Livin' Large

Posted by: Steve Portigal on Saturday, June 30 2007

Pacifica, CA industrial designer Dirk Dieter has a tiny house. It's 250 square feet. The process of renovating and making the place what he wants has even led to a side business selling the furniture he designed for his own "streamlined living." Some of the principles that have gone into his redesign and renovation:

Sliding doors or curtains instead of swinging doors

Flexible furniture (both in terms of bending and multi-use)

Put furniture on rollers

Build into the walls

Don't build into the room - no doorframes, carpet, baseboards

Cardboard prototyping for any additions

Go vertical

Design your own custom stuff

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and if he sold his car and rode a bike, he could double his living space.

so.. he went for a japanese style house to make room

What a fabulous idea! Each of us should be working to reduce the footprint of our living space. The conundrum comes in as designers, programmed to create "stuff" that requires large places contain it all. Hmmmm......

All good stuff, however boat designers have been dealing with small spaces forever. The added problem of curved surfaces just makes it more fun. If you want to see how to use 250sf well, look at a 40' sailboat interior.

park on the road

You could park your car in the street instead of the garage and have a normal size house!!

Kind of a cheat considering he has a 224 sf "garage" (closet) to throw all the clutter and design stuff in. It's really a 424 sf house, and taken that way, I don't think the space is used efficiently at all.