Tiny Camper Rentals from Out Van About

In the January issue of Tiny House Magazine, we give our five predictions for trends in the camping industry in 2021. Out of those five, the idea that camping options will get even smaller is already happening. Out Van About is a van rental company based in California. The popularity … Read more

Abodu Prefab Units Easing Bay Area ADU Woes

In the land of ultrafast startups, there are bound to be one or more that will relate to the tiny house craze and some may even ease the burden. Ever since the San Francisco Bay Area legislature made accessory dwelling units (ADU) or granny units legal, the permitting process for … Read more

Tiny House in Bay Area

The Shack

Jan Sturmann wrote me recently to share a tiny house he has built in the Bay area of Northern California. I’ll let him tell you about it. Imagine a house that has everything you need, but nothing more. Walls and a roof that shelter, but do not entrap you with false promises and … Read more

Oakland Tiny House

by Matthew Wolpe

So, I’m designing and building a tiny house. Last year one of my students showed me a picture of the Tumbleweed houses and said she wanted to build one and wanted me to help out. I laughed and thought it was funny and intriguing, but inside I was like “Are you serious, you’re gonna move into one of those?” Okay, so fast forward six months, and the New Yorker article came out and I was reading it in bed. It was a rare moment of epiphany, aided by some lovely company.

It was the ideal next step for me.

There were a few considerations:

  1. I loved my housemates to death but don’t love my basement room, particularly in the winter
  2. I’d been building chicken coops for the past year, something I’m a little tired of, so it was like a giant chicken coop with new challenges
  3. I had been trying to buy a house with friends in oakland for over a year and am convinced this is my only way towards home ownership in the bay area, and
  4. After finishing the manuscript and seeing my sweetheart leave the country for a long while I had the compulsion to throw myself into a giant project.

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Tiny Prefab Units Promote Eco-friendly Building

Tammy from Rowdy Kittens alerted me to a local article about some prefab units being built for parking lots in Berkley and San Francisco. Following is a couple of paragraphs from the article and you can read the complete article at SFGate.

A young San Francisco company that makes prefabricated housing is set to provide multifamily buildings for two urban Bay Area projects that its development partner hopes will become a model for eco-friendly construction.

Zeta Communities will construct the housing for the 22-unit developments, planned for parking lots in Berkeley and San Francisco. The projects will feature tiny living spaces – 310- to 340 square-foot studios – and no parking. Instead, they will include a car-sharing space.

The proposed four-story projects are the first foray into prefabricated housing for East Bay developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests.

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