Fact or fantasy: Zero Pollution Motors plans to start building its air-powered car by 2011 at the latest. (Zero Pollution Motors)This is just a quick alert to encourage you to check out a couple of interesting small stories elsewhere in The Times.
One is a report on the Wheels blog by my friend Jim Motavalli about the possible rebirth of the “air car,” a vehicle that runs on compressed air and a small amount of fuel to run a heater that boosts its range (it is said to get the equivalent of more than 100 miles per gallon when you account for the energy it takes to compress the air). There’s lots more at the link above and in a story on the pneumatic-car technology written by Jim in 2000.
In Olympia, Wash., Dee Williams built this 84-square-foot house for $10,000. (Credit: Karie Hamilton for The New York Times)Another is a story about tiny houses, which resonated particularly because on Tuesday night I went to an art show in Beacon, N.Y., organized by friends, including the sculptor Simon Draper, who are building tiny free-standing artists’ “habitats.”
The Times story, by Steven Kurutz, descrbes a growing “small house movement, whose adherents believe in minimizing one’s footprint — structural as well as carbon — by living in spaces that are smaller than 1,000 square feet and, in some cases, smaller than 100. Tiny houses have been a fringe curiosity for a decade or more, but devotees believe the concept’s time has finally arrived.”
Have a look and write a (small) comment. Below is a video showing Simon Draper building a tiny artist’s shed (set to music by the songwriter Dar Williams, for whom he’s also building a similar creative nook).
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From 1 to 25 of 123 Comments
From Wang Suya
Yes, small is beautiful, cute. American houses are too big, 2700. In Japan we just stay at 76 squre meter apartment and we feel it is big enough. Glad to know in American there are building small houses activity. And make small cars. American are great. Please keep going.
— Wang SuyaI built a 12×16 tar paper shack besides a brook in a little hollow in Vermont back in the early 70’s. I used a few small fir trees for the framing, old barn board and Styrofoam seconds to insulate and tar paper to protect it from the weather. It had a n inclined roof and there was a sleeping loft with a ladder. I had a small wood stove.
— Karl S SchwartzBut it was “trippy” and old hippy word and I only stayed a year or so. “Trippy” living and real small cars are just that.
The problem is that thinking this way can provide a “dupe” that makes it too easy to reject. While the motivation of a smaller carbon footprint, for example, is noteworthy the reality just doesn’t work out. Imagine a family of four in an 84 sq. ft. house with a bubble car.
Surface area per person is the critical factor and smaller houses worsen that. What loons.
— kim=====================
About time someone recognized that small house offer many advantages. When i bought my first house many years ago, it was impossible to find a recently built small house of 1000-1500 ft2 which had superior craftsmanship, quality and conservation efforts (CQC). Most builder were going bigger but lower on CQC.
To find such was special contract, build your own or return to homes built in the early 1900 hundred for quality workmanship and then retrofitting with current conservation strategies.
Amazing how the builder were always the bigger, the faster, the better.
Let’s hope the awareness of appropriate design and size permeates more of our buying but better yet building culture.
— will smithSmall is beautiful. Some people in Taiwan have invented a motorscooter than runs on air, too. But not in production yet. Just a prototype. Lots of good ideas out there! We need them!
— Danny Bloomi am afraid the thermodynamics of the compressed air vehicle are not very attractive. But i do like the small houses. some nice designs are at katrinacottages.com
— siddFrom Wang Suya
Small cars and small houses are one of sustainable lifestyle way. People should not so greed and understand satisfication. Can drive me to the target, can sleep well and spend good time is enough, this is sustainability. Greedy pursue bigger and bigger house and car is unsustainable. Of course, you want to invite friends to your house to make party. As my apartment( I rent it) is 76 squre meter size, I feel it is big enough to live and can invite friend to our home. Atrually, I always invite friend to my house. 76 squre meter is bigger house in Japan, altough it is 76 squre meter, but full of joy ans space in my home. I feel satisfication. However in America, over 2700 squre meter houses full of America. I want to say American you are too luxury. Big house will cost high energy bill, it is energy gazzular. Other side most of American houses in winter using heater and in summer using cooler, not be designed by passive style. Actrually, there are many passive tecnology at architecture area, in winter let sunshine to warm house, in summer open the window, let wind, tree to cool house, do not use air conditioning as much as possible. Why not passive solar, passive cooling, passive house? Tiny, passive style house will save so much energy, will contribute to our nature so much. Why not to do it? Glad to know there are American who live in small house and feel satisfication. Hope this kind American appear more and more.
— Wang SuyaThe idea “small is beautiful” is not a new notion; the adoption of such an idea leads to sustainable behavior. Surely the reasonable and sensible embrace of a “beautiful, low-consumption lifestyle” for the sake of a better life for a democratic majority of people; for the promotion of global biodiversity; for the protection of the environment; and for the preservation of Earth as a fit place for human habitation, could be one of the most powerfully sustainable and immediately effective behavioral changes the leaders of the family of humanity have made in a very long time.
— Steven Earl SalmonyExcellent. I like the idea.
I spent 8 months of my life living in the back of a small pick-up truck and it was wonderful: it was my transportation (since I worked in mountain environments at the time) and my [highly] mobile home. It was, say, about 6 x 8 feet, so 48 square feet. What’s more, it contained everything I owned at the time, so I wasn’t taking up space–so to say–by having loads of stuff stored elsewhere. My biggest challenge was insulation: I spent many happy nights in sub-zero temperatures so my food and drinking water often became frozen.
I’ve never quite understood why people feel like they need so much stuff, especially when compared to other creatures who naturally live from day to day without “stuff.”
I guess us humans are just wimps.
I don’t think the average person could be thrown into a wilderness environment without “stuff” and survive. Utter wimps we are…
— Jesse RichterI return, once again. Took a break because, frankly, I was spending too much time here.
As for small homes: Ultimately, a bad idea. Human psychology is, unfortunately, a factor they are forgetting to include in their designs. The smaller the space and more people packed into it, the worse the fighting between those people will be. Unfortunately, humans appear to have a minimum amount of space per person that is a necessity for the mental health of both that person and the group as a whole. Otherwise, without it, people tend to get on each other’s nerves more, fight more, and generally make things worse. If anything, these small homes may end up using up more resources because of the extra consumed by in-home conflict.
I know some of you don’t want to hear this, but this is another case of faith in science bordering on the religiously fanatical instead of the sensible.
— LilithTaverilAs someone who spent 6 months living in a 135 ft2 apartment in Munich back in 98, I can say that I never want to do it again. To say that the experience was horrible is an understatement. Sardine in a can anyone?
My house in Scotland is aprpox 700 ft2 and is roomy but by no means huge.
Some people appear to be happy living in a small space but others find it completely impossible. There is no one size fits all.
The problem with designs like the air car is that you must first fix the power generation issue. The grid in the US simply could not take a switch from fuel driven cars to air driven cars with the requirement for the air to be compresses by electricity. It simply doesn’t have the extra capacity.
Also to meet that capacity it would have to bring in short term coal or oil powered stations. NOT the goal I suspect.
— NeilTGreen auto tech. coverage by the NYT is truly abyssmal. H fuel cell over and over (it’s a red herring). Did anyone else read Joe Nocera’s piece “The Electric Car Cometh” July 18? Classify under “Not journalism”, “inaccurate”, and/or “sloppy”. Funny b/c the business guys get it, the enviro guys get it — but the auto guys have their heads firmly in the sand.
Houses: anyone else old enough to remember a book called “Alternative Technology” from the 1970s? I lent it to someone in the 90’s and never got it back. A LOT of excellent (and some whacky) ideas on housing/energy/lo-tech/climate/environment. If anyone knows where I could get a copy, please post here or tell Andy. Cheers.
— MeltyMan10 (Lilith) Welcome back. Two historic pieces of information have recently hit the web. Ian Jolliffe, a world renowned expert at statistics, has probably put the nail in the coffin of the Piltdown Mann’s Crooked Hockey Stick. Details at climateaudit.org
Also, Spencer Weart has written a guest post at Real Climate which admits the science is not settled about the climate’s sensitivity to CO2. This puts the kibosh on 2XCO2=3 degrees C. temperature rise. Useful commentary on the post is at Roger Pielke’s site, climatesci.org
The Hockey Stick has become almost peripheral to the discussion, but has tremendous symbolic and propaganda value. School children are still being exposed to the fraud. The really devastating damage under the waterline, however, is Weart’s confession that climate sensitivity to CO2 is unknown. He admits that clouds and convection are inadequately parameterized in the global climate models, a theme about which I’ve repeatedly hammered the true believers around here with.
Read ‘em and weep; or rejoice. Your choice.
— kim====================================
I used to work at an interior design magazine (believe it or not!), and one of my more interesting tasks was flipping through all the competing magazines we subscribed to. Particularly in the pubs with younger demographics, small is nothing new. Cleverness and aesthetic sense in a small space are increasingly featured as desirable, because so many readers aren’t in the bracket of 3,000 sq. ft. homes.
There’s also a growing attitude in the style scene that money can’t buy taste, and by showcasing smaller homes that still managed to feel livable and welcoming, some of these articles were also unconsciously making sustainable living a little more appealing.
Lilith in #10, no one is suggesting you cram a family of five into 73 sq. ft., although there are many in the world already living so. You make a good point that the psychology of the home matters. But in my experience, once a home reaches a certain size threshold (the qualifier being that there is always somewhere to go when you need to be alone, whether it’s another room, a porch, a garden, etc), aditional square footage makes no difference. The same thing happens with money, generally; once you’ve reached a certain income threshold where all of your needs and some of your wants are met, and it is relatively favorable to your neighbors’ income, additional money doesn’t correlate to an increase in happiness. Life events such as marriage matter far more.
Some of us live in small homes because we like them or out of economic necessity, not just because we’re “sacrificing” or trying to be sustainable. But even if I had the choice to spend more for a much bigger home, I’m not sure I would. I like the time I earn from not maintaining a lot of rooms and objects. I understand others feel differently, and that every family has its own set of needs. But I definitely fall in the ’small is beautiful’ camp. Building and living smarter is good sense, as well as a lighter share of resources.
— XarissaTiny response.
— XI don’t need much space but my books…well…whole ‘nuther story. And no, I don’t do Kindle. First, about half my books are reference/art/science that aren’t Kindled (great name for a book reader – sounds llke something you burn in a fireplace…book burning, anyone?). Second, can you do the NYT xword puzzle on a computer? Yes, you can. But the ink really messes up the screen. Some things need to be on paper. It is part of the experience. So I’d be just as glad for a small house, such as the one I have, but the books need their space.
— wasting timeWhat’s the difference between something like this and living in a tent with a propane heater and shower?
— Roger Bruce FeinmanPeople who are strong believers in global warming and in protecting the environment need to lead by example.
There is nothing more hypocritical than an Al Gore, for example, with a monster Carbon footprint 20 times the average person while he is telling us that we need to cut our footprint by 75% or more.
James Hansen commutes 60 miles per day to his day job while he just recently flew to London to testify on behalf of individuals charged with environmental vandalism.
Smart cars, small houses, less electricity usage (including using your computer 75% less) are all good starts. I will cut mine when I see more people leading by example.
— Bill IllisIn 1995, I was partner and project manager for construction of 300 houses in Kobe, after their earthquake. They were 288 square feet apiece, steel framed, built as row housing, and we completed them in less than 90 days. People in the US were aghast at their small size, but when the Japanese earthquake victims were asked to leave 5 years later (the housing was supposed to be temporary), some of them refused.
The Japanese are ingenious in their use of space. There were overhead storage closets, shoji or pocket (no swing) doors, back to back plumbing walls, and private patios accessed by sliders.
I am currently consulting for a San Diego company developing 850 square foot homes built with mechanically fastened steel space frames, resting on helical pile foundations. The owner/founder is a mechanical and engineering genius. They can rest on any terrain without requiring grading or land disturbance (floors are elevated), and the frames are built from 99% recycled steel. Drywall elements snap into place. We should be ready for the market in about 6 months. Cost per square foot is competitive.
If anybody wants more information, email me at greenframe@aol.com.
I liked the house in Olympia, but the wood siding and framing means it will be very maintenance intensive, and not likely to last more than 60 years in that climate. Besides small size, we need to think a lot more about durability and recyclability.
— Mike RoddyFor everyone, first I quote Ian Jolliffe, who is not a skeptic:
“It therefore seems crazy that the MBH hockey stick has been given such prominence and that a group of influential climate scientists have doggedly defended a piece of dubious statistics.” Mark that, ‘crazy’, he says.
And now I quote Spencer Weart:
“If you want to get reliable numbers – if you want to know whether raising the level of greenhouse gases will bring a trivial warming or a catastrophe – you have to figure in humidity, convection, aerosol pollution, and a pile of other features of the climate system, all fitted together in lengthy computer runs.
Physics is rich in phenomena that are simple in appearance, but cannot be calculated in simple terms. Global warming is like that. People may yearn for a short, clear way to predict how much warming we are likely to face. Alas, no such simple calculation exists. The actual temperature rise is an emergent property resulting from interactions among hundreds of factors.”
Weart is no skeptic, but he is honest enough to admit the present limits of science. Again, he does not know whether greenhouse gases will bring “a trivial warming or a catastrophe”.
Think about it, folks. This is a guru of the warming movement, admitting that we don’t know much, and certainly agreeing that the science is not settled.
— kim=============================================
When I was a teenager, back when dinosaurs were walking up and down Lake Shore drive, my family took a year and a half off to travel on a 46′ schooner. My parents, little brothers (twins) and I. Regarding pleasure sail craft, a 48 footer is large. For five people for a year and a half, it is crowded. Really crowded. Especially when we got stuck in port for a month or so: while on blue water, it was not bad at all; we had stuff to do. Overall, it was a great experience, one of the big highlights of our lives. Nevertheless, it was nice to get back home and live in a house again.
I don’t think there is much traction in living in a tiny house. My parents did, for a couple years, but that was during the depression, before children. But honestly, there is very little benefit in a bigger house, once it passes 1600 sq ft. Quality of life depends far more on other things.
For the uninitiated, a schooner has two masts, the front one being the smaller. Awesome performance on a reach (wind kinda abeam), not so hot going to windward. Oh, it was great fun! I put ratlines on the foremast shrouds; my kid brothers were forbidden to climb them, so I could get my privacy up there. (I read most of Fred Hoyle’s “Frontiers of Astronomy” up there, on the peak of the foremast.)
— David CollinsAssuming the house is approximately 600 cubic feet and tightly constructed and insulated, how long would it take a person to suffocate from oxygen starvation? An eight hour sleep could become an eternity.
Elery
— Elery FudgeSmall, single person houses are sign of a (literally) dying culture. And there can be no doubt that CO2 is a top concern amongst the next culture to dominate Europe.
“Today, the Muslim birth rate in Europe is three times higher than the non-Muslim one. If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent.”
— Patrick HenryRegarding Lilith Taveril’s comment. I do not think people are suggesting 80 square foot homes for multiple persons, or even for most individuals. Many Americans live alone or in two person households. Two people can comfortably fit into a well designed 800 sq foot apartment. (76 sqare meters.) Well insulated walls, sound barriers between spaces such as a bedrooms or small dens create privacy when wanted. Communal living, dining and cooking areas serve sociable moods. By the same token a single person can comfortably exist in a thoughtfully designed 400 square foot space. Creating detached homes of this size, you can utilize the outdoors to expand the living space.
I have lived in a 900 square foot apartment with various housemates for over 15 years. Built in the 1920’s the home has a living room, dining room, kitchen, pantry, den and two modest sized bedrooms. Their is a plethora of doors and small hallways that buffer sound and make heating individual rooms practical. I can retreat to my bedroom while my housemate watches TV or bangs around in the kitchen. With doors closed I can not hear whats going on in the next room over.
MarkConnelly
— Mark ConnellyRE: #20 Kim
I read Spencer Weart’s piece at Real Climate. Then I skimmed through the comments. None of the regular posters evidenced any realization of the significance of Weart’s post. Their minds are really closed. It is a real mystery.
Elery
— Elery Fudge