{"id":4660,"date":"2011-08-02T08:37:39","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T15:37:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=4660"},"modified":"2011-08-02T00:38:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T07:38:00","slug":"playhouse-tiny-house-innermost-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2011\/08\/02\/playhouse-tiny-house-innermost-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Playhouse, tiny house, innermost house"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I came across a great post by Umair<\/a> Haque<\/a>, How Our Economy Was Overrun by Monsters and What to Do About It<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Haque, who doesn’t stint<\/a> in criticizing vapid consumerism, in this post describes a kind of decline-of-the-[Roman?]-empire trend in which the very rich provide their progeny with elaborate (and very expensive) “playhouses.” He references what he calls an eyebrow-raising New York Times piece<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In that article, a Texas multi-millionaire wife enthusiastically endorses her daughter’s $50,000 “playhouse”:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of it as bling for the yard,\u201d said Ms. Schiller, 40.<\/p>\n

Some people might consider it \u201cobnoxious\u201d for a child to have a playhouse that costs more and has more amenities than some real houses, she conceded. But she sees it as an extension of the family home. \u201cMy daughter loves it,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s certainly a conversation piece.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>Exactly what the conversation would be about is left to the reader’s imagination. Since the playhouse is supposed to impress with its amenities (air conditioning, stainless steel sinks and mini-fridges, vaulted ceilings – all the trappings of The Big House, in other words), one can’t help wondering if one’s mind is supposed to assume Lilliputian dimensions as it’s clearly directed to admire the same things already installed “for real” (and super-sized) elsewhere. Coming up with different sizes of the same thing is an old retailing trick – and why not retail one’s lifestyle as just another desirable commodity.<\/p>\n

Or not?<\/p>\n

I was struck by how these over-designed “playhouses” (in which every detail has been filled in, with nothing left to the imagination) contrast with Tiny Houses built for adults.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From Small House to Tiny House<\/h4>\n

The tiny house movement started coming into its own when architect Sarah Susanka published The Not So Big House<\/a> in 1998, giving rise to a small house movement. The point was to give up size (quantity) in favor of quality. From there, it didn’t take long for the small house movement to be linked to environmental sustainability and to evolve further into a tiny house movement.<\/p>\n

Adults started getting very creative, using the constraint of small size to unleash innovations in architectural design. The tiny houses were not mini-Big Houses, as the luxury playhouses of children of the very rich seem to be.<\/p>\n

In a luxury playhouse, old ideas rule the day insofar as the houses echo what the children can find in the\u00a0 homes of their parents – and the extreme expense has congealed the play. Nor were the tiny houses fantasy castles or jungle-gym aeries, a kind of privatized replica of what used to take place in improvised form in the commons (in woods, fields, or public parks).<\/p>\n

Certainly, tiny houses are private. But what happens in some of them is real fantasy – that is, real play<\/em> – which in this case means a reinvention of how to live, not a copying of how others live.<\/p>\n

***<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The Innermost House (on Tiny House Blog)<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/h3>\n

Innermost House<\/h3>\n

Perhaps the most intense Tiny House I’ve ever come across is Diana and Michael Lorence’s Innermost House<\/a>. I’m still not sure what to think about living in a 12-foot cube in the woods, without electricity or running water. But Diana Lorence<\/a> seems to be on a mission to teach others<\/a> what she’s learning on her journey:<\/p>\n

There Are Two Ways to Simplify Your Life<\/p>\n

One way is eliminating the things from your life that don\u2019t really matter, until you are left with what you need.
\nThis is the rational way to proceed, and it works. Experts and practitioners speak of it with authority. There are steps to take and things to accomplish and ideas to exchange. You can really get somewhere this way.<\/p>\n

The other way is the art of filling your life with what you love most in the world. Love has a strange emancipating power that lets everything else fall away.<\/p>\n

Your heart allows you to sense this mysterious force. In some way, Love has the power to displace many things. (source<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Useful advice, whether you’re editing a home or a life, downsizing or contemplating an acquisition.<\/p>\n

See additional essays by Diana Lorence here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an essay about design, Sacred Game<\/a>, Lorence writes:<\/p>\n

How do you design a house without designing it?\u00a0 How do you grow something to be wild?\u00a0 Sometimes we could almost see it in the distance: “Beautiful Necessity” Emerson called it.\u00a0 It is the need to be\u00a0 that has gone out of things.\u00a0 In the world today we are all free to design whatever we can think of, but we are powerless to make things necessary.<\/p>\n

Michael and I were seeking a way of getting behind\u00a0 the designed world, inside design to something more essential.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t looking for new designs or for old designs. (source<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Provocative questions – probably not to be answered with miniature stainless steel appliances and all the mod-cons of already-existing built forms…<\/p>\n

A list of websites for Tiny Houses<\/h4>\n

Via House Beautiful<\/a> (where, of all places, I came across the Lorence House), a list of 15 websites for Tiny Houses:<\/p>\n