13 More Modern, Mobile & Modular Tiny House Designs
July 22, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design. ]
Could you live in 200 square feet or less? For most people, the answer to that question is an emphatic no – but perhaps that’s because you’ve never seen some of the amazingly imaginative, well-designed tiny houses that are popping up around the world. Tiny houses can be mobile (including awesome converted house trucks) or stationary, plugged in or off-grid, pre-fabricated or built on-site. Some are ultramodern while others are decidedly rustic, and though a few are just part-time retreats, many shelter occupants year-round. These 14 tiny house designs show just how diverse compact dwellings can be, from three-story apartments in urban Tokyo to whimsical cottages in the American countryside.
Fab Lab House: Small and Modern
(images via: fablabhouse.com)
Far from a shed-like tiny house, this imaginative home that was designed to ‘act like a tree’ won the Solar Decathlon Europe people’s choice award for both looks and sustainability. Created by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the Lab House in Madrid has a rounded shape and a roof covered in photovoltaic ‘leaves’ made from the world’s most flexible solar panels. The energy captured by these ‘leaves’ runs down to the ‘roots’ of the house where it’s stored for later use. The surprisingly roomy interior features a large open room that functions as a living room, dining room and extra bedroom. Additional sleeping space is located in a loft.
Tiny Green-Roofed Egg House in China
(images via: treehugger)
A Chinese student lives in a tiny egg-shaped house made of a bamboo frame and inspired by the grass-covered domes of Norway. Parked right across the street from where owner/builder Daihai Fei works, the Egg House was topped with a layer of stitched bags filled with sawdust and grass seeds, from which the green roof sprouts. This layer provides both protection from the rain and insulation. Inside, Fei has a bed, a small sink, a lamp powered by a solar panel and a bookcase.
Solar Powered Cube House
(images via: jetson green)
Incredibly simple and easy to build, the first prototype of the Cube Project – known as QB1 – is three meters square, or about 97 square feet. Designed to generate more energy than it uses over the course of a year thanks to a 1.48kW rooftop solar system, QB1 houses a lounge, table, two chairs, double bed, a full-sized shower, a kitchen, a washing machine and a composting toilet. All it needs is grid connection and cold water to operate.
Vodafone Mobile Solar Home
(images via: tiny house design)
While this home wasn’t built to actually live in – it’s actually just a mobile display to demonstrate Vodafone’s fixed phone and internet service – it’s an interesting example of a beautiful and modern tiny home. Measuring 19.7 feet long, 8.2 feet wide and 12.6 feet tall, this tiny house on wheels includes a staircase leading to a sleeping loft, a bathroom, a kitchen and a living room with a fold-out dining table. Slide-out side tables, built in bench seating and niches under the stairs provide lots of function and storage space for such a small area.
Wacky ‘Dome Lady’ House
(images via: tiny house design)
Bet you’ve never seen a tiny house quite like this before! While it’s more folksy than modern, the Dome Lady by Bev Magennis is certainly an imaginative take on the tiny house concept. Located in remote Apache Creek, New Mexico, the 18-foot-tall home, decorated on the outside with scrap ceramic mosaic tile, serves as a guest space on a 10-acre homestead. It was made using rebar-reinforced PVC pipe gathered at the top to create the dome shape and then lathed and plastered.
Traditional Javanese ‘Joglo’ Guest House
(images via: tiny house blog)
Incredible ornate and intricate, this Javanese guest house spotted at an antique store in Bali – with a price tag of $8,000 – is likely an antique. Traditional Joglo houses can be found all over Indonesia, many at least a century old, with carved details and elevated floors. They’re fitted together like puzzles, without using a single nail, so they can be easily dismantled and moved. These guest quarters often have second stories and can be as large as 1000 square feet.
Tokyo Micro Home Built from Grid of Boxes
(images via: inhabitat)
The Cell Brick home of Tokyo is a tiny two-story home smaller than most garages. Architect Yasuhiro Yamashita crafted it from a grid-like pattern of opaque and translucent boxes to give it a geometric look and let in lots of daylight. It includes a kitchen, living room and bedroom on the main floor, a lounge space and bathroom on the second floor, a basement for storage and even a roof deck. The boxes were bolted together to create an overall volume that is surprisingly sturdy, even for an earthquake-prone region.
Tiny Treehouse on Stilts
(images via: tiny house talk)
Hovering over a man-made pond, this incredible ‘treehouse’ on stilts by Baumraum is definitely tiny – there’s barely more than a bed inside, though the large porch does extend the living space to a considerable degree, which would help in temperate climates. But the Baumraum design makes for stunning and unique guest quarters, and could possibly be enlarged just slightly for year-round living.
Hyette Tiny House
(images via: tommie-wilhelmsen.no)
More of a relaxation spot than an actual livable house, the ‘Hyette Hardanger’ by architect Tommie Wilhelmsen is notable for its streamlined shape and its construction, which was achieved with layered wood. This style could easily carry over into tiny houses that are slightly expanded in size to include a kitchen and bathroom.
‘Dwelle’ Modern Timber Frame Tiny House
(images via: tiny house blog)
Offgrid micro-homes by UK company ‘Dwelle’, known as ‘dwelle-ings’, are entirely prefabricated and easy to erect in practically any landscape. Small enough for two people to assemble with no large machinery required, these homes feature compact layouts with sleeping lofts and are insulated with 100% recycled newspapers. The homes can be put on different kinds of foundations and the exterior siding is customizable to fit specific climates.
Whimsical House by Rustic Way
(images via: tiny house blog)
No, that’s not a quirky prop from the Harry Potter movie set. It’s an adorable custom-built house by Rustic Way, a Minnesota-based company that can produce these these structures in a variety of sizes from teeny-tiny sauna size (as pictured above) to guest houses that are 12
Funny Farms: 12 Cool Agricultural Architecture Conversions
June 27, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Steph in Art & Design & Home & Garden. ]
Silvery barn wood, exposed timbers, the sense of history and pastoral contentment – rural ruins have a lot to offer, whether they’re simply converted for new uses or creatively incorporated into novel structures. From great big barns to piles of century-old rubble, agricultural buildings have been adapted and recycled into stunning modern homes that are surprisingly bright, airy and up-to-date.
Mysterious Floating Barn – Is It Real?
(images via: museum of hoaxes)
Can this place possibly be real? Purported to be an actual structure located somewhere in the countryside of Ukraine, this ‘floating barn’ seems to make use of old agricultural equipment – or perhaps it’s just not what it seems. It looks like something out of a science fiction film, and could very well be photoshopped; however, cantilevered barns do exist for practical purposes like allowing air to circulate through stored crops.
Modern Home from Old Dutch Farm & Barn Buildings
(images via: search architecture)
Dilapidated and unsafe, the crumbling remains of an old farmhouse and its outbuildings were transformed into a minimalist modern home by Amsterdam-based architecture firm SeARCH. Some of the older brick buildings that were still in good condition were incorporated into the new design, and inside, weathered wood from the barn and sheds was contrasted with clean white walls and pale new wood to great effect.
Old Tobacco Barn Now Visitor Center at Botanical Gardens
(images via: inhabitat)
A red barn dating back to the 1940s now serves as an exterior shade structure for a new building that nests within its walls. The tobacco barn, located on the Yew Dell Gardens in Crestwood, Kentucky, is now a visitor center for the unique gardens that surround it in a rehabilitation project that brings together historic preservation, recycling and energy efficiency. Protected by the old barn, the inner structure is kept cool and breezy naturally to minimize energy consumption.
Red Barn Made into Spacious Home
(images via: bainbridgebarn.com)
Vaulted ceilings, aged wood full of character – why haven’t more barns been converted into homes? This renovation shows how barns can serve as open, spacious and light-filled living spaces for humans once they’re no longer needed to house livestock. The Bainbridge Barn, located on an island outside Seattle, has retained its rural feel on the outside but feels almost loft-like on the inside.
200-Year-Old Farmhouse Turned Ultra-Modern
(images via: ian claridge)
A farmhouse in Fahndorf, Austria that is over two centuries old was incorporated into a new, ultramodern structure that plays on the contrasts between aged, textured wood and stone and shiny steel. Renovated by Vienna-based architecture office Propeller Z, the home is certainly an unexpected rural find, and features an unusual stacked wood wall.
Scaled-Down Dairy Barn is Bright and Beautiful
(images via: scdlp.net)
The hefty wooden slats of an old dairy barn are now a privacy and shade screen protecting the glass walls of a modernized home. Architecture firm SCDLP reused the barn wood for a new, scaled-down structure with lots of natural light. All materials used in construction were found or felled on site. As a bonus, the light pouring through the rippled glass panels between the slats create watery reflections on the walls and floors for peaceful ambiance.
Stone Farm House Now a Luxury Villa
(images via: manuel ribeiro architect)
Historic stone walls, rough and infused with over a century of rural life in Portugal, are juxtaposed with new wood, glass and metal in this luxury country villa conversion. The large villa retains traditional features like the red tile roof and a vast interior courtyard, but is given warmth and comfort with cozy wood floors and ceilings, and sleek steel details.
Big Barn Project by Specht Harpman
(images via: specht harpman)
Passing by this barn, you would never guess at the beautiful, bright and airy modern interiors it conceals. Architect Specht Harpman preserved the traditional look of the exterior but turned the inside into a livable space with concrete floors, white walls and ceilings, light-colored wood and an open floor plan.
Stunning Carriage House Conversion
(images via: omasworks.com)
New York City-based OMA gave a 19th century carriage house on an upstate New York farm a novel purpose as a contemporary writing studio and guest house, attached to a barn building that had already been renovated into the main residence on the property. Lofts make use of the height of the carriage house, and translucent panels let in more daylight. The architects stripped the original mortise and tenon timber frame and left it visible in the completed work.
Old Wood Barn Made Airy and Livable
(images via: shed)
Massive windows and a white drywall ceiling have helped turn this barn into a covetable abode without compromising the sense of history that weathered, beaten-up barn wood brings. SHED Architects preserved the original structure but managed to make it feel like a relaxing retreat, fitting in a workroom, kitchen, lofted living area, guest apartment and multiple bedrooms.
Holiday Home in England Made of Reclaimed Farm Remnants
(images via: busyboo)
The stones from a demolished farmhouse formed the basis for a stunning new home in Oxfordshire, UK that retains the profile of a traditional farmhouse, but with a cleaned-up, modern shape, large windows and a contemporary interior. McLean Quinlan Architects gave the home an oak-boarded ceiling that is 30 feet high at its apex as well as white painted plasterwork, Cotswold stone floors and an entire wall of glass.
Farm Buildings Given White Makeover
(images via: living etc)
On South Africa’s Western Cape, a London family found a lovely little farmhouse in need of some work and gave it a whole new look – with a lot of white paint. Consisting of a traditional single-story farmhouse and two converted outbuildings, Pear Tree Farm in Klein Karoo is an oasis of calm with seven bedrooms and four bathrooms.
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Sustainable Style: 12 Contemporary Green Home Designs
Sustainability and modern style go hand in hand in these 12 amazing green home designs, from a spinning dome home to a solar prefab home.
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The Urban Jungle: Tiny Ecosystems Take Over Madrid
June 5, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design & Home & Garden & Nature & Ecosystems. ]
If you believe, as many of us do, that nature needs to be nurtured and protected in order to survive, then you may appreciate the small things that each of us can do every day to protect the Earth. Spanish artistic group Luzinterruptus, already known for literally shining a light on urban problems in Madrid, came up with a truly beautiful way of encouraging nature to gain a foothold – or roothold, rather – in the most unforgiving urban spots.
The Implanted Nature project was implemented in May 2011 by Luzinterruptus on an overnight journey from Malasaña to Lavapiés. The group created 50 tiny ecosystems, complete with plants, plastic animals, lovely lights and miniature greenhouses, and left them in the darkest and least plant-friendly parts of the city center.
Initially the project was going to be about preserving already-existing weeds and stubborn plants that always seem to poke their way through cracks in the sidewalk somehow. But in the busy city center where feet and cars constantly trample the ground, the group knew they would have a hard time finding even the most hardy of plant life.
They decided to bring their own plants, along with growing medium and a growth aid to help them survive. After creating the tiny ecosystems, the anonymous members of the group simply left all 50 of them there as a reminder to passers-by of the true beauty that nature can bring to even a city environment.
(all images via: Luzinterruptus)
The hope is that some (or ideally all) of the plants will take root and actually grow where they have been planted, bringing a semi-permanent splash of cheery green to the otherwise dull, grey streets of a busy urban community.
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Green Your Mind: South Korea’s Ecosystem Research Utopia
South Korea’s planned Ecorium Project consists of huge greenhouses, beautiful nature preserves, and high-tech research and education facilities.
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Pakistan Microlending Program Looks to Aid Women in Poverty
May 12, 2011 by · View Comments
Read the Transcript: to.pbs.org A Pakistani program that gives small loans to needy woman is making a difference for those in poverty. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the program that focuses on women. It’s part of a partnership with the Undertold Stories Project at St. Mary’s University in Minnesota.
Making a change through Social Entrepreneurship - Coming up!
April 17, 2011 by · View Comments
US-SAUDI WOMEN’S FORUM ON SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP Working together to solve social issues using business and leadership skills Project by: ICF International
[AIESEC in NUS] Social Entrepreneurship Symposium - Neue Thinken 2
March 28, 2011 by · View Comments
www.projembedded.com Interview with Maple Cheng, student form National University of Singapore who joined Syposium Neue Thinken in 2010 organized by Project Embedded, a social entrepreneurship project in AIESEC in NUS.
Urban Ruins: Abandoned Building Houses Architecture Academy
March 2, 2011 by admin · View Comments
[ By Delana in Art & Design, Nature & Ecosystems, Science & Research. ]
An abandoned five-story apartment building in Taipei, Taiwan is the unlikely setting for an unusual learning experience. It is the home of Ruin Academy, an interdisciplinary research center that studies the “Third Generation City,” or the ruins of the industrial city. By incorporating a number of disciplines and a mixture of research topics, the Academy explores and celebrates our modern man-made ruins.
While the research topics covered by the Academy are fascinating on their own, the building in which the research takes place is just as unique. All of the windows and interior walls have been removed to allow bamboo, trees, fruits and vegetables to grow freely. Six-inch cylinders of the exterior walls and ceilings have been cut from the buildings to let the rain inside.
Dormitories were constructed from mahogany for professors and students to sleep in. They call it a voluntary refugee camp, which the building does resemble until you reach the fifth floor. There sits a public sauna which Academy dwellers call the “best in the Pacific.”
The Ruin Academy students take their cues from the urban jungle, focusing on re-organizing the industrial city and rearranging the way that humans interact with their environment. Workshops offered by the Academy include Urban Acupuncture, Anarchist Gardener, Ultra-Ruin, River Urbanism and Compost. According to the group, the Third Generation City is a mixture of nature and man-made construction.
In essence, it seems that the group is actively looking for that process which is normally very slow and unchecked by human interaction: the ruination of a human dwelling place. They do not participate in the downfall of the city; rather, they look for places where urban ruins have already gained a slight foothold and they seek to help it along. Far from being agents of destruction, they are scholars and architects who are looking forward to the next stage of the urban existence.
(all images via: Nikita Wu)
Taipei, according to the “constructor-gardeners” of Ruin Academy, is the perfect place for this project. The city is increasingly dominated by official industrialism, so constructing an artificially natural indoor garden in the heart of the city is the perfect way to begin pushing this urban environment toward the organic.
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Social Entrepreneurship - Enhanced Stethoscope for the Remote Diagnosis - Annie Mitsak
February 24, 2011 by · View Comments
The goal of the M-HEAL Enhanced Stethoscope Project is to develop a stethoscope device for diagnosing congenital heart defects in infants in Guatemala. Each year, approximately 1600 infants in Guatemala are born with a malformed heart, which can cause permanent brain, lung, and heart damage or death if not treated surgically within weeks of birth. M-HEAL is collaborating with the Appropriate Technologies Collaborative (ATC), an Ann Arbor-based non-profit design firm that specializes in designing for low-income individuals, particularly those in Guatemala.
Google Arts Project - More than Words
February 15, 2011 by admin · View Comments
I hesitantly checked out Google’s Art Project this morning. Wasn’t sure what to expect but certainly nothing as visually stunning and inviting as this. For people who can’t make it to some of the best museums in the world, this is the next best thing. Really. You can practically touch the paintings!
Kudos to Google for an amazing job.
Here are a few of the masterpieces you can check out:
- Vincent Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art
- Rembrandt’s “Moses with the Ten Commandments” at Germany’s Gemäldegalerie
- Caravaggio’s “Saint Catherine of Alexandria” at Spain’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum
- Andrey Rublev’s “Holy Trinity” at Russia’s Tretyakov Gallery
- John Martin’s “The Plains of Heaven” at England’s Tate Gallery
- Bartolomeo Cristofori’s “Grand Piano” at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Leonardo da Vinci’s “Annunciation” at Italy’s Uffizi Gallery
- Vincent Van Gogh’s “Bedroom” at the Netherlands’ Van Gogh Museum
“These are the kinds of projects that made me a Google fanboy way back when,” Forbes’ Michael Humphrey wrote. “Self-driving cars, bad Buzz and TV static reveal a company painting too far outside its own lines. Art Project is a Google masterpiece. It is innovation, powered by enormous reach and collaboration to bring the world to our screens in ways we could have never imagined.”
Beth
Giant Jesus is Coming!
January 17, 2011 by thegreenchildrenfoundation · View Comments
A statue of Jesus Christ that its builders say will be the largest in the world is fast rising from a Polish cabbage field and local officials hope it will become a beacon for tourists.
The builders expect to attach the arms, head and crown to the robed torso in coming days, weather and cranes permitting, completing a project conceived by local Catholic priest Sylwester Zawadzki and paid for by private donations.
Standing on an artificial mound, the plaster and fiberglass statue will stand some 52 metres (57 yards) when completed, taller than the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer with outstretched arms that gazes over Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Polish officials say.
The actual statue will measure 33 metres — Zawadzki has said this reflects the fact that Jesus died at 33, according to Christian tradition — and weigh 440 tonnes.
“I’m happy because this project will bring publicity to our town, not only in Poland but also from the global media. Other countries are showing a lot of interest,” said Dariusz Bekisz, mayor of Swiebodzin, a town of about 21,000 people in western Poland some 100 km (60 miles) from the German border.
“More people will visit Swiebodzin and leave their money. Some will come for spiritual reasons, others out of curiosity,” he said, adding no public money had been used in the project.
“The priest, Father Zawadzki, is a man of action who always, throughout his life, has built and created… In the future we’re going to have to think about bringing the carnival to Swiebodzin too, just as in Rio,” he joked.
SCEPTICISM
Zawadzki is avoiding media for the time-being and Polish church leaders could not immediately be reached for comment. But the editor of Poland’s Catholic Information Agency (KAI) sounded a sceptical note.
“Everybody has a right to do what they want. Swiebodzin’s Jesus project doesn’t touch my religious sensitivity. These kinds of monuments don’t have much to do with spirituality,” editor Tomasz Krolak said.
“People should think more about building within themselves rather than making big monuments.”
Local townspeople seemed bemused by the whole affair.
“Building Jesus is an interesting idea, but I’m afraid we can’t beat Rio. I don’t treat this 100 percent seriously,” said local resident Piotr Pinio.
Others thought the money could have been put to better use.
“There are far more important aims to which we could put the money — sick children, for example, orphanages, old people. Do we really have to build a big Jesus statue to make people believe,” said Mieczyslawa Hundert.
Poland remains one of the most religiously observant countries in Europe and its churches are regularly packed on Sundays, especially in the countryside and smaller towns. (Writing by Gareth Jones, editing by Paul Casciato)
Source: Funnymos.com
Beth
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