For the first time in the history of housing, our places of habitation are getting smaller. As an antithesis to the McMansion trend—and a reflection of our current economic downturn—the tiny house movement embraces a whole new set of values: affordability, conservation of resources, downsizing, simplicity and a reevaluation of what the good life looks like. Websites like tinyhouseblog and cabinporn have thousands of fans and are a sure way to spend an afternoon in fantasy land. But for more and more people, this is not just an afternoon daydream, but rather a whole new way of life.

Jeff Shelden’s cabin in Montana’s Judith Mountains, as pictured on page 70 of Tiny Homes.

The energy, creativity, and ambition of this trend are perfectly captured in Lloyd Khan’s new book, Tiny Homes, Simple Shelter: Scaling Back in the 21^st Century. With more than 1,300 photos featuring 150 different tiny homes that range from small houses, to houseboats, campers, straw bale, and round timber, the book is crammed full of ideas and inspiration. The builders of these small spaces vary in experience from novices fulfilling life-long dreams of building their own homes, to architects and entrepreneurs with multiple tiny houses on their resumes. Organized like a family’s photo album, the book provides an intimate look into the spaces of strangers. Yet these tiny houses so perfectly reflect each homeowner’s personality that by the end of the book they will all feel like old friends.

The aesthetic designs, materials and approaches found in Tiny Homes are as diverse as the people who choose to make these spaces their homes. While some look like little more than mud huts, others have the charm of rustic wood hunting cabins from the turn of the century, or resemble a building straight out of a science fiction movie, metallic and paneled in energy harvesting solar cells. Defining shelter as more than just a roof over your head, Tiny Homes explores the oft-forgotten connection with the land and materials upon and with which we built our shelters.

Darren Macca and Ann Holley’s transportable ProtoStoga, as pictured on page 178 of Tiny Homes.

For instance, Mike Basich, a professional snowboarder, bought 40 acres on Donner Summit and built his house from the rock and lumber found on his land. Situated on a stuffing site, he can snowboard out his front door in the winter, and in summer the stone cottage perfectly blends in with the grey rock mountain landscape.

In another example, Linda Smiley Evans built a beautiful and organic looking house from cob and straw bales, with most materials wither from the site, recycled, or pulled out of the commercial waste stream. The roof is layered with a pond liner membrane cover and planted with native ferns and flower bulbs.

On the other end of the spectrum, the weeHouses by Alchemy Architects, are a prefab system with a clean modern aesthetic of wood and glass.

While the tiny house movement may be garnering a lot of new attention, the book’s author Lloyd Kahn is a longtime activist and visionary. His previous book, Shelter, first published in 1973, is a bible of handmade houses and helped give birth to the “Green Building” revolution. Tiny Homes brings Kahn’s vision into the 21st century by introducing us to countless others exploring alternative approaches to housing. The book is not lacking in examples or momentum, and while the low resolution quality of some photos is unfortunate, the sheer quantity of images more than makes up for it. Thoughtful commentary further enhances the pictures by telling the stories behind the houses, which are often as fascinating as the structures themselves.

SunRay Kelley’s “man cave” in Washington state’s forested land, as pictured on page 101 of Tiny Homes.

More than anything else, this book is a roadmap for a journey. It’s an excursion into the potential joy of scaling back, reducing living costs, and escaping high mortgages and rents. The design of these structure embraces the idea of a simpler life, and recognizes that people are happier when they are surrounded with high quality materials and an efficient use of space, rather than the consumer-culture-driven cluttered masses of “stuff” that seem to accumulate exponentially with every passing day. Self-sufficiency is prized and artistic approaches are highlighted, stirring a deep hum within our collective creative roots.

I plan to spend many more hours perusing this curated assortment of spaces, both for inspiration and to rouse a deeper imagination of what home can be.

Check out Lloyd Khan and the trailer for the book:

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The book, which was first distributed at the Rio+20 conference in June and is now available in a digital version, is not the first to call for urgent action in sustainability. However, it is somewhat unique in attempting to take a wholly comprehensive (though abridged) look at the environmental problems we face in 2012, and potential solutions to those problems. The book is also filled with gorgeous photographs from National Geographic photographer Mattias Klum.

Ice forms fantastic shapes in Grey Lake on the edge of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. Photo credit: Mattias Klum

The Human Quest begins with the idea that we are the first generation to understand that humanity has the power to destroy the Earth’s ability to support us. For 10,000 years, humans thrived in the interglacial age known as the Holocene, with stable temperatures that allowed the human population to swell from a few million people to seven billion. Now, according to many scientists — including the authors of this book — we’ve entered a new era called the “Anthropocene,” from the Greek word for human. People have influenced the planet so dramatically that we have pushed the Earth into a new geological age.

Surrounded by reefs and lagoons, the island of Ovelau is part of the Fiji archipelago in the South Pacific. Photo credit: Mattias Klum

Rockström, who heads the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden, lists the many environmental tipping points converging before us: climate change, ozone depletion, disappearing fish stocks, loss of tropical forests and woodlands, and global mass extinctions. More than 9,000 plant species and more than 10,000 animal species are now endangered. The author continually stresses that the loss of this biodiversity isn’t only critical because our children or grandchildren will miss the privilege of seeing these animals, but because they are a fundamental part of our support system as humans. The “ecosystem services” that nature provides — like clean drinking water and pollination — possess a financial value worth more than the GDPs of 196 countries in the world.

The book suggests that there are nine “planetary boundaries” that humans must respect in order to preserve Earth’s capacity to support human life. To stay within a “safe operating space,” we need to move back within three “big” boundaries: climate change, ozone depletion, and ocean acidification, which each have catastrophic tipping points. For climate change, we have already passed beyond the boundary, and need to bring atmospheric greenhouse gases back within safe limits. Rockström also lists four “slow” boundaries that are critical for nature’s resilience: freshwater use, land use, biodiversity loss, and nutrient cycling. Last, he includes two human-made boundaries: chemical pollution and particulate air pollution. Each of these boundaries is being tested as global consumption swells exponentially.

Tebaran, a blowpipe hunter in Sarawak, Malaysia, sees a difficult path ahead for indigenous people in Borneo, as logging operations and palm oil plantations rapidly engulf the land of his ancestors, rainforests that were abundant in plants and animals. Photo credit: Mattias Klum

Though Rockström’s words and Klum’s stunning photographs make it clear how urgent and immense the challenge is, the book ends with optimism. “We have the intelligence, the creativity, the technological know-how, and the power to steer clear of a disastrous future,” Rockström writes. “Our Human Quest is no utopia; it is an achievable dream.” The book shares examples of necessary steps toward sustainability, including a shift to renewable energy and sustainable agriculture. Most critical, they say, is a change in mindset. We need to stop thinking of the environment as something “out there” and separate, and realize that it is a part of us; we also need to understand how quickly we must act.

The book is worth reading. Unfortunately, printed versions were limited to those given out at Rio+20 and the digital copy doesn’t seem optimized for all web or mobile devices. Here’s hoping the publisher improves on the current offering so more people read this important message.

All photos courtesy Mattias Klum

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