Both borrow their palettes from the natural world, with neutral furniture and gray, stone-like bathroom tiles.

Indeed, the architects strove for comfort and accessibility to nature while blending in with the forested surroundings. “Sustainability and a low environmental impact are key values in our design process,” Logren said. “These values correlate with the current state of how people want to connect with nature to gain calm.”

Designer: Studio Puisto

This geometric dome is a modular shelter that can be anything from a greenhouse to a tiny home!

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Think of Ekodome as the grown-up version of building forts with bedsheets and pillows. Just like your fort could be anything you imagined from a storefront to a palace, these geometric domes are also designed to be anything from tiny homes to greenhouses! The modular design of these geodesic dome kits gives you endless possibilities and I, for one, would love to convert it into a creative home office.

Ekodome is a New York City-based company and they have many different models and sizes for you to choose from. The base concept is simple, it involves an aluminum frame that you can easily assemble DIY-style. The dome is crafted from high-quality and durable materials so that it is more than a temporary shelter while still retaining its modular, scalable, and lightweight nature. Your kit will come with the aluminum hub and hub caps with EPDM seal on. Both the aluminum struts and caps will be equipped with TPE SEBS seals and stainless steel bolts and nuts. Some of the popular uses for these geometric shelters has been to turn them into a greenhouse, a garden shed or even a glamping tent.

Once constructed, the geodesic dome can be used for a multitude of purposes such as a greenhouse, garden shed or glamping tent. You might want to employ it as a temporary work space, living quarters or a chicken coop. It would also work as an off-grid tiny home or disaster relief shelter.

Each frame can be covered with your choice of material, ranging in thickness from 4mm to 10mm. This allows you the ability to adapt the unit for use as a greenhouse with plastic or as a shelter with fabric. You can form your own coverings using company templates or wait for the pre-cut panels, which are expected to be offered soon. The modular design allows you to connect units together via tunnels for the true Mars experience and also for protection from the elements here on Earth.

The geodome concept isn’t new and has been used for tents and full-size homes with an understanding that the design is strong, light and efficient. However, these domes often have notable issues in regards to water resistance and reliable, protective cladding options. Ekodome has overcome those challenges using innovative technology to create strong seals throughout.

The company now offer five geodome solutions. Ekodome explained, “The five different models at various sizes are named after the feelings they evoke at first sight: Seed, for being the smallest in size; Luna, for being able to connect to bigger sizes like a satellite; Terra, for being the most common size for greenhouses; Stellar, for its stunning look and Cosmos, for its massive dimensions.”

Designer: Ekodome





This tiny studio apartment sits in your backyard to give you a bonus functional and flexible space!

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Not every family can move into a larger home when they are falling short on space as children grow up. While it would be an ideal solution, it involves uprooting everyone from friends, extended family, adjusting to a new school/job as well as the whole process of moving which is extremely draining. To offer a smarter, more convenient solution, Parsonson Architects created the Herald Garden Studio – a functional, flexible, freestanding 183-square-foot structure that sits in your backyard to accommodate for all those growing pains!

Sometimes the best solution is to find a way to make the most of what one already has. Herald Garden Studio was born from one such situation because the client was a couple from New Zealand and they live in a small two-bedroom Victorian cottage that was getting cramped with their two growing sons. They didn’t want to leave their neighborhood and this compact backyard studio was the perfect economical solution. It provides additional space for a peaceful retreat, to study, work from home, make-shift guest house, or even storage. It is separate from the house but visually connected and linked by a sheltered outdoor space.

The interior incorporates an office space toward the front of the studio, a bathroom, and storage space at the rear, and the play area and guest bed in the loft up the ladder.

The loft is a cozy space, made more secure with the installation of netting at the edge.

There are a number of windows on the upper level to let in natural light and bring in a view of the valley outside.

To keep costs low, a range of simple materials was chosen. Wooden beams, set in a triangular arrangement, form the supporting structural framework, while the walls are clad with zero-formaldehyde oriented strand board (OSB), and the roof and the rear and side walls covered with green, corrugated Colorsteel, a low-cost option that matches the surrounding garden.

In addition, there is a pergola covered with durable but inexpensive polycarbonate and a wooden deck that extends around most of the studio. A hole has been cut into the deck to accommodate an existing olive tree.

The architects explain:

“Both the deck, pergola, and the main interior space have been conceived as one triangulated structure, stitching together the spaces and reinforcing the interior-exterior connection, while relating to the delicacy of the surrounding vegetation. Materials are unadorned, raw and but carefully assembled.”

Besides the walls, the interior sliding doors and bathroom counter are made from OSB as well, all finished with natural WOCA oil. Some people may understandably balk at the idea of having wall-to-wall coverage of raw OSB, but it’s an economical choice that is both easy to maintain, and also helps to emphasize the openness and minimalism of the space.

Nevertheless, there are pops of color here and there in the sea of honey-colored OSB, most notably in the bathroom at the rear of the studio, which features a shower stall clad with a red Invibe panel board. There’s also a custom-designed lighting sconce, again made with the red Invibe panel board.

Created with simple and cost-effective materials, this award-winning garden studio is a great example of urban infill on a small scale, a well-built solution that allows one family to continue living on a compact property closer to the city, without having to move further afield.

Designer: Parsonson Architects

This tiny home crafted from timber can be attached to your car for the ultimate flexible lifestyle!

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The universal mood after this pandemic has been to be able to travel, to explore unpopular locations, and to embrace remote work so you can travel for longer time periods. Keeping all of these wishes in mind, Ecuador-based Jag Studio designed La Casa Nueva – a timber camper that is also a fully functional tiny home so you can set up your base anywhere.

It includes a bed, a roof, workstations, a kitchen, and a bathroom making it a comfortable shelter for two people. The design team led by juan alberto andrade and cuqui rodríguez built the little retreat for themselves to meet the demands of their life on the road, photographing architecture across ecuador. With its compact size and mobility, jag studio’s ‘la casa nueva’ is able to stay for short periods of time in different locations and with different configurations. It aims to be forever new — to be perceived or experienced depending on its temporary site. Thus, its surrounding context will inform its form.

With ‘la casa nueva’ camper, jag studio reinterprets the material and shape of typical house along the ecuadorian coast, both on an experimental and on a primitive level. A wooden gabled structure raised from the floor. La casa nueva is made 100% with artisan craftsmanship. While the outer shell is built with yellowheart lumber, teak boards are used for the structural frame, and plywood boards for the interior furniture elements. The structure rests on a metal trailer measuring three by two meters (around 10 by 6.5 feet) which is secured with metal plates.

The outer skin of jag studio’s camper has different opening configurations and can take on a range of forms — beginning from a completely enclosed and sealed wooden shell to a permeable place that is integrated with nature, providing an effect of great spatial capacity. The interior space is divided into five parts conditioned by the structural modulation of the six frames every two feet that divide the project according to its function. The first two out of the five modules correspond to the raised bed and storage, the third module to a flexible dining and desk space, and the fourth and fifth to a corridor and service area including a kitchenette and bathroom.

Designer: JAG Studio

jagstudio

This wooden cabin comes in a flat-pack DIY kit so you can assemble your own tiny holiday home!

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Cabin-design company Den has launched a flat-packed, kit-of-parts for a steeply pitched cabin, known as an A-frame, that can be assembled in just a few days.

The 115-square-foot (10.68-square-metre) Den Cabin Kit has slanted wooden walls with a large triangular window. It is designed to be an ideal guest house, yoga studio or study.

Prefabricated in New York, the kit has pre-drilled holes and includes everything from the wooden structural parts that lock together, to bolts and even door hardware – details Den said make the project stand out from other flat-packed structures.

“Under the hood – or roof, ha – we have components that are cut with CNC precision, a design that slots together intuitively, and a kit so complete even the door hardware is included so you won’t need to make any trips to the hardware store,” the New York-based team told Dezeen.

“The cabin bolts and screws together and all the holes are pre-drilled making for fast assembly.”

Den Cabin Kit is designed to be built with minimal equipment including a ratchet set, a power drill, a ladder, step ladder and a staple gun. Flat-packed materials arrive stacked according to the order in which they are needed during the build, as part of an ambition to make construction as easy as possible.

“If you don’t have any construction experience you can certainly make up for it with tenacity, and a few friends to help you with the job,” Den explained.”Building something even as easy as this still requires some hutzpah mind you,” the company added. “You need to be comfortable on a ladder a story off the ground to set the ridge cap and screw in the roofing panels, and you and your friends (or team) need to be careful with the large windows while setting them in place.”

Den suggests novice builders employ a contractor to bolster the structure if it is being built on a sloped site, or in an area with harsher weather, and also to help set foundations – which it likens to the same basic requirements as a shed. The cabin is intended to touch the ground lightly so it can be disassembled and rebuilt elsewhere, and constructed without nails for the same reason.

Despite its light touch, the team said the cabin is still robust and well-insulated in harsh weather conditions. “Even though it’s ‘semi-permanent’ in this regard it’s no less a building and can withstand the harshest elements, with four-season compatibility,” it explained.

Owners can choose from three types of exterior cladding: either black Forest and silver Alpine metal or cedar shingles. They can also add a propane heater provided by Den.

Designer: Den

Our favorite tiny prefab home made 99% offsite is the future of affordable & sustainable construction has unveiled new information!

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Hüga means finding happiness in small things, a concept born from the Danish philosophy ‘Hygee that is followed by thousands of people around the world. This is exactly where Grandio drew its inspiration from to develop a unique, different project that combines a set of brilliant ideas with design, construction, and marketing. After 24 months of work by a multidisciplinary team of professionals from Córdoba, Hüga was born – the future of the tiny home movement!

Grandio uses its technology to keep the architectural industry to date with its building system that allows for 99% offsite construction. In October 2020, they unveiled their very first prefabricated concrete home called Hüga. Today, the team has developed an advanced enough system using the same technology that can be deployed for commercial, hospitality, and residential functions thus scaling up its positive impact on sustainable construction. Hüga was made to find a solution for the unsatisfying demand in housing and public buildings because that industry has remained the same for centuries. ‘the use of brick in our constructions for over 5000 years is a clear example of how the construction industry is reluctant to change. The construction industry is still looking for a satisfactory solution, one that replaces the slow and expensive traditional systems that require skilled labor.

The Argentina-based studio wanted to provide a more efficient way to build and formed a multidisciplinary team of 23 professionals, civil, mechanical, and industrial engineers, architects, industrial designers, and specialist technicians to create modern construction methods (MMC) and world-class manufacturing (WCM). The final results are these hüga units that are built with reinforced concrete and designed for minimal maintenance as well as reducing your energy costs. These compact homes can withstand all climates and adverse conditions, including earthquakes, wildfires, and hurricanes. Hüga homes are also mobile and modular so much so that you can extend your house in plan in just one day.

Hüga also reduces construction time and any company can use integrate this technology. The goal of this design is to democratize technology with an affordable technological license for professionals or construction companies so that impact can be made on a large scale keeping the environmental impact in mind. This license helps companies with daily monitoring and support from professionals in both construction and sales processes. Both consumers and companies using the system will benefit from any new innovations developed by the Grandio R&D laboratory for free as their community benefit. But it’s not just for homes, Hüga can also be used for commercial functions like cafés or restaurants.

“Hüga technology aims to revolutionize the construction industry, achieving innovation in the final product, in its commercialization, and especially in its manufacturing process. With the use of modern construction methods (MMC) and the efficiency of world-class manufacturing (WCM), all companies in the hüga ecosystem will be able to present disruptive building responses to the current and future demand of our planet. The massive use of this technology will accelerate the urgent changes that our population needs. Hüga technology came to change history in the construction industry. Hüga came to revolutionize our way of living, undertaking, or investing,” concludes the Grandio team. We can imagine Hüga urban villages as the future of sustainable, affordable, and flexible living!

Designer: Grandio

These modular tiny homes have been grouped together to make a sustainable ski resort!

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I have an obsession with tiny houses because they let you be a proud homeowner without having to spend the rest of your life paying mortgages while optimizing every inch of space to work for your needs. Sustainably designed architecture projects like this one from Ark Shelter top my list – they are modern, flexible, modular, and help you do your bit for the environment without compromising on your lifestyle. This cluster of prefab cabins is located in a Slovakian forest for Hotel Björnson but can also be stand-alone homes. The minimalist shelters have a Scandinavian aesthetic and give you an eco-friendly getaway with minimal environmental impact. Ark Shelter has also won a Cezaar award in the category Architectural Fenomena – a recognition for the most exceptional architectural achievements of the year.

The modern retreat is made of 11 cabins and four wellness units that include saunas and relaxation rooms. The shelters are built in one piece, which gives the incredible mobility to reach your dream location. Every cabin rests on stilts to minimize site impact and has been carefully placed in between the trees to give you maximum privacy and maximum views! These units have two independent modules that can function as separate apartments or can be connected to create one shared space that can host up to eight people. There is a sliding wall partition that helps split or combine the cabin into two units and each comes with a living room, bedroom, children’s room, entry hall, and a bathroom.

Ark Shelter’s team used blackened spruce to clad the exteriors to blend the structure with the landscape. The cabins also have green roofs to visually tie the structures with the forest. The interiors were lined with large format spruce panels and oak parquet floors for a minimalist and spacious feel that was aligned with the Scandinavian aesthetic. The large insulated glazing blurs the boundaries between the interior and outdoor landscape. They are also fitted with an intelligent control system for heating and lighting so you can actually spend the whole day in bed or at the coffee table just staring out those huge windows. The skylight is one of my favorite details!

“We consider the concept of placing the modules between the trees ecological, not only for the tree preservation but also for the minimum contact of the modules with the ground due to raising them on stilts instead of laying on the classic concrete plate foundations. This allows the landscape to continuously flow under the building and breathe, while the green roof of the module doubles the biotope that lays beneath it,” explained the architects.

Ark Shelter aims to provide a shelter that helps you reconnect with nature while protecting both you and nature. These durable homes are oriented with our biological rhythms and have been designed to be adaptable to different stages of our lives. Each Ark Shelter cabin is built to expand, contract, move and keep up with the changing times, technology, and most importantly your needs – all without putting any burden on the planet. Now have I convinced you to be a tiny homeowner too?

Designers: Martin Mikovčák and Michiel De Backer of Ark Shelter













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

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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.