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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The Small House fad

I dont want to seem discouraging, or eternally pessimistic. Honestly, I love the idea and practice of the Smaller House, trying to use less space for a home. And some of these designs are amazing, cutting to a half or less of "standard" 1600' house. The theory is that you dont need 20 foot square rooms to do nothing in. I can agree with that. I even like the idea that they try to recycle shipping containers and all materials from the site while building.

However, these are not long term housing. People in their late 30s and 40s are building these houses, not thinking about the fact that in a decade or two, their knees wont like stairs anymore. Almost every design has a loft you reach by climbing a ladder, or outright two to three stories. While sexagenarians today are in far better shape than the "60somethin" age bracket anytime in the past, knee problems are still a very common problem, and like Po from Kung-Fu Panda, stairs become your arch-rival.

These houses are for young people. In Japan, they use them as apartments, letting you own your shipping container house and move from tower to tower of containers, hooking into the sewer and power grind of each as you go. In that use, its actually a very brilliant application for controlling housing costs and shortages. But it doesnt work well for the mobility impaired; the necessary ADA compliance methods (ramps, elevators and whatever) take up so much space, energy, and cost that it defeats the whole purpose of the Small house in the first place.

I dont see today's children being encouraged to want these small houses. They see Mtv Cribs and other such shows, and want the McMansions of the rich. Which means these will probably be just a fad, much like the earth houses and geodesic dome houses of the 70s; a great idea that wasnt properly thought out or implemented, and so died too soon.

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