Book Review: Small Houses
Small Houses by Loft Publications
Small, or mini, houses have grown in popularity lately, a response to the bloated McMansions that have become the standard for new construction not only in suburbs but many cities, as owners group lots to create larger sites that accommodate the beasts. Not really a type in an of itself, small houses (in the case of this book) tend to be less than 1,000 s.f. and must be highly efficient, often relying on elements that can serve double-duty, such as walls also acting as storage. With many recent books devoted to the subject of small houses, this one simply takes that name, offering the reader 25 built examples that vary in size from 355 s.f. (the Black Box by Andreas Henrikson that graces the cover) to 2,010 s.f. (a size almost too big for this book). Brief descriptions accompany each house, but for the most part the book is imagery, with a plethora of photographs and drawings; if it weren't so small it could easily be called a coffee table book. One critique of the book is that it's missing photographs that show people using the houses, something that would help elucidate how each small house works but also to clarify the actual scale of each relative to the others. But if anything that's more a fault of architectural photography in general -- which ironically banishes the user from the built representation -- than of this book in particular.
Small, or mini, houses have grown in popularity lately, a response to the bloated McMansions that have become the standard for new construction not only in suburbs but many cities, as owners group lots to create larger sites that accommodate the beasts. Not really a type in an of itself, small houses (in the case of this book) tend to be less than 1,000 s.f. and must be highly efficient, often relying on elements that can serve double-duty, such as walls also acting as storage. With many recent books devoted to the subject of small houses, this one simply takes that name, offering the reader 25 built examples that vary in size from 355 s.f. (the Black Box by Andreas Henrikson that graces the cover) to 2,010 s.f. (a size almost too big for this book). Brief descriptions accompany each house, but for the most part the book is imagery, with a plethora of photographs and drawings; if it weren't so small it could easily be called a coffee table book. One critique of the book is that it's missing photographs that show people using the houses, something that would help elucidate how each small house works but also to clarify the actual scale of each relative to the others. But if anything that's more a fault of architectural photography in general -- which ironically banishes the user from the built representation -- than of this book in particular.
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