I work with a company (RVC Outdoor Destinations) that has created & branded the concept of Outdoor Destinations. These are basically outdoor resorts for luxurious camping with upscale amenities and accommodations mixed with beautiful natural environments. I’d like to tell you a little bit about their unique lodging options…

Cottages
RVC worked with Athens Park Homes to create their own customized RVC Resort Cottages. They come fully furnished with lofts, flat screen TVs, washers/dryers, bathrooms, fully appointed kitchens, and fresh bed linens & towels. They also include a BBQ grill, picnic table, and fire ring for outdoor cooking and gathering. While RVC Resort Cottages are small, they can sleep up to four adults and two children with the bedroom, loft and fold-out sofa.

Yurts
RVC has yurts at two of their resort properties (GA and AR). They are located in a semi-private area enclosed by trees and come with circular decks, fire rings, and picnic tables. All are furnished with comfy beds and have climate controls included.

RV Sites
For the open-road travelers, RVC has modern RV sites with full hookups, 50/100 amp service, cable, and free Wi-Fi. Most are waterfront or water-view sites.

RVC has Outdoor Destinations in Hot Springs, AR; Pine Mountain, GA; Carrabelle, FL; South Walton County, FL; and Asheville, NC. Please enjoy the photos.

Thanks for allowing me to share!
Katie Breyer
www.rvcoutdoors.com

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Lammas is the United Kingdom’s first planned ecovillage and is sited on 76 acres of mixed pasture and woodland in Pembrokeshire. The houses use low-impact architecture which uses a combination of recycled and natural materials. The village will contain five detached buildings and one terrace of four dwellings. The homes will be built of straw bale, earth, timber frame and cob; they will have turf roofs and wool insulation and will blend into the landscape.

The videos (also available as podcasts) cover everything from searching for land, working with local codes, inspectors and design councils, examples of different types of natural building including straw bale and cob, surviving cold weather, self-sufficiency, growing your own food, and keeping community intact. The ecovillages profiled are Cae Mabon, The Village, Ireland and Findhorn. That Roundhouse by Tony Wrench is also featured.

The videos are filmed and produced by Undercurrents, an alternative news blog, and presented by Paul Wimbush, an architect who has lived in several intentional communities where he learned gardening, horticulture, goat-tending, land management and simple living skills.

You can support both organizations by purchasing a 50-minute DVD of all the videos.

Photos courtesy of Lammas Ecovillage and Undercurrents

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Cae Mabon’s principal creator is Eric Maddern, who was inspired to create the community after spending time with the Aboriginal people in Alice Springs, Australia. He wanted to create a place that was not the ostentatious beauty of the wealthy but the humble beauty of the simple and natural. The buildings he created are mostly made from timber, stone, reed, straw, grass, lime and clay and they blend in with their surroundings.

The Cae Mabon (Mabon’s Field) community consists of several different types of alternative buildings including a geodome, a Mongolian yurt, an Iranian shavan, cob cottages, two roundhouses, a straw bale hogan, a cedar cabin, a thatched shower hut with river water heated by a wood stove, a “loo with a view”, a sweat lodge and a wood-burning cedar hot tub.

People who live in Cae Mabon take part in working, building and gardening parties, and yoga and meditation retreats are regularly held here. The philosophy behind the community is to create a place of creativity and healing as well as a model of low impact, sustainable living.

Photos courtesy of Cae Mabon

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The Paniola is the first and premier model built with attention to quality and detail. The finishes include Sapele wood custom cabinetry, bamboo flooring, glass raindrop door between the bathroom and the kitchen, full insulation, refrigerator, two-burner stove, on demand hot water heater, a heater for cooler nights, Wilsonart countertops, an office, and an indoor bathroom with a shower and a composting toilet. The ladder is a unique and ergonomic design custom made from beautiful Sapele wood. The dimensions of the Paniola are 16 feet x 9 feet x 14 feet and there is a comfortable sleeping loft with windows above the kitchen. The Paniola is solar ready, wired for 110 volts and set up for a rain water catchment system. This Habitat is available to see by appointment only. Please call Barrie Rose at 808-960-6785. You will have the opportunity to discuss custom designs to fit your individual needs.

Watch the video of the Paniola on YouTube.

The Hele Mai is a compact Habitat which lends itself easily to mobility. This model has tremendous storage capacity underneath the punee or couch which doubles as a sitting area and a bed at night. The awning windows are custom designed by talented craftswomen on the island and offer great ventilation and light. The Hele Mai’s shower and composting toilet are outdoors, and it’s also set up for solar and a rain water catchment system. The company rents this model out for romantic getaways.

Photos courtesy of Habitats Hawai’i

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The E-den is hand built by skilled craftsmen in Somerset using a combination of timber and steel framework, locally sourced materials and incorporating modern timber frame construction techniques. They each include a wide door for people with mobility problems, a large roof window for natural light, and electricity can be added into each E-den. They are each constructed in a workshop and delivered as a complete unit on a trailer. To launch the project the company has decided to sell the first 10 E-dens at cost to establish them in the marketplace, therefore the prices below are a genuine special offer and will be offered on a first come first served basis.

The E-den’s exterior is 14 feet long by 9 feet high and 11.6 feet long by 6.9 feet high on the interior. The bunk is 5.6 feet deep and 6.9 feet wide with 16 inches of storage underneath. A standard unit costs £6,875 or $10,700.

The Hut is also constructed off site, can be built to your specifications and can be delivered and installed in one day. It’s fully insulated, wired and constructed from reclaimed and sustainable sourced materials. A green roof can be installed and opportunities for solar panels are available.

The Hut’s exterior is 14 feet long by 7.6 feet wide by 9.4 feet high and 12.6 feet long, 6 feet wide and 7.2 feet high on the interior. The cost of the Hut is £6,500 or $10,200.

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

The house was built in 1997 by Tony and featured solar power, a wind turbine, composting toilet and reed beds for gray water. Tony based this house on American Indian designs he had seen in history books. In the past, he had had experience building “wacky structures” and wanted to live as close to the land as possible. Even though he built it inside Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, with agreement from the owners of the land, he never got permission for the structure from the local planning board. After several court appearances, he and his partner, Jane, decided to demolish it in 2004, but changed their minds after public demonstrations persuaded them not to. The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority attempted to get a court injunction to force Tony to demolish it, but were persuaded to allow it to stay up until July 2006, when they could re-apply under the new Low Impact Policy. In 2008, the committee voted to give Tony a conditional for three years. So – the roundhouse still stands.

The house cost £3,000 (about $4,700) to build and is located on the edge of a wider sustainable eco-village. It’s about 6.5 meters (21 feet) wide. Tony and Jane try to get 70% of what they need from the land. They grow their own food, make wine from local berries, use a composting toilet, collect downed wood to make woodcrafts which they sell, and their water is piped from a mountain source and heated by a woodstove. Electricity comes from three photovoltaic panels on the roof and a small (200w) wind turbine situated about 70 yards away in a field. For cooking they use an old gas caravan cooker, the woodstove and a dutch oven. Guests sleep in another roundhouse called “the Den” nearby. They live on several hundred pounds a month and have no bills.

Wrench has a book for sale called “Building a Low Impact Roundhouse” on Amazon.

“We are not going to survive in these numbers for the next few hundred years – people will have to live a lot simpler.” -Tony Wrench

By Christina Nellemann for the [Tiny House Blog]

Case de Barro

Cob Together

Meka Cottage

Cob Cottage Company
Photos by Marisa Pereira

Photo by Kristi and/or Jimbo Diebley.

Other tiny cob home links:

Cob Project

The Natural Tiny House Top 10

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]

These types of Baja casitas are typically made out of cement blocks and are coated with a few layers of cement, which is rounded over the corners of the blocks. Other casitas in Mexico are made of adobe brick and coated with layers of mud and straw. The cement blocks help to keep out the desert heat and block El Norte, or the heavy winter winds that come from the north.

Some will have flat roofs that can be used for summer sleeping, storage of a water catchment system or solar panels. Others will have a palapa or palm frond roof. This is more than just a romantic idea. If a hurricane hits the area, the owner of a house with a palapa will only lose a fairly inexpensive roof rather than having to replace the tiles or shingles of a more expensive roof. Palapa roofs are surprisingly watertight and still let in fresh air and let out heat.

Usually some sort of deck or veranda will extend the casita’s space and will be used for cooking, eating and sleeping. Simple overhangs of vigas and latillas or branches and twigs will be used for blocking the sun, but still letting in light.

Due to a casita’s open relationship with the elements, a low wall is sometimes built around the house to keep out unwanted critters, but occasionally you might find yourself sharing a casita with a happy cricket and a lizard or two.

By Christina Nellemann for the (Tiny House Blog)

EcoNests are simple, elegant, and healthful handcrafted dwellings that welcome owner participation in their construction. They are the product of a design/build collaboration by Baker-Laporte: Robert Laporte, a timber framer, author, natural house building pioneer and teacher, and Paula Baker-Laporte, an award-winning architect, Bau-Biologist (building biologist), teacher and author specializing in healthy and ecological design. The EcoNest utilizes natural building techniques including: timber framing, light clay/straw walls, earth plastering, and natural, non-toxic finishes throughout.

Most of the EcoNests are a little larger than a tiny house, but the philosophy remains the same: create a healthy sancutary.

The smallest stock plan for an EcoNest is 700 square feet. But Paula said that Baker-Laporte, and their workshop participants, build quite a few “Hummingbirds”. Small studios without a bathroom or kitchen that are about 200 square feet. A Hummingbird can be integrated into a community with other small buildings that contain bathrooms, kitchens and sleeping areas.

EcoNests are built with timber framing and light clay and straw. Unlike standard building methods that employ vapor barriers, clay/straw walls actually breathe. They are weatherproof yet porous, and they allow for the slow transfer of fresh air and moisture much like human skin. The one-foot thick, light clay/straw walls are a unique combination of insulation and thermal mass, keeping the interior cozy and warm in winter and cool in summer.

The light clay/straw walls are then coated with earth plaster. The walls are ideally suited to plaster because they are perfectly flat but coarse in texture so that the plasters adhere to them without needing lathe. Earth plastered walls are both durable and beautiful. The floors of the houses are made of natural materials such as earth and stone.

Econests have been built in many different locations including Portland, the Northeast and Canada. Most of them are primarily in the American Southwest.

Baker-Laporte offers workshops on how to build your own Econest. You can take workshops in timber framing, clay/fiber construction, roofing, natural plasters and finishers, an Econest intensive, or builder training and apprenticeships.

Photos Courtesy of Baker-Laporte and Associates

By Christina Nellemann for the (Tiny House Blog)