BIG little house Small Houses Designed by Architects

What are the challenges architects face when designing dwelling spaces of a limited size? And what can these projects tell us about architecture ? and architectural principles ? in general?

In BIG little house, award-winning architect Donna Kacmar introduces twenty real-life examples of small houses. Each project is under 1,000 square feet (100 square meters) in size and, brought together, the designs reveal an attitude towards materiality, light, enclosure and accommodation which is unique to minimal dwellings. While part of a trend to address growing concerns about minimising consumption and lack of affordable housing, the book demonstrates that small dwellings are not always simply the result of budget constraints but constitute a deliberate design strategy in their own right.

Highly illustrated and in full-colour throughout, each example is based on interviews with the original architect and accompanied by detailed floor plans. This ground-breaking, beautifully designed text offers practical guidance to any professional architect or homeowner interested in small scale projects.

Foreword by Carlos Jimenez. Preface. Acknowledgements. Introduction. Timeline. Variant ONE: Porous Dwellings 01. Watershed 02. Music Box 03. False Bay Writers Cabin 04. Ravine Guest House 05. Writer's Studio 06. Hill Country Jacal 07. Kemper Cabin Variant TWO: Focused Dwellings 08. Marfa 10x10 09. Keenan Tower House 10. Sky Ranch 11. Scholars Library 12. Roland Cabin 13. Small House in an Olive Grove 14. Stacked Cabin Variant THREE: Protected Dwellings 15. Williams Cabin 16. Craven Road Studio 17. Pool House 18. Blossom Street 03 19. Nested House 20. Envelope House List of Work Index

Donna Kacmar is a practicing architect and an Associate Professor at the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture at the University of Houston, USA, where she teaches Comprehensive Design Studio and directs the Materials Research Collaborative.