Good evening,
It’s a slightly overcast evening, with a low of about sixty degrees for the overnight temperature.
I blogged on Whitewater’s Planning Commission meeting earlier this evening, and I will later update that post with a few additional remarks. See, Whitewater’s Planning Commission Meeting for 7-12-10 (Live Blogging). Much of that meeting concerned residential housing (and the difference, that eluded so many, between enforcement of an existing ordinance and adoption of another, more restrictive one on the number of unrelated persons who may live together in a home in a residential neighborhood).
There’s a story in the Journal Sentinel about tiny homes, not now particularly historic, not part of ‘historic neighborhoods,’ but interesting nonetheless. In Tiny House, Big Questions, Mary Louise Schumacher writes that
While architectural bravado tends to grab headlines, some of the most extraordinary architecture being made in the world today are small, adventurous structures, transitory buildings that take little from the Earth and give more than seems possible in return.
At their best, these pocked-sized projects, sometimes called “micro architecture,” do more than set standards for sustainable practices. They challenge the way we live.
One such project is the EDGE (Experimental Dwelling for a Greener Environment), designed by a small Stevens Point firm, Revelations Architects. The abode is so bitty, in fact, that it doesn’t qualify as an actual house in much of Wisconsin, where 750 or 800 square feet of floor space is required.
The JS also has a link to a video that shows the house in greater detail. A commenter to the story writes that it’s a “[n]ice little house. Just the right size for one person and a cat.”
Here’s a video of a different, micro house, to get an idea of how small they are:
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTF9PfDFv_c
I don’t think these micro homes are superior as a principle (although the architect thinks so, rather smugly) — I simply think they’re interesting.
Homes this small, though, at 500 square feet, for example, would settle many questions about the permissible number of unrelated occupants of a dwelling.