Tag Archives: tiny living

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

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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 vintage camper from 1985 is making a comeback with accordion extensions that triple its size!

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De Markies is a vintage camper circa 1985 with accordion-like expansions that triple the camper’s size with the push of a button.

Since the start of stay-at-home orders, campers have made quite the comeback in the world of modern camping. The campers coming out from recent years have been some of the most versatile and compact designs we’ve seen in years. A few years back and ahead of its time, Dutch architect Eduard Böhtling submitted his transforming De Markies camper design to 1985’s Temporary Living architecture competition. The type of camper that can be reintroduced in years to come and still send a tingle down any camper’s spine, De Markies is a tiny home on wheels that can triple in size with the push of a button.

Ten years after the Temporary Living competition, De Markies saw its first prototype and received 1996’s Rotterdam Design Prize’s Public Prize for it. Fast forward to 2021 and De Markies is still turning heads. Built with accordion-like expansions, De Markies’s shape begins as a cubic camper on the road and triples in size to form a complete semicircle.

Once De Markies expands into its final shape, the camper’s main bedroom can be found inside of its opaque orange awning, while a sunroom comes into shape underneath the van’s transparent awning. Inside the caravan, a kitchen, bathroom, and sitting room come with all the amenities needed for a comfortable retreat on the road, including a stove, sink, countertop, storage space, and tables.

Constructed to withstand most elements, Böhtling found durability in plastic cladding for De Markies’s roof. Unfurled into its semicircular shape, the awnings find privacy on one side through an opaque orange plastic covering, and a sun-soaked room on the other side with a transparent plastic covering. Slated for next year’s Geneva Architecture Exhibition, De Markies is still making its rounds.

Designer: Eduard Böhtling

The post This vintage camper from 1985 is making a comeback with accordion extensions that triple its size! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This 250sqf tiny cabin modeled after lofty log cabins finds height with a pitched roof and floor-to-ceiling windows!

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Road-Haus is a 250sqf tiny cabin scaled down from a larger model designed by Wheelhaus, a tiny home company committed to modular and eco-friendly design practices.

Set on providing the kind of experience he had growing up in log cabins constructed by his father, ​​Jamie McKay developed Wheelhaus. More than a company that designs tiny homes, Wheelhaus remains committed to building modular log cabins with small carbon footprints that offer travelers and residents a true escape into the woods.

Wheelhaus’s current catalog offers nine different log cabin models available in an array of different sizes. The smallest, Road-Haus is a 250sqf adaptation of the company’s most popular tiny cabin that comes with all the perks of the larger Wedge model, without the unneeded space.

Taking the best from the more spacious Wedge model, the Road-Haus fuses elegant design elements with tiny living essentials. Considered crowd favorites by the tiny home company, Wheelhaus adorned Road-Haus with the same pitched roofline and wrap-around clerestory windows found on the Wedge model. From the bottom to the top, Road-Haus residents are immersed in the glory of the woods, with timber flooring that’s mirrored on the tiny home’s ceiling.

Halved by an optic-white-painted chunk that extends from the living room into the kitchen, all the way to the bedroom. Pools of natural light that pour in from the home’s glazed floor-to-ceiling windows dance with the white paint and help brighten the home’s interiors. Following a horizontal floor plan, residents are greeted by the living room from the home’s back deck entrance.

Walking in from the outdoor deck, complete with a protective overhang, residents will find the main bedroom on the opposite end of the home, with the kitchen and bathroom dividing the two living spaces. In the living room, residents can enjoy television or even a fireplace from the full-sized sofa that could double as sleeping arrangements. Then, the full kitchen is complete with lots of storage space and all the amenities of a traditional and modern kitchen.

Designer: Wheelhaus

The post This 250sqf tiny cabin modeled after lofty log cabins finds height with a pitched roof and floor-to-ceiling windows! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This tiny home features an open-plan layout and solar system for off-grid living!

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Kingfisher is a tiny home from the New Zealand-based tiny home company, Build Tiny, that doesn’t feel so tiny on the inside, featuring room for a full kitchen, shower and bath, dining area, living room, and two-bedroom loft.

Few topics are hotter right now than off-grid, tiny living. After spending so much time in our own homes in recent years, we’re slowly waking up to the concept of downsizing. We don’t need such large-scale living spaces when we can pack all we have into 400-square-meters or less.

Offering clients the opportunity to design their own fully functional and personalized tiny homes, Build Tiny is a New Zealand-based tiny home company devoted to small-scale living. Kingfisher, one of Build Tiny’s more popular tiny home models, is a flexible and open-plan mobile tiny home that has enough space for everything from a full kitchen to a two-bedroom loft.

Measuring 8m long x 2.4w x 4.2h, Kingfisher keeps an average, approachable size. From the outside, Kingfisher sports a steel frame clad in vinyl with a cedar feature wall to the side that’s lined with vertical timber panels. The aluminum windows are double glazed to provide ultimate thermal insulation during the colder months.

The roof is only slightly pitched to provide some headspace inside for the two loft sleeping spaces, giving the tiny home a more dynamic quadrilateral shape. Placed on top of the pitched roof, Build Tiny provided Kingfisher with a solar system for off-grid power, consisting of ​​6 x Trina 270w Honey Poly Module panels.

Inside, residents can enjoy all the typical household amenities like a shower and bath, full kitchen, living space, dining area, and sleeping lofts. Walking from the stark black steel exterior into poplar core plywood-lined interior, residents are welcomed by a spacious entryway with the living room on the right and kitchen to the left.

Each room features plenty of hidden storage compartments, like bookshelves and lift-up cubbies, to optimize the tiny living space inside Kingfisher. In the bathroom, a folding shelf allows space for clothes and towels while residents use the shower. Then, under the staircase, Build Tiny incorporated concealed, slide-out cabinets that could work as kitchen pantries or additional wardrobes.

Just beyond the entryway, attached to the home’s main wall, a ladder brings residents to the tiny home’s two-bedroom loft, where one larger bed remains just a few feet away from two twin-sized beds. While the Kingfisher certainly fits the tiny home bill, with plenty of integrated storage space and a pitched roof, residents won’t feel the tininess on the inside.

Designer: Build Tiny

Throughout the home, added space-saving features take full advantage of the available living space.

An integrated ladder brings residents to the home’s two-bedroom loft.

The living space stands just to the right of the home’s spacious entryway.

Concealed, pull-out cabinets leave room for kitchen supplies and excess accessories. 

While the two bedrooms are only a few feet away from one another, they remain on opposite ends of the tiny home.

A folding cabinet provides storage space for clothes and towels while residents shower.

Solar systems and other power accessories provide the means for off-grid living.

The post This tiny home features an open-plan layout and solar system for off-grid living! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This multifunctional furniture system designed to create more living space is the solution tiny apartments need!

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No matter the city, tiny living is in right now. As cities become more populated, their residents and architects are finding ways of making crowded spaces feel a lot more comfortable through versatile furniture and innovative interior design. From micro apartments to co-living spaces, city homes come in all shapes and sizes.

In Sydney’s Stanmore neighborhood, Australian architecture firm Mostaghim and co-living group UKO designed and constructed a multifunctional furniture system into the layout of a small studio apartment to augment the available living space and take full advantage of the system’s integrated storage units.

Captured by Never Too Small, a video channel dedicated to small footprint design and living, UKO and Mostaghim’s furniture system measures 205 square feet (19 square meters) to include a kitchenette, compact bathroom, and a catalog of multipurpose furniture systems from a bed unit with integrated storage to a fold-out wall desk. While a kitchenette and a compact shower are standard for micro-apartments, the versatile bed unit is what makes this tiny space feel a lot bigger than just 19 square meters. Just beneath the unit’s mattress, pull-out drawers and cabinets conceal closet space and additional furniture like a sofa and dining table.

The left-most cabinet unveils the rectangular kitchen table for dining and cooking purposes. Just next door to the kitchen table, a pull-out sofa with automated lock brakes remains in place on a set of trolley tracks and moves freely all over the apartment’s floor when taken off the tracks. To the right, a concealed clothes rack and storage compartment provides storage space for clothes and shoes. For larger wardrobes, the stairs leading to the unit’s bed double as hidden drawers for folded clothes.

Inspired by the design of Swiss-French modern architecture pioneer Le Corbusier, the multipurpose furniture system from Mostaghim and UKO is a modern solution for the timeless dilemma of finding comfort and space in the craze and excitement of a crowded city.

Designers: UKO Stanmore x Mostaghim Architecture x Never Too Small

This vacuum cleaner designed for small spaces breaks down into 4 parts to save storage space!

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H5 is a multifunctional vacuum cleaner designed for small spaces that can break down into four parts that fit into a compact charging bin for easy storage.

While living tiny is all the rage nowadays, it takes some skill to keep small city spaces clean. Especially when you live in an old apartment building or with pets, vacuuming becomes a daily chore. While vacuuming small spaces goes by quickly, storing a bulky vacuum cleaner becomes a nuisance just as quickly. To keep small spaces clean without the pain of storing big cleaning appliances, industrial designer Yipeng Zhu ideated a space-saving multifunctional vacuum cleaner called H5 that shrinks down to almost a ⅓ of its height.

H5 keeps an overall slim build when assembled and when disassembled so it doesn’t take up too much space in storage. When disassembled, H5 breaks down into four parts and fits into one charging case that can easily slip away behind any table or into the closet to free up floor space.

When users would like to use the vacuum, putting H5 together comes just as easily as putting together any other vacuum. The main pipe connects via telescopic tubing where the vacuum head also easily attaches.  Equipped with modular parts, H5 comes with three different vacuum heads that can be switched out for various cleaning needs.

A cylindrical brush is ideal for cleaning up dustballs and stubborn carpet stains. While the other two rectangular heads come in two different sizes to fit into tight corners and behind doors. Even the hose and pipe of H5 take on a narrow, cylindrical build to ensure it can fit underneath the bed and even under the refrigerator to pick up the dust that’s harder to reach with traditional, bulky vacuums.

A solid collection of electrical cleaning appliances is essential for tiny living spaces–especially when you reside in a big city. However, the majority of most electrical appliances are designed for large homes, prioritizing the small technical details over versatility and portability.

H5 is a vacuum cleaner that can tuck away into the smallest of crawlspaces (or literally wherever there’s room) when not in use and whose small assembled size allows it to get to the hardest-to-reach corners of your apartment when cleaning.

Designer: Yipeng Zhu

Intuitive controls and signals outfit H5’s entire build. 

H5 comes with three different brush heads to ensure the ideal tool for each cleaning job. 

The compact charging case is small enough to tuck away into any corner or closet. 

Shrinking down to what seems like a 1/3 of H5’s assembled height, the charging case is an ultimate space-saver. 

An oakwood tiny home built from locally sourced timber was designed as a love letter to Tasmania!

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The Pod, described as a “love letter to Tasmania,” is a 430sq-ft tiny home located in Tasmania, Australia comprised of two pods merged together with an overhead row of skylights.

Airbnb and tiny homes have garnered a whole lot of attention in recent years. During the pandemic, when air travel restrictions and health warnings were issued by airlines and hotels, we looked to road trips and Airbnbs to fill our wanderlust. Others took the extra time to finally build a tiny home and guarantee their hot vax summer with a destination they could escape to every weekend. Alice Hansen, a travel writer based in Australia, built her tiny home, The Pod (available on Airbnb), for others to escape to and fall in love with Tasmania.

The Pod, described by TV host Peter Madison as a “love letter to Tasmania,” is a tiny home comprised of two living ‘pods’ merged together by a narrow row of skylights. Covering only 430sq-ft, the exterior of The Pod is wrapped in Tasmanian oak wood which is replaced with expansive, floor-to-ceiling windows around the back of the tiny home.

Positioned on a hillside, the tiny home’s back pod rises on steel beams to merge with the front pod, giving the illusion that you’re “floating” above the ground, as described by Hansen. Skylights also line the ceiling of The Pod, complimenting the floating feel with enough natural sunlight to brighten the entire home and visually splitting the two pods into separate living spaces.

Inspired by a war aircraft, the structural soundness of The Pod is durable and lightweight by design with hardwood fitting out most of the exterior and interior. Upon entering the tiny home, a centerpiece fireplace greets guests, leading their eyes to the floor-to-ceiling glazed windows that offer unfettered views of Tasmania’s iconic pine trees and dunes, Frederick Henry Bay, and the Southern Ocean. Throughout the home, Hansen was sure to incorporate homages to the local area with most of the furniture and homemade goods in The Pod coming from the community’s craftspeople and artisans.

Hansen found beauty in simplicity with The Pod, describing it as inspired by her “danish heritage,” and “the simplicity of Scandinavian design.” To stay true to Scandinavian design’s elemental roots, much of the interior walls within The Pod are unstained natural wood panels.

While the exterior and the majority of the interior are wrapped in light, natural Tasmanian oakwood, the bedroom is soothed in black timber walls, giving it a touch of blackout comfort for a restful night. On starry nights, guests of Hansen’s Airbnb can escape to the deck for a warm soak in the Huon pine outdoor tub made with timber sourced from the depths of Lake Pieman.


The kitchen is small and stocked with all the essentials, from an electric stove to working space for cooking. Just beside the kitchen, a modest dining table doubles as a workbench, and overhead skylights lead guests to the living area. There, guests can enjoy a cozy reading nook and find plenty of concealed storage compartments to keep the living spaces organized and decluttered.

Designer: Alice Hansen x Never Too Small

The living room’s couch was handcrafted by a local artisan and styled in a similar fashion to the back pod with a wooden base atop steel fittings. 

The kitchen and bedroom feature darker timber wall panels to give both rooms a cozier air. 

The dark timber walls in the bedroom function similarly to blackout curtains for a restful sleep.

The only door inside the tiny home, a sliding frosted glass panel, leads to the bathroom.

Laundry facilities are found in the bathroom along with a toilet, sink, and shower.

Outside, guests can enjoy the Huon pine outdoor tub made with timber sourced from the depths of Lake Pieman.

Come dusk, the lights inside The Pod emanate a golden glow to amplify the cozy and elegant feel.

The post An oakwood tiny home built from locally sourced timber was designed as a love letter to Tasmania! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Muji’s latest set of multifunctional storage solutions are designed to declutter your tiny living space!

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Currently on display at Milan Design Week, ‘Compact Life’ is a line of home storage products from Muji designed in collaboration with industrial design students inspired by today’s movement to downsize and declutter living spaces at home.

For those of us who’ve been living tiny before it was popular, we know the right home accessories for storage make all the difference between a cluttered and clutter-free home. Today, majorly in response to the raging climate crisis, people are incorporating aspects of tiny living into their home spaces to dampen their overall climate footprint. Providing the means to do so, Japanese household goods supplier Muji released a collection of storage accessories called ‘Compact Life’ that makes tiny living seem a lot more attainable for all of us.

Documenting and taking note of their own living spaces, the students worked closely with Muji designers and the Swiss designer Michel Charlot to finalize an array of twelve home products that optimize storage space to make tiny living a lot more comfortable. Each product stays true to Muji’s minimalist personality and humanistic approach to design, keeping geometric shapes and multifunctional builds.

Amidst the catalog of accessories is a basket storage system that doubles as a wood-and-crate step ladder, ideal for the kitchen space or bathroom to store toiletries and reach taller heights. Then, there’s a series of photo frames that can store paper goods like notes and business cards in an integrated slot that traces the perimeter of each frame. Using their own homes and colleagues’ homes as their main source of inspiration, the design students even made niche items like an insect house made from wire and hollow bamboo that could be hung outside an apartment window for hummingbirds and honeybees to drop by and visit.

Each one of the twelve designs is on display at Milan Fashion Week and the home accessories that comprise the Compact Life collection span from a modest corner shelf designed for the shower to a mirror medicine cabinet that also functions as a whiteboard. Product designs like a valet stand for hanging clothing items and a pole storage system with compartments tailor-made for umbrellas would help organize home spaces like the entryway for a clutter-free welcome.

Then, there are products designed for office spaces, like a paper wall pocket that functions as a filing system for narrow office items such as notebooks and stationery and a folding chair that transforms into a small side table for impromptu lunch meetings. A steel-wire basket trolley tucks under the bed and stores clothing items to take some of the load off the closet. Finally, a bedside table with a concealed compartment for charging smartphones takes focus away from technology and brings us closer to a restful night’s sleep.

Designer: Muji

Entryway products like the multipurpose coat rack help declutter the home’s foyer.

An under-the-bed steel-wire basket trolley takes some of the load out of the closet.

The Stepladder Basket is a stepladder that also functions as a storage basket for smaller household items.

The Valet Stand is another entryway product that could help declutter crowded spaces.

Clip Hanging Frames allow for ways to hang your photos and also store paper goods.

A mirrored medicine cabinet also functions as a whiteboard for notetaking.

The post Muji’s latest set of multifunctional storage solutions are designed to declutter your tiny living space! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This bilevel tiny cabin comes with a 100-square-foot floor plan that cost only $10.5K to construct!

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Nido is a tiny cabin with a 100-square-foot floor plan to meet Finland’s zoning laws that do not require a building permit for houses with a floor plan between 96 and 128 square feet.

In recent years, designers and architects have interpreted the tiny cabin in countless ways. Depending on the location, building material, and layout chosen by the architects, each tiny home can serve a different purpose and take on its own unique look. Robin Falck, a Helsinki bred and born designer, let Finland’s generous building permit parameters guide his latest project, a tiny cabin called Nido.

In Finland, homes with a 96 to 128-square-foot floor plan do not require a building permit, which opened the door for Falck to construct his very own “compact getaway” deep in the woods of Sipoo. In building Nido, Falck maintained a sub-100 square-foot floor area and took to local recycled building materials to construct his tiny cabin. Working with such a modest floor plan and recycled building materials made the entire undertaking a lot more affordable, clocking in at just around $10,500. Falck was also able to champion the home’s construction work on his own, only needing an extra set of hands for carpentry work on a window and door frame.

The cabin comprises two levels and keeps a low profile exterior, with unstained wooden siding and white painted frame elements that tie the cabin together with a touch of elegant simplicity. A bare ramp walkway composed of wooden planks leads to the tiny cabin’s entrance and connects to the cabin’s side deck. Inside, angled, expansive windows drench both floors with natural sunlight and compliment the home’s natural wooden interior and soft hues of the Nordic-inspired color scheme found throughout the cabin.

A micro-kitchen and living area fill out the cabin’s first floor, while the second floor keeps the bedroom and extra storage space. Meaning “bird’s nest” in Italian, Nido is the ideal cabin getaway for the snowbird in each of us who just wants to get away from it all and hide out in the woods.

Designer: Robin Falck

The tiny cabin’s side deck merges with the house’s unstained wooden exterior, creating a seamless look.

Robin Falck describes his approach to design as, “tactile, simple, and strives to tidy things up as elegantly as possible.”

The interior’s Nordic-inspired color scheme is brightened by the natural sunlight that pours in from the home’s large windows.

A micro-kitchen and living area comprise the first floor, while the second floor is dedicated to the bedroom.

Falck constructed Nido on his own, only requiring extra help for the windows and door frame.

With eco-insulation and solar power, this tiny home built from five shipping containers was designed for off-grid living!

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Ahurewa is a 60m2 off-grid tiny home constructed from five shipping containers to provide natural eco-insulation and the potential for modular expansion. Situated in the mountains of New Zealand’s Mahakirau Forest Estate, Ahurewa is a sustainable tiny home equipped with twelve solar panels, a 4kw system inverter, two 25,000 liter water tanks, and a worm-composting septic system.

Shipping containers are steadily proving to be much more multifunctional than we’re used to giving them credit. Initially passed off as just a means for delivery, we’ve seen the shipping container become a backyard swimming pool and now, the YouTube series ‘Living Big in a Tiny House,’ documents an off-grid home in the Mahakirau Forest Estate built from five 20-foot shipping containers.

After moving in with her husband, Rosie sold her home in Auckland to buy some land in the mountains where she could begin construction on her off-grid tiny home. Of the 600 hectares that make up the Mahakirau Forest Estate, Rosie’s tiny home, dubbed Ahurewa to honor the surrounding woodlands, takes up only nine of them. Each home site is covenanted with the QEII National Trust, trusting landowners to be guardians of the surrounding environment and protect it.

Composed of five shipping containers, Rosie’s tiny home benefits from natural eco-insulation and an industrial build that’s long-lasting and durable. Four of the five shipping containers are dedicated to actual living space, while the fifth shipping container only keeps the home’s mudroom. The mudroom primarily functions as a transitional space between the outdoors and indoors. Inside, Rosie houses the batteries, inverter, and power board for the solar panels that line the roof, keeping the hum of the inverter an appropriate distance away from the bedroom.

Since Rosie’s tiny home is entirely off-grid, sustainable utilities and add-ons fill the exterior and interior of each shipping container. Twelve solar panels line one shipping container’s roof, which is powered by a 4-kilowatt system inverter. Outside, two 25,000 liter water tanks and a worm-composting septic system provide water and an accompanying purification system for continued use and safe drinking.

Designer: Rosie x Living Big in a Tiny House

Unfinished plywood panels line the one bedroom of the house, highlighting the panoramic view of the surrounding environment, as seen through the double-glazed, floor-to-ceiling windows. 

Ahurewa’s bathroom features concrete panels and stained wood accents to complement the home’s industrial look.

The tiny home wraps around an exterior deck to provide 360° views of the mountains and forests that surround it.

One side of the house receives sunlight during the afternoon and evenings, while the other receives morning sunlight, so both sun and shade are within walking distance.