Small/Tiny Homes

Gloria Montalvo’s weekend getaway on a reserve in central Chile is just 580 square feet, but the entire forest is its living room. Designed by architect Guillermo Acuña, it features a transparent facade over a skeletal pine frame.

For the redesign of a 430-square-foot flat built in the 1970s, Madrid firm BURR Studio integrated all the main facilities of the home into a central core. “The toilet is the only element that can be isolated,” notes the firm. “The rest of the areas merge into one another so that the tenants essentially sleep in the bathroom, as well as shower in the living room.”

Like much of the Italian Riviera, La Spezia on the Ligurian coast has a long maritime history. It was precisely this seafaring legacy that inspired the design of this tiny home, a 377-square-feet apartment that was reconfigured to clearly separate the living and sleeping areas. A cabinetry wall is constructed with marine plywood.

A short, chunky staircase connects the two distinct realms of the studio.

Architect Tom Kundig’s assignment was simple enough: Build a tiny, Thoreau-like getaway for an Atlanta-based writer who owned ten acres on San Juan Island in Puget Sound. "The idea was not to clutter anybody’s thinking, especially a writer’s," he said. So he designed a 500-square-foot retreat that’s both womblike and open to its surroundings.

With its large covered porch and glazed walls, the Beaver Creek Cabin frames the forest like a picture.

The exposed solid cork blocks are gentle to the touch, and they even smell good. The acoustics are soft and calm, and the house only requires heating on the coldest days. The stove is fed with logs harvested from on-site tree maintenance.

Shigeru Ban, Cardboard Cathedral A testament to the strength, skill, and poignancy of the Pritzker winner’s “emergency architecture,” this A-frame marvel of cardboard tubing and shipping containers served as a potent symbol for Christchurch’s recovery after an earthquake. In another symbolic touch, the stained glass triangle at the front of the church incorporates imagery from the former cathedral’s famous rose window.

Feeling the squeeze from Hong Kong's affordable housing crisis, James Law of James Law Cybertecture turns to a surprising new micro-housing solution.