One of my experiences every day when I research a topic is to find out how much is already been investigated and written about it. I saw this little living space in the NY Times morning news. The article is about the impacts of the coronavirus causing people to work remotely from home. This is the illustration - it reminds me of the 1950s kitchen sets we played with.
Pinterest has pages for "Living in 100 Square Feet". The only difference is that the bed is on a second level that one reaches via a ladder staircase. These are endearingly named "My Tiny House." And you likely know about tiny house reality series.
Articles written about tiny houses typically start: "High tech couples gives up high life to live in tiny space...and loving it."
According to the engineering toolbox, the average person needs about 100 - 400 square feet of space in an apartment to feel comfortable. They have square footage for all kinds of rooms - dental centres, churches, banks. Residential is 200 - 600 square feet per person. So tiny living is about reducing that in half or more.
Can we shrink our living spaces rather than enlarging them as we've been doing? Is this also a viable approach to our affordable housing crisis and to homeless housing?
Seattle is a city that has built tiny houses villages and has experience in the area for a few years. They opened their 11th village in February 2019. I went looking for Canada's version: and it turns out that Hamilton, Kingston and Keewatin have tiny house community initiatives. Cute as a button in the pictures, but only three of them. This seems to indicate this isn't a movement, more a promotional experiment.
Today's picture is Witch hazel blooming in the snow. It may seem funny to look forward to a forecast of rain. Maybe that's the mystique of March.
