It’s Hard to Make a Footprint When There’s Barely Room to Walk

Carbon footprints are a pressing concern these days. It’s hard to keep from leaving an indelible mark on the world, especially as our lives as consumers sprawl out before us. What is there for a young idealist to do? If your name is Jay Shafer, you might decide to minimize your lifestyle in the most literal sense possible: by building comfortable, cozy houses that practically fit in the palm of your hand. Check it out.

Shafer owns Tumbleweed Houses, a company that sells the houses themselves and the architectural plans for you to build a tiny house all on your own. The home we got a tour of in the video isn’t even the smallest available: while his (the “Epu” model) is a scant 89 square feet, the aptly-named XS-House trumps them all at an astonishing 65 square feet. My last apartment was ten times that big, yet felt like a cramped and inefficient shoebox. These homes are not just wildly compact, but thoughtfully crafted and a beauty to behold. They may be prefabricated, but so what? This is my kind of tract home. If I had the money to build one, I’d be more than inspired to go off the housing grid myself.

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008 at 4:51 pm and is filed under The Daily. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.