Research repo for capturing everything we learn while designing & building our Tiny Home on Wheels.

Why?

Young people entering the workforce in major cities face a grim reality: they cannot afford to buy/own their own 1 bed apartment unless they have rich parents, inherit money, or win the lottery [work in tech] ...

Affordable housing needs to be a strategic priority at a macro level. Politicians and goverments need to fast track legislation that helps young people buy their own place.

We need to lead the way by doing the following:

1. Research everything we can find on existing tiny houses
2. Design a tiny house from first principals; i.e: every aspect from the trailer to the roof.
3. Build at least 1 unit with our own hands and capture the process/learning.
4. Open Source everything we learn along the way.
5. Open our Workshop to people wanting to build their own Tiny House.

What?

For now this repo will contain all of our research in tiny-house/issues. We need to collect as much as possible and then sort/filter what we love vs. what we want to avoid.

Off-grid Ultra-low Carbon Footprint

Research all building materials, technologies and best practices for building Tiny Homes with the lowest possible initial Carbon Footprint and ongoing environmental impact.

We are planning to use as much renewable/sustainable wood, cork and hemp as possible.

TODO: Research suppliers for these materials!

Observation: Existing Tiny House Builders Very Maual

We have visited 3 tiny house builders in-person in the last month. #20, #25 & #25 They have all been great eye-opening experiences. One thing they all share in-common is that they are very manual in their construction techniques. i.e. traditional carpentry with wood beams and screws. Relying on labour (humans) to do all the cutting, joinng & assembly.

Note: There are a few tiny house builders in other countries e.g: US, Netherlalands & Nordics, that are using more modern manufacturing techniques including CNC and 3D Printing. But these are all VC-funded i.e. they are building houses to sell to middle-income families typically as "Accessory Dwelling Units" ("ADUs") and in the process make Rich People even Richer. Anything VC-funded means they expect disproportional returns on investment. If they put in $1M they expect $10M back. This fine in shiny toy distraction Apps but not great for housing affordability.

CAD/CAM

Use Modern Computer-aided Design & Manufacturing to dramatically lower the cost and lead time in making a Tiny House from scratch including all the furniture.

Who? 👪

This repo is for us to collect our research. It's not meant as a tutorial or "how to".

If you find it useful, please ⭐ on GitHub.

How?

Please:

1. Read the existing tiny-house/issues and share your thoughts as comments. 🔍 💬 🙏
2. Open new issues with anything you discover!

Right now we are focussed on collecting as much info as we can. We can curate/cull later.

Tiny House Specification

This is an outline of the spec we are working with. Please add your features/ideas 💡 by commenting on the issue: tiny-house/issues/24 💬

Base: 2550 x 7200mm 3.5Ton Road-legal Trailer

Research for available trailer suppliers in: tiny-house/issues/28