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]

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]

Mariah and Ryan Lingard fell in love with the woods and lakes of Joseph, Oregon and purchased some partially burned, partially logged land after seeing an ad in the local paper. The 100×150 foot parcel of land cost them $47,000 and is located smack dab in the middle of hiking, skiing and snowshoe territory. The couple has a full-time home in Portland, but they make the 6-hour trip to the Signal Shed about four times a year.

After two years of planning and extended weekend camping trips to their land, the couple built the 130 square foot cabin over a two week period with friends and family. The materials cost about $10,000 and the cabin features several recycled windows, IKEA cabinets and laminate flooring. They found the barn door hardware and the woodstove on Craigslist. The cabin rests on a floating pier to minimize impact on the land and cedar screens used to lock it up when Mariah and Ryan are not around. The Signal Shed has no running water, no electricity and the couple uses the woodstove for heat and some cooking.

Mariah grew up in an off-grid home in rural Oregon and is not bothered by the lack of running water or the portable toilet. The couple heat up water on the stove or in a solar water heater, and read at night by candlelight or oil lamp.

The structure was awarded a 2011 Residential Architect Magazine design award. As an architect, Ryan is now offering the Signal Shed plans for sale in limited quantities. It is being sold for $18,000 for a prefab modular structure and detailed plans are being sold for $1,000.

Photos courtesy of Sunset and Ryan Lingard

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]

What is your tiny house dream? Please share it with everyone via the comment section below. Have a wonderful weekend!

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 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]

This thatched roof getaway looks like a place to relax and take in your surroundings and enjoy the outdoors. A place to enjoy some peace and quiet and some companionship. I think I could relax here without any problem. How about you?

The cluster of whiskey barrel dwellings overlook organic vegetable gardens, dancing wind turbines and the sandy dunes of the North Sea’s Moray Firth. More than 40 houses of ecological design can be found at the Findhorn eco-village including a guest lodge and youth building with turf roofs, straw bale houses and earthships using recycled car tires. Near the entrance to the village is an old tin caravan bearing the Gaelic name Tír Tairngire (in English, “the promised land”).

Photo courtesy of Gemma Grace/Flickr

What is now The Findhorn Foundation and Community began in 1962, when co-founders Eileen and Peter Caddy and their friend Dorothy Maclean set up home at Findhorn Bay Caravan Park, on the coast of Scotland. The three hadn’t planned on setting up a community, but they shared an interest in spiritual life and their skills as gardeners attracted international visitors. Some liked it so much they decided to move in.

This peaceful community of 700 people is comprised of herbalists and healers, poets and potters, educators and experts practicing sustainable professions. They live on modest incomes, but they enjoy the fruits of their shared wealth with daily gourmet vegetarian feasts, traded talents and skills, awesome scenery, beautiful buildings, and a flourishing arts scene all part of life in this community. They also sell much of their wares including organic vegetables, homemade bread, beer, cheese, chocolate and even vodka. The community even has its own bank and community currency called the eko.

The community also has its own natural sewage treatment facility, called the Living Machine, which breaks down sewage with an ecological method using bacteria that live on plants contained in large and deep water barrels. The Living Machine is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.

Photo Courtesy of ecoarc

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)