One Piece Collapsible Reflectors

The GLOBAL SUN OVEN® can be set up for use or taken down for storage in a matter of seconds. The reflectors literally fall into place at an angle that allows you to maximize the power of the sun.

The reflectors are made of highly polished, mirror-like anodized aluminum that can be cleaned quickly and easily with glass cleaner, and they will never oxidize or rust.

Spill-Proof Levelator

There is never any need to worry about your food spilling in a GLOBAL SUN OVEN®. While cooking, your food rests on a shelf that self adjusts to always stay level as you refocus.

Easy Temperature Monitoring

A built in thermometer allows you know the temperature at a glance.

Self-Contained Leveling Leg

As the sun is at different points on the horizon the GLOBAL SUN OVEN® can readily be adjusted to follow it. A simple adjusting leg allows you to choose from 9 angled positions.

Extremely Well Insulated

A thick batt of non-toxic insulation retains heat. Food cooked in the sun and left in the oven will remain hot for hours. Cold air is held out allowing the GLOBAL SUN OVEN® to be used on sunny days year around regardless of the ambient temperature.

Light Weight, Easy to Carry

The GLOBAL SUN OVEN® weighs only 21 pounds (9.5 kg), folds up like a suitcase, and is equipped with a handle for easy transport.

To learn more visit http://www.sunoven.com

I have also seen a couple of videos on Youtube for building your own sun oven so this could also be an option.

Watch how it works in the videos below.

That amazing window (which Laurie called “a magic window”) was found lying up against a barn and turned out to be a church window from the 1800s. Custom glass was made for each round section of the window. She and her husband also perused the salvage yard and found old growth pine boards to use for the floor and chimney pots for the roof. Soybean based foam insulation was sprayed into the walls and the roof is Vermont slate. The house is powered by wind and solar.

Video images courtesy of Laurie Halse Anderson

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Dawson-Witt, a freelance editor and government contractor, has avoided television and fashion and wanted to live her life like that of Henry David Thoreau.

“I wanted to live deliberately and to not be on automatic pilot,” she said. “I wanted to be connected to the elements.”

However, she is not able to live in her tiny house full-time. The county in which the home is located does not allow full-time living in a home without indoor plumbing. She keeps another house close to her work.

Inside the tiny house, there are three chairs, one table, one desk, a kitchen cabinet from the 1920s, one bookcase, a loft with one bed and one small chest that contains an extra blanket. About 75 percent of all she owns fits in the tiny house. (Ironically, she has a whole shelf of books on voluntary simplicity, she said.) She has her clothes and a file drawer in her other house and her tools and camping gear in a nearby shed.

Dawson-Witt will be leading a seven-week discussion on sustainability at her tiny house. The sessions started on October 4, 2011. Her talks will cover simplicity, ecology, food, money and more for those who want to live more lightly on the earth.

Photos courtesy of YSNews.com

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The house was designed to act like a tree that captures energy with its solar “leaves” and sends it down to its roots, where is stored, shared, or returned to the house to produce the fruit of electricity. The house contains a “domestic metabolism” that provides a detailed real-time monitoring of its behavior and its interaction with the environment, creating historical profiles and sharing them socially.

The design of the Fab Lab house has been compared to both a boat and a peanut and has been called a “cinnamon submarine,” “forest zeppelin” and a “whale belly”. The house has also introduced significant technological innovations such as the world’s most efficient flexible solar panels, made with both Spanish and American technology. The project involved architects and experts from 20 countries as well as experts from MIT.

The house has been put up for sale for €45,000 plus VAT ($64,000). Fab Labs is offering the house for sale in several different styles including the Cottage which is 12 square meters (129 square feet), the Shelter which is 24 square meters (258 square feet), the House which is 60 square meters (646 square feet) and the Villa which is 96 square meters (1,033 square feet).

The interior is composed of an integrated social space with a bedroom, kitchen, a small Fab Lab, a bathroom and a small elevated room for guests.

Photos courtesy of Fab Lab

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The couple built the house on wheels on an acre of land in Florida that also houses several chickens and their vegetable and fruit garden. The house contains a small kitchen with a sink, microwave and fold down table, a bathroom with a shower and toilet, a small TV room with a couch, and a sleeping loft. The baby’s crib will be placed in the kitchen next to the dining table. They also have a workshop for tools and a prefabricated shed for some boxes of clothes and books. The TV, refrigerator, water pumps, air-conditioner and LED lights are powered by solar panels.

Marc, a university professor and videographer, and Trudi, a graphic designer, have been living an eco-conscious lifestyle for several years. They’ve documented their conservation and tiny life in their blog, A Greener Boese. The house was modeled after some homes the couple saw in Oregon and cost $12,000 to build over the course of a month. The solar panels cost an extra $8,000. Trudi mentions in the video that the transition to a smaller house was easier than she thought, and that getting rid of most of their possessions was liberating.

Photos Courtesy of Bob Self/Times-Union

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Hybrid coined the term cargotecture to describe any structure built partially or entirely from recycled cargo containers. The c-series consists of five models ranging in price from $29,500 to $189,500. The home featured at the Sunset show was the c192 nomad which costs $59,500.

The prices of the c-series include:

• Recycled ISO cargo container with new paint
• Soy based spray foam insulation
• Aluminum clad wood windows and doors (one 10 feet long opening and one side door)
• Bamboo finish floor
• 5/8 inch drywall ceiling and walls
• Panelized wet room bath with redwood decking.
• Duravit bath fixtures
• IKEA cabinets and kitchen fixtures and lighting
• Summit appliances
• 30 gallon electric water heater (gas if available on site)
• Convectair Apero heat
• Factory plans, State L&I permits and inspections

Green and off-grid options are offered including solar panels, composting toilets and “green machine” sewage treatment and roofwater harvesting.

All the models are insulated about 15 percent above IBC and UBC building codes in the floors, walls and roofs. The building can be placed in cold climates as well as moderate to hot climates. The recycled plastic and soy sprayed-in insulation creates R24 walls, R44 ceilings, and R32 floors. The roofs can handle 60psf snow loads.

The HyBrid homes are shipped complete. A local contractor will need to be arranged for electrical and sewage hook-ups as well as foundation work. In many jurisdictions, if your project is less than 200sf there is no permitting process required. HyBrid has completed residential and commercial cargotecture projects in California, Oregon and Washington and has designed over 20 projects on 5 continents. They will ship their cargotecture homes worldwide.

Photos courtesy of Hybrid Architecture

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The Hummingbird has a living and kitchen area with a fire-ribbon fireplace (which requires no venting) and a large, covered deck which LEAP calls a “chill” space. A small bedroom and bathroom suite are also included. Plans for the hummingbird are priced at $995, the building kit is around $55,000 and an on-site built Hummingbird is about $80,000 which does not include the general contractor fee, building or permit fees.

Other green options included in the Hummingbird are:

• Cement board or teak siding
• Trex recycled content-engineered deck planking
• Low-mass Structural Insulated Panels
• Multi-unit sliding glass doors with dual-pane Low-E glass
• Simpson “Strong-Wall” seismic resisting brace-frames
• Low-flow plumbing fixtures
• EnergyStar rated Heat-pump HVAC system, lighting and on-demand water heater

LEAP Adaptive is a home design group in San Diego, California. Design director Brian Darnell has spent the last 22 years designing multi-million-dollar residential estates, but realized that “the lust for size and granduer has given way to the realization that the economics and ecology of our flattening world can no longer support such extravagance.” LEAP seeks to create environmental designs that are easier on the owner’s wallet as well as on the earth.

Image Courtesy of LEAP Adaptive

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The cabin was designed and built by Olson Kundig Architects, the designers of the Rolling Huts. Three sides of the cabin have custom-designed Shutter-Decks, designed in collaboration with Turner Exhibits. The Shutter-Decks lower to become an outdoor living space and rise to provide privacy for the occupants and to secure the cabin when it is unoccupied. The south Shutter-Deck can be opened independently of the other two, while an interior fireplace can be rotated 180 degrees to be enjoyed from the exterior.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

This modern, sustainable home is constructed mainly of wood with a rustic masonry face, and features a rainwater-recycling system, geothermal energy, and solar panels that keep this house off the grid. The building materials are recyclable and locally sourced from within 100 km of the home’s location, and then assembled on-site. Vegetable fibers are used for walls and insulation, heating comes via wood-burning stove, and cooling and ventilation are passive. In addition, all the equipment providing hot water facilities have been placed outside the home, in a gallery 30 meters long, which is dug into the hillside. A final system supplies the toilets from the recovery of rainwater, stored in a 200 liter underground tank.

While the architect utilized an older house as a base for this project, I can see a tiny house being created from just the “wing” portion of this design, utilizing the clean interior and the green systems already in place. The concept is that you can take what you need and leave the rest behind.

Special thanks to Trendir

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Several details of this design make it unique to other prefab designs. The “kinetic facade” rain screen, which consists of tall louvered panels, can be closed over the passive solar windows to insulate the interior and protect the E.D.G.E. when unoccupied. It contains two lofts with full staircases, and the furniture is custom made for the house and is multi-functional. In fact, the dining room furniture transforms into a bed.

The house also features rainwater harvesting, geothermal heating and cooling, air to air heat recovery ventilation, a butterfly roof that minimizes solar gain, triple insulated glass, and a thermal radiant floor heating system. Locally grown white oak is used for the rain screen and CNC cut Baltic birch plywood is used in the interior of the home.

The house is 320 square feet, which does not include the floor area of the upper sleeping lofts, and costs between $60,000 and $150,000.

An overnight experience in the E.D.G.E was written about by Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and she documented her stay in the tiny house with a video. She answered more questions in an additional post.

Photos by Dan Hoffman. Courtesy of Revelations Architects/Builders Corp.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]