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Do I laugh, cry or get sick???

mmmarvel

mmmarvel

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Oct 29, 2009
Messages
336
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Houston, TX
OMG - so I know there are a few folks who frequent this board who are all kinds of giddy about eco-this and eco-that and green-this and green-that. If you're one of them, good for you. Personally I'm absolutely and totally 180 degrees from them. Not that I won't use a good idea, pretty much no matter where it comes from, but I find myself disagreeing with most of the enviro-folks that I come across.

That said, here is a video of a 10X10X10 "house"

http://www.cubeproject.org.uk/

And here is another clip of some ... dwellings, that they are building in Portland, Oregon (just one of several thousands of reasons why I moved from there and am glad to longer be living there)

http://youtu.be/wAeiVL_SVMY

Just wondering what others think.
 
our wall tent is 16.5 x 10 = 165 sq ft

the porch/kitchen is 12 x 10 = 120 Sq Ft

the bathroom tent is 3 x3 = 9 sq ft

the shower tent is 4 x 4 = 12 sq ft

total is 306 sq feet of space. That is more room than the 10 x 10 house shown. But we get real creative when putting stuff away.
 
brudgers said:
A more permanent tent.Does camping make you upset, too?
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Actually, no. I camp, I understand camping. What I don't understand is why people would choose to live in something so small. The only part about selling that I understand is that if I can find someone to buy it, for the price I want to charge, then I'll sell it. I can't see anyone really wanting to buy what these folks are proposing; especially not at those prices.
 
If all you are going to do is sleep, watch tv, and bath they are fine. But where is the reloading bench going or how about the fishing gear or maybe the collection of beer cans.

I speak from experience My wife and I lived in a 16X16 cabin for over 4 years. There was no room to entertain company. You do not stay in the house except to sleep. You can not go to bed until everthing is put back in its place. It is a very disciplined lifestyle that few could do for any length of time
 
During a lifetime a person has any number of space requirements, this would work fine during some of those life phases. Clearly, a family of 4 is not going to choose this, but for a single person (either young or older) or for a couple for a period of time, , , why not!
 
mmmarvel said:
Actually, no. I camp, I understand camping. What I don't understand is why people would choose to live in something so small. The only part about selling that I understand is that if I can find someone to buy it, for the price I want to charge, then I'll sell it. I can't see anyone really wanting to buy what these folks are proposing; especially not at those prices.
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When you camp, do you ever run into full time RV'ers?
 
Yankee said:
During a lifetime a person has any number of space requirements, this would work fine during some of those life phases. Clearly, a family of 4 is not going to choose this, but for a single person (either young or older) or for a couple for a period of time, , , why not!
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Yes, for an old person more space means more to clean....Alexander has a bunch of patterns about life-cycle housing.
 
You could sprinkler "the cube" with two heads, so that's pretty cool! ;)

I view "the cube" more like a futuristic concept car at an auto show which will never make its way to the sales floor in large numbers. The small townhouses in Portland are a function of the market there, or they wouldn't be building them.

I know we can't go on like we have been forever. You can debate when we will run out of certain resources, but you can't debate if we will run out of certain resources. If innovators want to solve these problems sooner rather than later, I'm fine with that.
 
R304.1 Minimum area.

Every dwelling unit shall have at least one habitable room that shall have not less than 120 square feet (11.2 m2) of gross floor area.
 
mmarvel,

Is everything really bigger in Tejas?

Like the guy who said down at the tavern, My ranch is so big it takes me all day to drive across it in my truck. To which his sidekick replies, Yeah I had a truck like that once.

Different strokes for different folks, and scoobie doobie doowee is what I try to remember.

I am told that in 50 yrs about half the world population will be living in tarpaper shacks like those that ring the biggest cities such as Mexico, Sao Paulo, Manila, etc.
 
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mtlogcabin said:
If all you are going to do is sleep, watch tv, and bath they are fine. But where is the reloading bench going or how about the fishing gear or maybe the collection of beer cans. I speak from experience My wife and I lived in a 16X16 cabin for over 4 years. There was no room to entertain company. You do not stay in the house except to sleep. You can not go to bed until everthing is put back in its place. It is a very disciplined lifestyle that few could do for any length of time
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my original 14' x 16' cabin i built and lived in is now displaying my beer can collection and fishing collectables. that cube would be nice for the mil when she visited.
 
steveray said:
R304.1 Minimum area. Every dwelling unit shall have at least one habitable room that shall have not less than 120 square feet (11.2 m2) of gross floor area.
Click to expand...
Guess that means it's not a dwelling unit and does not require sprinklers....don't worry, zoning people will love that idea too.
 
The Unabomber lived in a 10x12 cabin - - in Montana no less, where "outdoor living" gets a little difficult in the winter.

Since his occupation was "domestic terrorist", I guess you could describe his cabin as a mixed use / live-work development.
 
Seriously though, our idea of how much space we actually need for living has expanded dramatically over the years.

In 1974, the NAHB reported the average home size as 1,400 SF, and the average household size was 3.14 people.

In 2004, the average home size was 2,330 SF, and the average household size was 2.62 .

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/2011-05-04-Census-Households-Demographics_n.htm

All of this is occuring at the same time that digital media is enabling virtual storage of books, music, personal records, etc., so we should need less storage.

I personally think that bigger is not always better. We are a generation of pack rats. I am not an knee-jerk eco-greenster, but there is an elegance to efficient living and I appreciate that efforts to shrink the box means thinking outside the box. For myself, every time I think I need to enlarge our house, it usually just means it's time to throw out the junk I never really use anyway.

I agree with brudgers: if you camped, or even stayed on an RV or houseboat for several weeks, you discover how little space you really need.

I first got interested in architecture as a future career when I read the July 1974 issue of Popular Science magazine. They had an 8'x8' house with mondular walls, and a 16'x16' 2 story vacation house. Cool attempts at compact living.

http://www.popsci.com/archive-viewer?id=BQEMDqBjzHwC&pg=84&query=living+cube+for+all+seasons
 
Yikes said:
The Unabomber lived in a 10x12 cabin - - in Montana no less, where "outdoor living" gets a little difficult in the winter.Since his occupation was "domestic terrorist", I guess you could describe his cabin as a mixed use / live-work development.
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Not a part of the code back then. Just curious if living in this 10 x 12 cabin may have further influenced his mental state



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber
 
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