1May 16, 2016
An article in the Washington Post today on DC zoning changes that The Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Micro Showcase helped promote through years of the zoning rewrite- new backyard accessory dwelling units (ADU’s- which can be micro homes) are finally about to come to DC! Check out the full article here. More background on […]
2Apr 21, 2014
Fresh bread is for me one of the simple joys of life, and one that seemed important to be able to keep savoring in the micro house. So the past 6 months I’ve found it comforting to bake bread each week while working during the day at the Minim House. While it’s been fun to take […]
3Apr 5, 2014
‘our human and earthly limits, properly understood, are not confinements but rather inducements to formal elaboration and elegance, to fullness of relationship and meaning’ Wendell Berry Limits are a curious thing. We commonly sense there is a clear line of trespass for a range of goods: food intake, staring at the TV, resource extraction, suburban […]
4Mar 29, 2014
In January I started working with the great folks at Studio Shed to design and deliver a structure for Boneyard Studios. As described in a previous post, it will be a common space- part workshop space, part bike storage, part trailer park bingo hall. Delivery of the shed came on Tuesday, and after a too-windy […]
5Feb 15, 2014
Previously I explored improvements to standard micro house water systems for water systems where there is no permanent pressurized water hookup or sewage line. In many cases there may be no source of water but from the heavens. So in this post I’d like to share a year of experience designing (and redesigning) rainwater collection […]
6Feb 6, 2014
DC’s zoning has not been comprehensively updated since 1958. After 6 years of drafting and public input, the Office of Planning is about to finalize a new set of zoning regulations that could transform the city by allowing accessory dwelling units (ADU’s- carriage houses and microhomes behind an existing house, or basement apartments), as well […]
7Jan 22, 2014
It occurred to me as I’ve toured a number of 1 bedroom apartments around DC just how little additional functionality one gets for 4x the space (and 10x the price) of a decent micro house in this town. Just for fun, I developed a matrix comparing the $55K, 210 ft2 Minim House to a fairly hum drum $525K, […]
8May 24, 2013
2013 is the first real season for the garden, which was planned and started in through the summer and fall of 2012. Like the tiny houses, the garden has to be designed to maximize use of limited space- in this case a 1/11 acre plot, partially shaded, with half the area occupied with the houses/container/parking, and a […]
9Nov 19, 2012
Ten months ago I started a project to try to reimagine the tiny house on wheels– to add livability, streamline construction, modernize aesthetics, increase off-grid versatility, all while keeping costs affordable. After 10 months of research, design work with Foundry Architects, structural review, panel manufacturing, and materials delivery, David Bamford (Element Design+Build) and I recently […]
10Oct 1, 2012
*Updated Feb 2014* Currently the majority of tiny homes are built to accept pressurized water hookup from a hose. Simple, but also quite limiting if the house is ever moved for a few days (or longer) to somewhere where there is no pressurized water hookup- a music festival, or, say, a vacant alley lot. The […]
11Apr 11, 2012
After several months of deliberation and design the excellent plans from Foundry Architects are basically complete. Minim House design stands on the shoulders of others: House 227 from the great folks at Yestermorrow, the hidden platform bed from Front Studios, the not-so-tiny homes from Stephen Marshall at Little House on a Trailer, the Solo designs from MiniHome, plans from Wheelhaus, and Idea Box’s MiniBox. Yet the design integrates […]