Mahnum Tahir - 20110338

DISC 320 – FALL 2019

Literature Review On The Tiny

House Movement
SDG – No.12 Sustainable cities and communities
The growing popularity of tiny houses has emerged over the last recent years. The ‘tiny
house movement’ calls for downsizing from traditionally sized homes to smaller homes
(Brown, 2016). Since the tiny house movement is still a fairy new research area. The
definition of what may be classified as a “tiny” house varies. The Tiny Life Blog claims a tiny
house should be anywhere between 100-400 square feet. (Kilman, 2016;The Tiny Life, 2019)
Encyclopaedia Britannica claims that tiny houses are any size below 400 square feet, while
Tiny House Style, a book created by the popular tiny house building company, Tumbleweed
Tiny House Company, states that international building codes require homes to have at least
220 square feet of interior space to be legal. The International Code Council actually
specifies: “Every dwelling unit shall have at least one room that shall have not less than 120
square feet of net floor area” and “other habitable rooms shall have a net floor area of not
less than 70 square feet”. Tiny houses are often confused with “small” houses – whose sizes
can go up to a 1000 square feet. There is little clarity available on the different categories
between these definitions. Tiny house sizes are also often dependant on the owners taste,
local property laws, climate, etc. (Kilman, 2016; Tumbleweed Tiny House, 2019)
This ‘movement’ has been seen to originate by Thoreau and Emerson from their 18 th century
transcendentalist concept of “living simply”. (Anson, 2014). The movement has however,
been re-popularized by the minimalism philosophy which began as an art movement post
the Second World War and later integrated into modern minimalistic architecture and
design. This minimalistic style of “less is more” was originally associated with architect
Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe. (Hoag & Hoag, 1977). It is now argued that tiny houses are a
solution to many housing needs as they provide a more sustainable, cost-effective and
mobile form of living. Those in favour have argued that tiny homes can be a more feasible
arrangement for on-the-go travellers (Spesard, 2019), homeless residents (Canales, 2019),
an affordable alternative (Deb, 2019), vacationers looking for an escape (Hunter, 2014),
over-populated urban areas (Post, 2019) or for minimalists looking to downsize. (Ford and
Gomez-Lanier, 2017)

Since the tiny house movement is still a relatively new concept, there is a lack of extensive
academic research existing on the topic. However, some existing discussion on the
movement is present on various online blogs, magazines, television shows and some basic
articles. Detailed academic insight and discussion in this area is however, still limited. The
purpose of this literature review will be to organize and examine existing literature on the
tiny house movement with regards to feasibility of tiny houses in terms of saving and
sustainability and community impact as a form of a ‘sustainable’ housing alternative and
barriers in implementation. (Ford and Gomez-Lanier, 2017)
SAVING & SUSTAINABILITY
The national association of home builders published a survey to examine the average costs
of building a regular home across 4267 home builders in 2017. The attachment of figure is
seen below in Table 1: (Ford and Gomez-Lanier, 2017)
Average building costs of a single-family home were $237,760 for a 2776 average square
feet sized home. In comparison, tiny homes fluctuate in prices depending on location of
construction and features built-in to the home. The following table compares different sized
tiny homes in the U.S: (Ford and Gomez-Lanier, 2017)

Tiny houses use less electricity to function due to their smaller space. For example, it would
take lesser heating to adequately heat the tiny home and so tiny homes help diminish
carbon footprint by reducing electricity usage. Tiny homes also help to reduce house
spending owing to the reduced utilities used. Solar heating can reduce bills by up to a 100%
after an initial investment is made in such systems (Carlin, 2014). Ryan Mitchell, who writes
the blog “The Tiny Life” claims that he has saved over $100,000 simply by moving into a tiny
house – majorly by cutting down on utilities usage and up to 50% of his monthly income
(Hoffower, 2019).

Smaller homes can also allow owners to splurge on quality fittings and materials. Ethan
Waldman added, “In a tiny home, you’re able to use expensive, quality material that you
may not have been able to use in a bigger home,” he says. “But because of the scale of the
house, these rich materials were affordable.” (Herron, 2019)
Tiny houses also allow owners to save up on property taxes that come with traditional
house ownership. Even if some personal property taxes are incurred, owners can skip on
huge amounts of mortgage interest most traditional home owners pay. (FONTINELL, 2019)
COMMUNITY IMPACT
Within communities, tiny houses help to facilitate the homeless or for those in need of
temporary emergency shelter (Brown, 2016). An organization called Katrina Cottages
facilitated for those in urgent shelter need by constructing 300 square feet cottages. The
cost per cottage was $70,000 square feet – which although was more expensive than a tiny
house, was still a significantly cheaper price than traditional home construction (Brown,
2016). Micro-villages - communities of collective tiny houses can also facilitate housing for
those in need. For example, Community first village in Austin, Texas homes 180 formerly
homeless residents. On campus job opportunities allow residents to pay their rent. The
village creates a sense of community and belonging among its residents. (Canales, 2019)
Micro-villages are widely recognized as successful models of permanent supportive housing
for people who would otherwise be unable to live in a stable home (Murphy, 2014;
Community Frameworks, 2015; Bagshaw, 2014) – from brown. Tiny houses can also be used
for travellers looking for an out of the ordinary experience as vacation rentals for getaways
(Hunter, 2015; Robinson, 2016) or for travellers looking for mobile housing options to travel
with together (Shahani, 2015) Tiny homes may also be used as a temporary housing option
for those looking to save up for a traditional home. (Williams, 2014)
Kilman discusses his interviews with tiny house owners and states that living in a tiny house
restricts consumption and waste. He states that, “I have observed that tiny house owners
must constantly pay attention to the quantity of goods and excess in their lifestyles, simply
to keep the house uncluttered.” (Kilman, 2016) This may not be because the tiny house
owner has an ethical relationship with waste but forces owners to be more conscious of
their consumption. (Kilman, 2016) Kilman then discusses the “home theatre syndrome”
which claims that traditional house owners are more likely to be able to stay indoor for days
with an example that home theatres allow you to stay indoor without needing to go to a
cinema – it claims that tiny house residents are limited by indoor leisure and tend to interact
with nature more than traditional house residents. Tiny house owners are thus, brought
closer to the environment - “Nature becomes part of the community as opposed to
separate.” (Kilman, 2016)
BARRIERS TO IMPLEMENTATION
Although, tiny homes can bring may benefits to individuals and communities. There are still
some barriers that have limited their potential growth. The Tiny Life, blog on tiny houses
lists the potential barriers in tiny house implementation as follows: (Brown, 2016; The Tiny
Life, 2019)
1. Land – access and high costs to land; contradiction between cheaper land and
vicinity to city life.
2. Loans – Difficulty to get traditional housing loans as similar standards do not apply.
3. Laws – Lack of clear building codes and defined minimum habitable structures. Tiny
houses often do not fit any legal housing category
4. Social Pressure – “Bigger is better” motto of society makes it difficult to challenge the
status quo
5. Fear – of investing money and time into a new and uncertain concept.
Although tiny houses have been around for quite a long time, most urban communities are
as yet making sense of how to regulate them. Most cities still view tiny house communities
as a temporary, recreational alternative than a serious, long term arrangement. The lack of
proper legality on tiny houses cause some regulation to ban them outright for not meeting
minimum structure laws, others for parking issues. This happens due to local ordinance,
zoning laws and building codes varying from city to city. (Community Structures, 2015;
Heben, 2014)
Emily brown, classifies the barriers in tiny house implementation in various categories such
as; Technical (lack of skills to build and understanding of municipal laws), Social (negative
perceptions attached to a tiny house, difficult to challenge the status quo), Financial
(difficulty in loan access) and others (finding a space to park, access to utilities).
(Brown,2016)
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH
All current research available regarding the tiny house movement is still in a state of infancy.
Available papers and articles merely discuss the benefits of the tiny house movements in
stand-alone housing and micro villages. Publications have discussed benefits of tiny houses
for commercial purposes, temporary emergency needs and long-term rehabilitation for
homeless communities. As the tiny house movement gains further popularity, it can be
expected that so will the depth and detail grow within the research of the movement.
Future research may discuss empirical impact of tiny houses as rehabilitation communities
to see the long-term impact on residents in form of a longitudinal study or a comparative
study of tiny houses functioning as rentals and what segment of customers will grow within
this market or a predictive study to examine the growth or de-growth of tiny houses and
communities given social and economic conditions within an area.
ZOTERO
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