Living in a small space is not for everyone, especially when it comes to living in densely populated urban areas. With a towable tiny house, you can park it anywhere and have as much nature and space around it as you wish, but in an apartment you’re pretty much stuck where you are.
(more…)
The firm Sprout Tiny Homes will be building a 200 house community in Salida, Colorado. The houses will be available for rent, while there will also be a number of communal features such as a gym, a restaurant, and more. The tiny house community will be located on a 19-acre piece of land along the Arkansas River. Once completed it will be the largest tiny home community in the US, and the project recently got the go-ahead from the Salida city council.
(more…)
The firm Studio Lokal from Denmark has unveiled plans to build a very interesting tower in Copenhagen. It will be located on the site of a former produce market, and for this reason the architects incorporated spacious balconies into the design, where each of the residents will be able to grown their own fruits and veggies.
(more…)
Germany, among other EU countries, is currently facing the problem of quickly finding adequate housing for refugees and asylum seekers that it has let across its borders. The modular houses, designed for this purpose by Architect and builder Werner Sobek, are a great example of the fact that refugee housing can be modern, affordable and comfortable. The units are called Aktivhaus, and a whole development of them has recently been completed in Winnenden, which is a town about 20 kilometers northeast of Stuttgart. It can accommodate 200 asylum seekers and functions just like real homes. (more…)
Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut has recently come up with an interesting and unique solution to turning an old, 1970’s apartment building into a very sustainable complex. His plans call for the transformation of the existing concrete structure into an energy producing building with a green façade.
Callebaut would leave the building as is, but would add 274 planter beds into its ornamental façade. These would hold about 10,000 plants carefully chosen by botanists, to create a sort of vertical garden or green façade, which would increase the building’s thermal performance and clean the air. According to Callebaut’s calculations the plants would capture 50 tons of C02 per year. The windows of the apartments would also have to be exchanged for energy saving ones to further improve the thermal performance of the building. Keeping the green façade flourishing would not be difficult at all, since there would be a drip-feed system that would require maintenance only twice a year. (more…)
The people behind the famous Mini have designed an urban home, which seeks to alleviate the problem of urban overcrowding. It makes perfect sense that the maker of ultra urban cars should make this step, and the only real question is why didn’t they tackle it sooner? They designed this so-called Mini Living apartment with the help of the Japanese architecture firm ON design and the Berlin office of engineering consulting firm Arup. (more…)
