Small Homes

In an article primarily featuring a couple who designed and built a 560 sq ft home, a developer says that homebuyers say they want smaller homes but still want big bedrooms.

Critic Inga Saffron says that the interesting architecture and urban design is happening on the small scale: small parks, small houses and small plans.

Manhattanites are no stranger to 350 sq ft apartments, but Southern Californians? Tiny apartments in Santa Monica are popular, increasing access to amenities in a very expensive market.

A Fresno, CA architect has designed and built a number of tiny buildings made out of recycled materials as homes for the homeless, but has yet to find a site that will take them.

Dubbed "micro-lofts", these tiny units are going up in an historic building in Vancouver, B.C.

Is twelve feet square enough room to live in? Designer James Stuart thinks so, and is practicing what he preaches in his own 12' cube house in Canada.

At a recent conference, international architects explained their ideas for designing and planning compact, shared, and flexible housing to meet the needs of today's households.

Dan Maginn proposes some exercises for visualizing how much room you actually need to live, starting with this equation: too big = not good. Small = good. Too small = suck.

A survey of architects shows that a very low percentage of Americans are still clamoring for McMansions, indicating what may be a broad shift to smaller homes.

Michael Janzen built an 80 sq. ft. house out of stuff he got for free off of Craigslist. He's just one example of people moving into very small homes to reduce their energy use and housing costs.

Smaller, environmentally friendly homes -- ranging from as much as 1000 to as little as 70 square feet -- are a hot trend in modern architecture. Eco-conscious (and wallet-conscious) buyers are increasingly interested in these new "micro mansions".