[design-of-homes]

I live in the UK, and the tiny house movement appears to be a uniquely American phenomenon. The US is lucky to have so much open space which lets people build their own homes. The reason these tiny homes don't feel cramped is because they're surrounded by nature, with beautiful long uninterrupted views out of the windows. No noisy neighbours or traffic nearby either.

But take away the countryside location of these homes and could the tiny house work in an urban environment? I'm doubtful. The future for housing for most people on the planet (including the US) is in cities and urban environments. Can you live in a tiny home where you don't have long, uninterrupted views out of your windows? Or where you only have windows along one side of your dwelling (e.g. single-aspect apartments). Do you feel you have enough privacy when your apartment or house is joined with your neighbours' home?

Millions of people already live in homes like this and have to contend with these issues. The challenge for homebuilders and architects is to design housing to address these issues: homes that give us light, space, privacy, quiet and comfort in a noisy urban setting. Sadly, if I look at the new build housing going up in the UK I'd say architects and house builders are doing a pretty poor job of it. Are things better in the US in this regard?

Also, space can be 'modest' in size rather than micro or miniature and still be sustainable or amenable to high density. For example, London has it's own housing design guide that recommends new one bedroom apartments for two people to be a minimum of 50 square metres (538 square feet). That's still less than space standards in continental Europe but it's enough space to live comfortably even if it doesn't count as tiny by Western standards.

[xasos]

> The future for housing for most people on the planet (including the US) is in cities and urban environments.

I agree. Skyscrapers would provide the best bang for buck in terms of space. You could fit a lot more people into a city like San Francisco.

[jellicle]

As a general rule, skyscrapers don't increase density much, as most of the space is taken up by elevators, plumbing, electrical, and so forth. A block of five-floor walkups is almost as dense as a 50-story tower-with-empty-space-around-it, and much less expensive to build.

Walkups, not skyscrapers, are the best bang for the buck.

[Dylan16807]

How much space around the skyscraper? Surely at least half of each floor is usable, right? I can't find any normal tower floor plans that differ.

Ten times as many floors is a lot of floors...

[design-of-homes]

This is an excerpt from a book called At Home in the City: an introduction to urban design which explains how the same plot of land can accomodate different types of development and different densities. Medium-rise blocks can match and exceed the density of high-rise blocks - see the attached pic in the excerpt below for an example:

"In 1972 Leslie Martin and Lionel March published a cogent analysis of the key forms of urban development. They postulated that on any given site development can take three basic forms which they called 'pavilion','street' and 'patio'. These forms cover different proportions of the ground area.

If developed with buildings of the same height and depth the pavilion form would provide the lowest density and the patio form the highest. On the other hand, constructing a given amount of floorspace would need buildings of different height depending on which form they took. Figure 2.2 illustrates this principle [see: http://imgur.com/LmJ1tTg ]. It shows that the same amount of floorspace could be built on the same site as a fifteen-storey tower block, five-storey linear blocks or a three-storey perimeter block."

[Dylan16807]

Interesting, but they seem to be keeping the floorspace constant on purpose there. With such a narrow tower you could fit four on that plot!

[xasos]

Interesting. Most of SF residents I know still live in small houses or low-rise buildings, so there is a lot of potential for more living space (if current situation worsens in that way it is)

[seanmcdirmid]

The myth of that, however, is that Tokyo, one of the more denser cities in the world, is not a city of skyscrapers. Even London isnt, so there is something else to living up to density in urban environments (though I live on the 16th floor in a beijing apartment).

[noir_lord]

Given the view out of my flat is more flats like mine and cars I'd happily not have so many (possibly even any) windows if I could replace them with equivalent sized high DPI screens (a constant trope in sci-fi) and had adequate ventilation.

I nearly picked one flat when I moved because it had a bedroom without a window which would have made a perfect office.

I accept I'm not the norm though.

[seanmcdirmid]

These screens are basically light bulbs, you really don't want to be exposed to that all the time, both your eyes and skin. E paper displays would work better, but would probably still feel fake compared to an actual view. If you want, plenty of ant tribes live in windowless beijing basement apartments, life isn't good for them.

[derefr]

I think the parent might be talking about something more like this: http://www.coelux.com/

Imagine a room where the entire ceiling + walls has that effect. It would feel like you're outdoors (on a summer day, in Kansas.)

[noir_lord]

Pretty much, I'm trying to remember the film that had them and at the time I thought I want those!.

Also with near full wall HDPI displays you could do some awesome infograophic style style stuff, house conditions etc.