Betty Ybarra is about to move into the first house she has ever owned, a tiny home which she helped build. The tiny homes for the homeless project is the brainchild of Occupy Madison, a non-profit organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Betty’s is the first tiny house the group has built, and her and Occupy Madison volunteers have been building it for about two months. The finished 96-foot-square tiny home is now ready, and cost about $3000 to build. The money needed to build the home came entirely from donations from the community.

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American architect David Randall Hertz, owner of the Studio of Environmental Architecture firm, completed a one-of-a-kind home using the wings of a decommissioned PAN AM Boeing 747-100 airplane. The 747 Wing House, as the project is called, stands on 55-acres of land in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Malibu, California. The area was hit by the Green Meadows fire of 1993, resulting in total destruction of all the structures the owner had built there.

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Late in October, 36 new homes made from recycled shipping containers began arriving in Brighton to become temporary dwellings for men and women that have had a history of homelessness.

The initiative was begun by the Brighton Housing Trust, a housing charity, and QED Estates Ltd, a housing developer. Located in New England Road on a plot that is known as Richardson’s Yard, the development is taking the place of a car park and a former scrap metal yard. Because the land is not suitable for long-term housing, the location is temporary, but the container homes can be easily relocated when the five-year permit expires.

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The future Earthship residents Kris Plantz and Nicole Bennett, along with a group of enthusiastic volunteer helpers, have been busy constructing the first Earthship home in Manitoba, Canada for over a year. Their future off-the-grid, eco-friendly home will be made from mainly earth, concrete and recycled materials such as old tires, pop cans and glass bottles.

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The first team from the Czech Republic to enter the Solar Decathlon is Team CTU, made up of 26 students who set their sights on designing and building a prototype for future housing while raising awareness of solar energy, energy efficiency, and Czech architecture and engineering.

Their submission in the Solar Decathlon 2013, for which judging takes place in October 2013 in Irvine, California, is AIR House, which stands for Affordable – Innovative – Recyclable. Utilizing energy effective materials and technologies, AIR House provides a comfortable environment for older generations that appeals to the senses and respects the environment.

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