Archinect - News

This cantilevering modular treehouse peeks into the Estonian wilderness

2023-10-02T12:00:00-04:00

Estonian studio Arsenit has completed an elevated timber retreat nestled in the trees close to the country’s largest waterfall. Named ‘Piil’ after the Estonian word ‘pilluma’ which means ‘peeking/looking,’ the 30-foot-tall prefabricated treehouse is elevated off the ground to minimize its interference with the forest surface while providing generous views across the Estonian countryside.

Image credit: Yifan Liu

The treehouse was designed to stand on one ‘leg’, which supports an accommodation module above. A discreet door provides access to the interior, with the cladding layer peeled back to reveal the metal structure supporting the cantilever. Both the leg and accommodation modules act as large steel trusses wrapped in pine cladding. While the leg module contains a staircase, services, and sports equipment storage, the accommodation module provides a living room and raised bedroom.

Image credit: Yifan Liu

Externally, the scheme is finishe...

Hello Wood creates airplane-inspired tiny home for an ambitious 12-year-old client

2023-02-14T12:48:00-05:00

Budapest-based Hello Wood has completed what it describes as “its most charming and eccentric small house ever.” Named the Jet House, the project comprises of a cottage shaped like a pastel blue airplane, set within a ring of trees in the hills of Hungary.

The project was initiated by an undaunted 12-year-old client named Lujzi, who dreamed of a playhouse she could retreat to with her friends. From Lujzi’s vision, the design team emerged with a functional tiny house which, in their words, is “more reminiscent of a beautiful design toy than a building.”

Image credit: Zsuzsa Darab

“Lujzi has always enjoyed traveling - especially flying on aircraft, which is why she had an airplane-themed cabin in her dreams,” Hello Wood explains. “She arrived at the first meetings with elaborate ideas and plans on paper. Supported by his father, she followed the design process till its end – representing an excitingly different perspective from that of typical real estate developers.”

Image credit: Zsu...

Crossboundaries converted a motorboat into a flexible tiny home on the water

2022-12-30T14:07:00-05:00

Earlier this year, Beijing-based practice Crossboundaries redesigned a fully solar powered motorboat by adding tiny-home components making it a slow-moving home on the water.

Completed in March 2022 for a Berlin-based client, the project questions the relationships between the notions of public-private and temporary-permanent. The structure has an overall length of around 49 feet and a maximum width of a little over 13 feet. It features a set of interlinked and multi-purpose spaces.

Crossboundaries made functionality improvements to the boat by including a fully hidden bed and the ability to close the helmstand, which hides more technical equipment, freeing up space. They also featured a pop-up table for the kitchen and a hidden foldable desk within a cabinet.

As noted by the architects, “The boat is "smart and self-powered" due to a set of innovative solutions in terms of solar energy, heating source, water, and waste management.” On sunny days, the boat can be entirely powered b...

New prefabricated tiny house can be assembled in an hour for less than $40,000

2022-12-05T15:22:00-05:00

A Los Angeles-based tiny house startup named Vika Living has unveiled a compact, semi-permanent housing unit that it says can be set up in an hour for just under $40,000.

Called the Vika One, the fully prefabricated dwellings provide 144 square feet of living space, with a shared sleeping, living, dining, kitchen area, and separate bathroom. Its ceilings stand 8.5 feet tall, paired with a floor-to-ceiling glass wall and a 42-square-foot outdoor terrace.

The tiny house is also delivered complete with furnishings and fixtures, including a bed, table, chairs, toilet, kitchen, storage units, and mechanical systems for HVAC, water, power, and waste. There is also an off-grid model, which includes rooftop solar panels and batteries, fresh water pumping and filtration, and off-grid waste systems.

Image: Vika Living

The units are fully assembled in Vika Living’s Los Angeles factory and then delivered and installed on site. No foundations or heavy equipment are needed to set them up.

The ...

Liv-Connected launches a modular approach to home design and a solution to the growing housing shortage

2022-08-22T16:09:00-04:00

New York startup Liv-Connected has released a modular approach to housing that tackles the homebuilding market's material and skilled labor shortages and limited housing inventory.

Cofounded by architects Jordan Rogove, Wayne Norbeck, Joe Wheeler, and healthcare professional Dr. Herb Rogove in 2019 (Jordan Rogove and Wayne Norbeck are also cofounders of NYC-based architecture firm DXA Studio), the endeavor aimed to seek a solution to disaster-relief housing that embodied a sense of permanence and resulted in an affordable, sustainable, and high-quality, health-centered solution to homebuilding.

Image courtesy of Liv-Connected.

The emergence of Liv-Connected reflects the commitment to homeowners' health and wellness and their team of architects and healthcare providers. "We started with the assumption that disaster housing could be so thoughtful that it might become permanent," shared Norbeck during a conversation with Forbes' Jennifer Castenson. "We were interested in the possibil...

University at Buffalo students are constructing tiny homes to fight homelessness

2022-06-20T13:55:00-04:00

Students from the University at Buffalo have embarked on the construction of three tiny homes to help combat homelessness. Led by Brad Wales, a clinical assistant professor at the university’s Department of Architecture, the initiative forms part of a design-build program within the school called the Small Built Works Project.

Tilt House render. Image courtesy of University at Buffalo

The process began with students designing prototypes for tiny houses, which were developed into permit-ready construction documents for three homes in Syracuse, New York. Construction on the homes began in June 2022, and are expected to be completed by June 2023.

Passive Solar House render. Image courtesy of University at Buffalo

For Wales, the project is the latest of dozens of projects undertaken in the Small Built Works Project’s 21 year history, which has secured nine building permits to develop and install public benefit projects across Buffalo. The program has been focused on affordable housing sinc...

Fran Silvestre Arquitectos presents an open, compact home that streamlines the construction and design process

2021-10-04T16:59:00-04:00

Valencia-based architecture firm Fran Silvestre Arquitectos has completed a compact, open, single-level home in Spain as part of a project that seeks to simplify and streamline the production of good design and construction.

Called NIU, the system integrates all of the necessary phases of constructing a home, from the architectural brief to the interior design, resulting in reduced timeframes, fixed prices, and minimum consumption. According to NIU, the homes are guaranteed to be delivered within three months of the date of purchase.

This featured project is the N70, a one-room, one-bath space, which is the smallest model of the NIU series. It is described by NIU as being “extensive, despite its compact size” and is envisioned as a space ideal for an individual or couple, or for use as a guest house.

Its connection with the landscape allows the home to blur the lines between interior and exterior. The home is divided into day and night-time spaces, which are situated around an op...

San Francisco is adapting the tiny home approach to city's largest encampment

2021-09-22T17:40:00-04:00

The cost of up to $1.7 million for building and installing the cabins, along with the dining and other facilities, will be paid for by the nonprofits DignityMoves and Tipping Point Community. The cabins will remain for 18 months, when the lease the city signed for using the parking lots as outdoor shelter spaces runs out.

The 64-square-foot cabins are produced by LifeMoves, a Silicon Valley-based company responsible for the installation of a similar development in nearby Mountain View in 2016. Neighboring Oakland has operated its own cabin site since 2017, albeit with mixed results for residents who have found themselves back on the streets long-term.

San Francisco’s move comes a bit late, however, as COVID-related fears have deemed the crowded shelter system a non-starter for many. Other cities like Los Angeles have invested in the tiny homes movement, which is being seen as a popular solution to a crisis at a time when encampments sanctioned by municipal governments are popping up increasingly throughout the state. More than 40% of America’s homeless population lives in California alone.

The new approach certainly constitutes a change from San Francisco’s previous initiati...

Winners of the 2021 AIA Small Project Awards announced

2021-06-25T12:11:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has unveiled the eleven winning projects for the 2021 edition of the AIA Small Projects Awards. Now in its eighteenth year, the awards were established by the Small Project Design (SPD) Knowledge Community to “recognize small-project practitioners for the high quality of their work.” The initiative also seeks to raise awareness of the value and excellence that architects can apply to projects regardless of size, brief, or scope.

The eleven winners are spread across three categories. Below, we have set out the winning entries, along with a description excerpt. For full details on the winning projects, visit the AIA’s official website here. You can also recap previous winners of the Small Project Awards through our coverage in 2020 and 2019.

Category 1

Small project construction, an architectural object, work of environmental art or an architectural design element that costs up to $150,000 in construction.

Casa de Baño (Bathhouse), Temasca...

This mushroom-shaped nature retreat offers panoramic vistas

2021-04-02T15:23:00-04:00

Strolling through the woods outside of Xin Yu City in China's eastern Jiangxi Province, one might stumble across a peculiar little cottage: shaped like a cone dropped from one of the surrounding pine trees and sitting slightly elevated from the forest floor, the dwelling begins to blur the line between nature and fabricated shelter.

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

Dubbed The Mushroom, the 50-square-meter (538 square feet) house is composed of two basic, intersecting volumes: "The main part of the mushroom is the guest room space, with a panoramic window set up near the viewing height," as the project description explains. "When sitting on chairs or leaning on the bed, the guests are immersed in the surrounding nature."

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

"The loft serves as a child area, linked by the small-scale stairs. The pure white cone-shaped roof is rounded on top, creating a sense of unbounded extension to the space."

Photo: Fanfang Tian.

"The bathroom and storage ...

Online events today feature Odile Decq, public space & the tiny house movement

2020-05-05T07:35:00-04:00

Looking for some inspiration? Today's list of featured online events from our recently launched Virtual Event Guide include a lecture by French architect, urban planner and academic Odile Decq; a conversation on public space, hosted by Indy Design Week, and featuring Donna Sink and Quilian Riano; and an AIA-NY-hosted webinar on the tiny house movement.

Are you hosting a virtual lecture? Presentation? Tour? Interview? Happy Hour? Submit it for consideration by clicking here.

Are you an expert in an arena that's especially important right now? Let us know if you would like to work with Archinect to host an online event.

Odile Decq Guest Lecture at Athabasca University RAIC Centre for Architecture
Tuesday, May 5, 2020 | 9:00 AM – 10:30 AM MDT
Athabasca University, in Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, is hosting an online lecture with Odile Decq, French architect, urban planner and academic.
Click here to attend and/or register

Homeworks: Public Space
Tuesday, May 5, 2020 | 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM E...

Tiny homes get headway in Houston

2019-10-22T11:50:00-04:00

Refuge, one of Houston's leading developers, in conjunction with architecture firms Brett Zamore Design and Gibson Design, Inc., have created the mini-development of one- and two-bedroom homes, each between about 600 and 800 square feet, packed with amenities for modern living.

According to Culture Map, the homes feature open floor plans, plenty of patio space and are "far from being crammed or crowded." One of the homes is currently valued at $249,900, Culture Map reports.

Tiny homes take off in Denver, with one caveat

2019-10-11T14:30:00-04:00

The Denver City Council voted Monday night to approve changes to the city’s zoning code to help welcome temporary tiny home villages hoping to use vacant land to help address homelessness...The city voted to approve the Beloved Community Village. According to the release, it was Denver’s first temporary tiny home village and is a successful pilot of using tiny homes to help vulnerable or marginalized residents aiming to find permanent homes.

"In residential zone districts, these villages must be located on the grounds of a public, civic or institutional use, such as a school, church or community center," Fox reports. The tiny home villages will be able to remain in these locations temporarily for up to four years, it is a creative approach to the problem of homelessness in major cities. Based on the outcome it will be interesting to see if more will follow.

Mobile version of famed Bauhaus building hits the road in celebration of school's centennial

2019-01-08T16:25:00-05:00

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus art school, the Berlin-based design collective Savvy Contemporary has created a movable, miniature version of their iconic workshop wing. Nicknamed “Bauhaus-Wohnmaschine” (Bauhaus living machine), the 15-square-meter home on wheels features a replica of the original building's iconic glass facade, conceived by Walter Gropius in 1925. It includes an exhibition space and reading room dedicated to the history of the famous school of design.

Over the next year, the Wohnmaschine will visit four cities, traveling from Dessau and Berlin to Kinshasa and Hong Kong. Throughout the journey, the school will hold symposiums and workshops intended to challenge traditions and narratives of modernity and modernism, and their inextricable relationship to colonialism.

Photo by Alexander Lech.

"Design education, discourse and practice is still largely dominated by western design principles and philosophies," says the organization. With this projec...

FreelandBuck's LA edition of the world-traveling MINI LIVING Urban Cabin just opened on a Downtown Los Angeles rooftop

2018-06-07T17:49:00-04:00

The 8th Los Angeles Design Festival kicked off today with a plethora of events happening throughout the city over the next four days. One of the featured attractions appears to have fallen out of the sky and landed on the rooftop of the ROW DTLA building: MINI LIVING Urban Cabin is a site-specific installation designed by LA/NYC-based studio FreelandBuck in cooperation with MINI LIVING and will be open to visitors by day and welcome overnight guests after 10pm. The LA edition of this traveling urban cabin is the third stop around the world since its launch in 2017.

Photo: Laurian Ghinitoiu

"The Urban Cabin is a continuous installation project, a small living unit that travels to various locations across the world, adapted for each city by local architects," the project description explains. "Each variation is designed with limited space and inspired by local surroundings, demonstrating creative approaches to the challenge of saving space while creating unique ...

Scientists build world's tiniest house using nanorobotic assembly

2018-05-22T13:39:00-04:00

In order to demonstrate the capabilities of a new nanorobotic system, French scientists have built a "microhouse" that sits on the cleaved end of an optical fiber. The diminutive home was built by a team from the Femto-ST Institute in Besançon, France, using the new μRobotex nanofactory system. That setup utilizes a robotically-controlled ion gun and a gas injection system, operating within a large vacuum chamber, to assemble microstructures on the tips of optical fibers with extreme accuracy.

The 'Tiny Houses' trend is so passé—Micro Houses are all the rage now. This charming nanobungalow built by the French Femto-ST Institute sits on a plot measuring only 300 by 300 micrometers.

Credit: FEMTO-ST Institute

All you need to get started on your own fun projects is a large vacuum chamber, some ion guns, thin membranes of silica, with a little robotic piloting for the nanoassembly sprinkled on top.

To learn how it really works, visit the full paper in the Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A.

Cruise ships, tenements, drainpipes: Hong Kong's housing crisis inspires creative design approaches

2018-03-27T14:03:00-04:00

For eight years in a row, an international survey of nearly 300 cities has named Hong Kong the world’s least affordable housing market. [...] Architects and developers have also put forward some novel proposals, ranging from the quirky to the audacious. While some of the ideas may be repackaged versions of the cramped spaces the city has long known, others could reshape the future of housing in Hong Kong.

The proposal by architect James Law to squeeze 100-square-foot micro apartments into concrete drainpipes was widely published a few weeks ago. The NYT lists a few more 'solutions' — some lofty, others being already implemented.

This 100 sq. ft micro-living unit made from concrete pipes is Hong Kong's newest housing solution

2018-01-02T13:08:00-05:00

The goal with it is simple, says architect James Law: to utilize “leftover space” between buildings in Hong Kong, a city with limited land and a constant housing shortage.

The city of Hong Kong has retained the title of the world's most expensive real estate market for the past seven years. As housing prices continue to soar, many residents are finding themselves with inadequate shelter, including over 200,000 people living in what has come to be referred to as 'coffin homes,' or tiny, subdivided housing units measuring at just 4' x 6'.

Aiming to ease the city's affordable housing problem, architect James Law has found a creative solution that converts concrete water pipes into 100-square-foot micro-living units. Called OPod, the tiny apartments are equipped with a shower, toilet, and smartphone lock, and can house one to two people. Additionally, the tube houses can also be stacked on one another between the city’s highrises to form modular communities.

Startup "Getaway" rents out tiny modern houses in the woods for urbanites to escape

2017-12-29T14:13:00-05:00

The savvy emphasis on escape and disconnectedness and repose has resonated among the millennials Getaway aims to reach. In each of its markets, outside New York, Boston and Washington, Getaway’s houses are booked solid on weekends, and in early 2017, the company, founded by two Harvard graduates, raised $15 million in venture capital funding, which suggests that a tiny house campground may soon be coming to a forest near you.

Getaway positions its retreats just outside major cities where individuals are encouraged to recharge and reconnect in nature. Tapping into the tiny house phenomena that rapidly gained popularity among millennials after the 2008 housing crisis, Getaway houses can be rented at just over $160 a night. The vacation rentals provide pamphlets and literature urging guests to remove themselves from stressors such as work, email, texts, and competition. A wooden box is provided to lock away your phone with no wifi available in the area (for those unable to confine their phone to the box).

Tesla's 'Tiny House' goes on roadshow to promote its solar tech

2017-08-14T14:19:00-04:00

Tesla revealed today that it created what it calls the ‘Tesla Tiny House’ to feature its energy products, like solar panels and Powerwall. The company is bringing the house on tour using a Model X “to educate the public on how to generate, store and use renewable energy for their home.” The tiny house contains a Tesla mobile design studio and configurator to help home owners configure a solar plus energy storage system for their home.

Needless to add that the Tesla Tiny House itself gains all its electricity via a solar installation on the tiny roof.

The exhibition tour is limited to four major Australian cities for now, but the economic gain could be far from tiny — as the world's leader in capita penetration of rooftop solar installations (15% of households / 1.5 million households), Australia is a highly lucrative market for Tesla even though it hasn't started selling solar panels there.

The Danish government looks to the Skaeve Huse as a solution to Homelessness

2017-07-17T19:32:00-04:00

The Danish term “Skaeve Huse” roughly translates to special houses for special people. Since the early aughts, the government has been using this form of temporary housing to help shelter individuals who suffer from mental illness, drug addiction and/or have trouble adapting to normal living environments. Tiny house villages have become a common solution for cities experiencing high rates of homelessness. Even in the U.S., cities like Portland and Seattle are piloting similar programs.

Placed in settlements of 8-12 small single-family homes, residents are provided with homes through a conventional tenancy agreements. Social workers pay regular visits with the underlying idea being that with some supervision, residents can come to themselves and social frictions will disappear from the neighborhood. While most Skaeve Huses are temporary, Trudo Housing Corporation wanted to create a community that offered permanent, energy-neutral homes that could offer long-term benefits.

Studio Elm...

Charles Leadbeater on the meaning of home in today's culture of rootlessness

2016-12-09T15:20:00-05:00

The tiny house is just one example of the lengths to which people will go to create a sense of home even when they lack the means for it. It’s just one symptom of a much wider and intensifying search for belonging, which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism.

The downsides of the charming "holdout" houses

2016-09-20T13:25:00-04:00

There is something romantic about the idea of a holdout, a David to the big developer's Goliath, a protagonist for whom home matters more than money, a solitary survivor. In the Pixar movie "Up," the holdout is the hero. In the real-life Seattle version of the story that reportedly inspired the film's premise, an elderly woman who refused to sell her home became — along with her home itself — a city icon.

In practice, though, modern cities grow out of older ones in large part through the unglamorous process of parcel assembly — of fitting together the once-smaller pieces of the city, "Tetris"-like. And while the result often produces fantastically bizarre neighbors, cities can't evolve if every property owner is such a hero.

For more on tiny houses, follow this link:

The Onion takes on the 'Tiny House' movement

2016-08-16T17:13:00-04:00

The Onion has once again skewered an architectural trend, this time honing in on the 'pro's and con's' of tiny houses, aka 'micro-houses'. Pro's include: "paints inability to afford a real home as positive life choice"; "allows you to live the simple life your ancestors did everything in their power to escape"; and "4’-by-3’ velvet Allman Brothers Band poster gets the decorating job done on its own" among others. Meanwhile, the con's include: "anxious pacing route severely restricted"; "lack of diversity in a neighborhood composed entirely of other people whose novels didn’t sell"; and "have to live there".

Desperate for more laughs? Follow these links:

Humans and other things that nest

2016-05-30T12:42:00-04:00

When I talk about small spaces, I’m not talking about photogenic shelters constructed from found materials by Silicon Valley billionaires. I am not talking about cabin porn. I am talking about the universal human instinct to burrow, regardless of your personal dimensions.

Molly Young penned a Letter of Recommendation: for Tiny Spaces. She opens by noting that many of the homes she grew up in, shared a commonality - "smallness".

On a related note, earlier this year Orhan Ayyüce pointed out The Tiny House Fantasy.

"Tiny Houses in the City" showcases big opportunities in small housing

2016-03-31T20:19:00-04:00

It’s not enough to just give someone a shelter. A home really needs a certain amount of consideration as to how you live in it. As we look at housing as a solution for helping the homeless and middle class -- especially in L.A. -- we have an opportunity to expand the vocabulary. We’ve never been tied down with what housing looks like in Los Angeles. We can have super interesting approaches to density here.

The Tiny House Fantasy

2016-01-19T17:31:00-05:00

Tiny homes aren’t a solution. Small living is another superficial fix, brandishing clever design and appeals to nostalgia while ignoring the underlying social relations which cause homelessness, housing insecurity, and environmental degradation.

Arielle Milkman pens an article for JACOBIN. The article takes a historical account of tiny homes and gives a current critique to everyone's darling (everyone = young, white, nonprofit or government worker.) At the end, "Tiny Houses" are superficial housing solutions for the poor. "As spaces in city housing are cut into smaller and smaller swaths, designed to privilege young, independent, salaried workers, the most vulnerable members of the community lose out."

Woman's dream tiny home clashes with Canadian law

2015-08-28T18:43:00-04:00

Cheryl Smith planned to move "off the grid" and into a small house near Clark's Harbour, N.S., a year ago. But thanks to Canadian building regulations, the four-by-six metre structure remains half-built and empty. [...] Canadian laws require living spaces to have access to power to run smoke detectors and air exchange systems. But Smith said the point of moving into her tiny home was to disconnect from the power grid.

Seattle high schoolers push to provide moveable, minimalist shelters for the homeless

2015-04-27T12:52:00-04:00

After past run-ins with the city, the nomadic Nickelsville has shifted from temporary place to temporary place. Most recently, the group struggled with a location, after Seattle decided to authorize and regulate three homeless encampments in the city. “There’s a need for a transportable, insulated, tiny house that provides privacy and isn’t going to be a huge burden for them when they move,”

The problem with tiny homes - they can get stolen

2015-01-06T11:30:00-05:00

A couple who spent $35,000 building a tiny house-on-wheels to live an eco-friendly life were stunned to find their home-to-be had been towed away by thieves. Casey Friday and his wife Jessica spent two and a half years building the house themselves from the raw materials so they could reduce their environmental impact. The 650sqft home... could run on rainwater, compost its waste and get by on 'very little' electricity - but was purloined from its custom-paved driveway in Spring Branch, Texas.