Could areas afflicted with housing shortages and homelessness benefit from a 120-year-old solution?
 
That’s the story behind a new tiny home designed by architect Charles Bloszies, FAIA. Inspired by the wood-framed, cedar-shingled “earthquake cottages” created in response to San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and fire, Bloszies and his team have created a modern version to address homelessness. Called NowHouse, its footprint is about 100 square feet, with metal frames and cladding for fire protection.
 
It’s a solution to the housing emergency inspired by another emergency.

"The city built over 5,000 tiny, one-room shelters to house those displaced by the earthquake. These cute little structures were called 'Earthquake Cottages' and rapidly deployed in large number on open spaces with the intent they would be moved to permanent locations,” says Bloszies, who is also a structures engineer and author. "Many have survived and are still lived in and cherished by their residents today. The Earthquake Cottage footprint was about 150 square feet, wood framed with a cedar shingle roof. No bathroom and no kitchen, and no foundation. Each had a stove (for heat only) with a metal flue. Horse-drawn wagons moved them around."

Similar to these earthquake cottages, the NowHouse is a simple shelter without bath or kitchen, and employs staking for its structural foundation. But NowHouse differs in that each colorful unit has corner bay windows as well as solar panels to power lights and a heater/AC unit. The NowHouse is built and furnished in a factory, transported by truck, and moved around with a forklift or pallet jack. It looks like a comfortable little house and not like an industrially fabricated garden shed.

Based on the firm's experience designing seven interim supportive housing facilities of differing types around the Bay Area, "we have learned that what unhoused people want most is security and privacy in a clean, supportive physical environment,” he says. "Shelter is a basic human need, but a leakproof enclosure is only one part of creating an environment to foster transition from life on the streets into permanent housing.”