Container Home

Shipping Containers 
‘Dream’ Homes for Thousands

I was planning on writing about composting toilets today but came across an article on the CNN website that I just had to share with everyone. So toilets will have to wait for another day.

It was a side trip through a destitute, ramshackle neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, that detoured Brian McCarthy from building houses in Albuquerque to an idea to offer the very poor a chance to own a home.

PFNC stands for “Por Fin Nuestra Casa.” Translated in English this simply means “Finally, a home of our own.” These words are the foundation of PFNC, whose goal is to provide housing to those who most desperately need it around the globe.

PFNC utilizes surplus shipping containers resulting from the United States’ consistent trade deficit.  These containers serve as the building block of PFNC housing, but go through an extensive conversion process to make them a home.  PFNC offers an affordable housing solution that is scalable and fully portable. Each PFNC unit includes 1st world amenities for a price of less than $10,000 (US).

Though considered sparse by American standards, these tiny houses have everything a person needs to live a simple life. I personally would like to promote this company for what they are attempting to do and I hope they have great success. I am contacting them to learn more on how to help get these to people who really need a new home.

To learn more go to the PFNC site. Watch the video NBC has put together on PFNC and watch the walk through video as well. I would encourage you also to read the CNN article.

Floorplan

Prototype Construction

Exterior Construction

Kitchen

Bathroom

Bedroom

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   Cottage Entrance

Boor Bridges’ Big Design for a Tiny San Francisco Cottage

This 840 square foot luxury cottage is tucked away mid-block on Ames Alley, steps from the vibrant Mission district, yet protected from the heavily trafficked streets of Guerrero and Valencia. Since the 40’s the existing structure was home to Betty Mae’s School of Tap, and the one studio room outfitted with low dance bars saw over 30 years of tiny dancers cross its maple floors.

When faced with renovating the building, owners Kevin Smith and Flora Grubb could not bring themselves to tear it down even though they had approval to build a 2-story structure over a garage. Instead they tapped their friend Seth Boor of Boor Bridges Architecture to see just how luxurious and livable they could make such a compact space without losing the warm memory of the dance studio. The result is a one-of-a-kind urban sanctuary and grown-up clubhouse, where every square inch has been designed and manicured, and where the open feel of the studio remains the primary organizing principal.

In the main studio space, a new central fireplace wall sided with re-claimed douglas fir anchors the living room bathed in light from the skylight above. Around the other side this central piece opens up to become a closet space serving the master bedroom. Along the east wall custom FSC-certified cherry cabinets wrap in and out of the full kitchen, providing ample storage, framing the entrance to a clever bathroom, and a hidden washer and dryer. In the kitchen dark custom concrete counter tops wrap the u-shaped working space, overhanging the living room to form a dining bar.

Pulling this whole edge of the space together is a continuous integral color plaster wall that begins in the bathroom and travels through the kitchen into a petite open air patio space, reinforcing a beautiful indoor-outdoor connection where you didn’t even know you had room for a ‘backyard’. French doors open wide to the rear patio, letting in light and air and perfectly framing the view of the plaster wall hung with a framed vertical succulent garden. Stepping out onto the 40 square foot patio you are pleasantly surprised to find a custom concrete soaking tub tucked away at the garden’s edge. At the opposite edge a fixed ladder leads the adventurous to a rooftop redwood deck, complete with kitchen garden and fixed glass tabletop (which doubles as the bathroom skylight) for moonlit cocktails.

For additional information on the design of Ames Alley Cottage, please contact:

Seth Boor, Principal
Boor Bridges Architecture
415.241.7163
sboor@boorbridges.com
FAX 415.241.7164
www.boorbridges.com

To view some before picture of the cottage before the reconstruction go here. To see more pictures of the completed cottage click here. This house will be going on the market in mid October if you are interested.

Bathroom

Soaking Tub

Fireplace

Exterior

Sketch

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Michael Janzen (tinyhousedesign.com) and I were talking a while back and it occurred to us the tiny house world probably could use a real Tiny House Forum. Several readers of the Tiny House Blog have suggested that it would be a good idea as well. 

A forum is different than a blog. A blog is a bit more of a one way communication tool. Forums are for true discussions where everyone is on even footing.

The Small House Society Yahoo Group is also a great place to chat about tiny house living but with so much happening in the tiny house world it seemed like an open forum might be a good addition to the tiny house online world.

We’ve been setting it up for a couple weeks but today we’re officially opening the virtual doors. We hope you’ll come and chat at TinyHouseForum.com