I love Lauren's post!! (and am now trying to dig up her original blog so I can follow it...)
https://medium.com/@Hipstercrite/dear-people-who-live-in-fancy-tiny-houses-21fdc639ce55
This article of hers reminds me of something I've been thinking about for...oh, forty years. Likely more. My mom and I used to fantasize about the possibilities together. I know an incredible number of other people have and do as well, this is just my little twist on it. I'd be dangerous with a (huge?) budget.
But the whole tiny house thing. Your own personal living space, just big enough for two. Or, if you prefer a lack of quiet, slightly bigger to accommodate kids. Better yet, build them their own tiny house!
Better yet, get some friends together; stable, communicative, skilled, hard-working, hard-playing friends, mind you...and buy a large plot of land and hold 'barn-raisings' for everyone. Build a central cooking and eating area, removing the necessity of having a kitchen in each personal unit. A community bathing area for all to share. A library. A media room. A sports field. Waste recycling, water purification, fertilizer conversion, renewable energy solutions (solar, wind, methane everywhere possible but working into the environment to the point of near-invisibility). Wood and metal construction shops. Artist workshops. Everything shared. Can you think of anything else? Just writing this makes it sound more and more like preschool...for everyone. Community garden? Farm? Heated and cold salt water pools! Hot tub! Vineyards and winery!!! But I digress...
Sounds kinda neat, doesn't it? You all have your own personal, equal space and whole lot of great shared resources. The only reason to ever 'go home' would be to sleep or otherwise seek solitude when it suits you.
Of course, we'd still trade with other communities the world over, being as sustainable and renewable as possible. Let's face it, sometimes the greatness is just in the local conditions - water, climate, amount of sunlight, the types of vegetation, the dirt. That makes me wonder if the worms in the dirt of Bordeaux process it differently than those in the Yakima Valley. Seems likely.
I always dream most about the kitchen. Doesn't everyone? Can you imagine? Everyone the world over always congregates there anyway...it would be media-free. Completely. Full electric, gas, everything. It'd be a very large, round or ovular, teepee-like with pitched roof to central point/exhaust; stone, log, metal and glass structure. Likely with multi-faceted sides, say an icosagon. Each side would be glass, giving alternating panels the ability to open into the next panel to the right or left. Outside the doors would continue with panels in all directions, covered for a few meters then open patio beyond, lots of herb and flower gardens dominating the periphery. Lots of skylights with the ability to open all of them. Heat
generated would be put to many uses depending on season and weather and not just vented into the
atmosphere.
I haven't yet given any due to how one goes running from bath house to personal unit in the snow but it doesn't seem insurmountable. Just not a priority...possibly for entertainment reasons.
So much more to this...I might have to go play with Google's SketchUp and design all this.
