When we moved to Arizona in 1997, we decided to live in a temporary structure and then, if life in the desert suited us, to build a more permanent home. So, we began by constructing a small, portable cottage. What we've discovered in the intervening years is that, for a host of reasons, our little abode is the favorite of all the dwellings we've ever lived in. Indeed, we've given little thought to a larger or more permanent house since.

At 8 feet wide and 16 feet long, it is laughably tiny by American standards and has no running water and only minimal solar powered electricity. Nor does it have many of the features commonly considered "necessary" in a house; aside from lacking running water or grid power, it also has no bathroom, pantry, washing machine or refrigerator. It is distinctive not in what it has but in what it lacks. It comfortably provides just the shelter we really need and no more, thus maximizing our freedom: we have no mortgage payments, no homeowner's insurance premiums, no mechanical noises, little maintenance expense, negligible utility costs and little extra space to fill with encumbering "stuff".

Originally, an important aspect of the design was portability since we were living on cooperatively-owned land and were unsure of how long we would live here. It has an axle and wheels that bolt on underneath and can be pulled behind a pick-up truck. Should we eventually decide to move we hope to leave little evidence of our tenure here.

Some visitors interested in sustainable building have questioned our use of wood as a building material. We chose wood in order to keep the cottage lightweight and thus portable. With respect to building materials, our priority was more quantitative than qualitative. Although the lumber used was not a local resource, the quantity used in our entire cottage was less than that in the roof of most homes. We focused on making the structure as small as was reasonably possible in the ways described below.

Kitchen (above)

a.k.a. Office (right)

We achieved a comfortable dwelling in a very small size in several ways. We designed the cottage with an efficient but open layout, thus reducing wasted space. Many large, fully opening windows contribute to a bright, airy ambiance inside. It helps that we are also fairly neat by nature and have designed a place for everything and keep everything in its place. Most importantly though, we decided to take advantage of the desert climate by incorporating a lot of outdoor living, thus reducing the need for enclosed space. One of the unexpected joys of having our shower, toilet, laundry area, dishwashing area and pantry outdoors is that we are brought into intimate contact with the natural world around our dwelling throughout each day and through the changing seasons. Whether looking up at the stars as we shower, watching lizards patrol the garden beds as we wash dishes, bird watching as we do laundry, or contemplating the desert scene from the toilet, we are reminded of where we live and why.

In summer, our cottage is cooled in several ways. Contrary to conventional thinking regarding desert dwellings which favors high thermal mass (heat-storing) materials such as adobe, we prefer a very open, lightweight structure with minimal thermal mass. This approach is similar to many of the light, brush-covered Tohono O'Odham desert structures of the last century. Our focus is on nighttime comfort since we tend to be outdoors and active during the day. Ample, fully-opening windows turn our cottage into something approaching a screen house, permitting excellent cross ventilation. The bed is at window height so breezes pass over it. In the evening, cool air pooling in our canyon-bottom location quickly cools the cottage, making it comfortable for sleeping.

Although we have been spending recent summers in Oregon, we have also spent most of several summers here in the desert. Midday in summer is often uncomfortably hot and if we were to spend summers here regularly we might consider installing a small solar-powered evaporative cooler. We'd give it long thought though, since we've become so accustomed to the sounds of the desert that we prefer not listening to the noise of a mechanical cooling system.

Our tiny home in Oregon is similar in many respects to the one described here and we hope to feature it on a future webpage. 

2007 Update:

After 8 years of living in a remote desert canyon, the portability of our home came into it's own in the fall of 2005 when we decided to move closer to the heart of our rural community. We had a variety of reasons for making the move. We'd been involved in the recent creation of a community garden and wished to be closer to it. We also wished to be closer to friends and to community events. We had a longstanding desire to replace more of our motor vehicle use with bicycling and walking. We wanted to spend less time on road maintenance.  And last but not least, we had observed over the years that changes in the contour of the canyon bottom due to periodic flood events might eventually make it difficult to move our cottage our of the canyon. The portability of our cottage made the move possible and we're now happily ensconced in a location much closer to friends, community center and  community garden.  We're also doing significantly less driving and more biking and walking.    

We also replaced our kerosene lighting with a solar electric system.  The system is powered by a 50 watt solar panel which charges two 85 amp hour deep cycle batteries.  We have two 23 watt compact flourescent light bulbs that run on 12 volt DC.  A 400 watt inverter provides 120 volt AC power for a laptop computer and a small radio/CD player.  The system has worked very well for the past two years.   

Recommended reading:

--Walden by Henry David Thoreau

--Tiny Houses by Lester Walker

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