Kirsten Dirksen Has Ideas for Your Tiny Home DIY

Published on Dec 3, 2012
In 2010, we met Graham Hill- the founder of treehugger.com and a serial entrepreneur. He had just bought two tiny apartments in a century-old tenement building in Soho and he had plans to turn them into laboratories, and showcases, for tiny living. He'd spent most of the past year living in tiny spaces- "a tiny trailer, a tent, and then a boat" and he was convinced others would love it as much if small spaces could be designed right.

He wanted a tiny space that didn't sacrifice function, but instead that would expand to provide a wish list including dinner parties for 12, accommodations for 2 overnight guests, a home office and a home theater with digital projector. Not wanting to limit himself to local architects, he crowdsourced the design as a competition and received 300 entries from all over the world. Two Romanian architecture students won with their design "One Size Fits All".

Completed in 2012, his LifeEdited apartment doesn't resemble the cramped space we saw in 2010. Today the 420-square-foot space can be expanded to include the functionality of 1,100 square feet: walls, drawers and beds move and unfold to create 6 rooms: living room, dining room, office, guest office, master bedroom and guest bedroom. If you include the kitchen and the bathroom which morphs into a phone booth or meditation room, the apartment includes 10 total rooms.
http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/6-rooms-into-1-morphing-apartment-packs-1100-sq-ft-into-420/

ISO shipping containers are rugged, weatherproof, and plentiful. Local artisans and craftspeople will design and convert one of these shipping containers into a livable and safe home. Because building materials are unavailable to the poor, the design and build will focus on using scrap and recycled materials. Also, all build techniques will be done in a manner that is easily replicable by individuals with little or no construction skills. The final product will be instructional videos for NGOs to build these homes locally, with local labor.

In Hong Kong, because of the space, apartments are small and expensive. Gary Chang, an architect, decided to design a 344 sq. ft. apartment to be able to change into 24 different designs, all by just sliding panels and walls. He calls this the "Domestic Transformer."

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Thanks to Lifehacker, OhGizmo, and all the other sites that mentioned this!
Watch this video and many more at World's Greenest Homes on PlanetGreen.com - http://planetgreen.discovery.com/videos/worlds-greenest-homes/