Interested in building the Beetle House? Here’s your chance!

A collaborative effort by a team at Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, the Beetle House (entry 35), was awarded the Honourable Mention award in the 10 Square design competition. Michael Mehta, an Environmental Sociologist and member of the TRU team, forwarded this article to me. It speaks to the concerns underlying the group’s entry, and makes the offer of free plans to anyone interested in building it!

Entry 35, the Beetle House, winner of the Honourable Mention award in the 10 Square design competition

Beetle killed wood is also being featured in a $28 million dollar project currently under construction for Okanagan College in Penticton, BC. Designed by Vancouver-based CEI Architecture Planning Interiors, it will house the Centre of Excellence in Sustainable Building Technologies and Renewable Energy Conservation upon completion. Read the Vancouver Sun article here.

To my knowledge, despite the apparent abundance of the supply, beetle killed wood isn’t widely available through wood retailers or suppliers. Perhaps with enough interest, that could change.

Interesting article here (and video) from the Globe and Mail on the growing interest in tiny houses. Thanks to Cindy Fillion, the Visitor Services Manager here at Touchstones Nelson for letting me know about it!

Tiny houses aren’t for everyone, but are an intriguing option. One of the most compelling aspects of them for me is how much lifestyle could be freed up if a person was able to greatly reduce, or even eliminate what they pay for shelter each month. What would you do?

Jay Schafer in his tiny house, image from the Globe and Mail article linked to in this post.

If you’ve been following this blog, you may recall Dan Phillips from one of my earlier posts. If not, he’s a really interesting guy who has carved a niche building houses using mostly recycled materials. Jim Ross spotted this video and was good enough to send it along to me – thanks Jim! Have a look, it’s definitely worth a watch.

Be sure to check out Jay Blackmore’s blog “Cabin Fever” that documents his efforts thus far in building his own tiny house, which was inspired in part by the 10 Square competition.  Go Jay!

Michael Mehta (pictured  below) wrote a great article that makes a compelling case for reducing the footprint of the spaces we live in. In addition to being the Dean of the Faculty of Arts
at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, BC, Michael was also one of the members of the dynamic TRU (Thompson Rivers University) Team, whose entry #35: the Beetle House was given an Honourable Mention award in the 10 Square competition. Click here to view the article, it’s well worth the read.

Here’s an inspiring story – Dan Phillips builds houses in Texas out of found, salvaged  or discarded materials. He targets single parents, artists, and families with low incomes, and involves the homeowner in the construction of their home. I’m not sure how well some of what he does would translate to our climate, but he’s got great energy, and I really like where he’s coming from. Not to mention he is amazingly inventive with how he uses those materials! If you like this, there’s lots more on his website.

Here’s couple of posts I found on Treehugger about hemp houses – seems like a great idea, could be a natural for the Kootenays.

All photos: the Hemp builder

All images from Push House

Pallet house by Schnetzer Andreas Claus and Pils Gregor

Alright, I’m not only going to post about pallet structures, but here’s one from Designboom that is pretty amazing, if not actually livable. I think their pallets were a bit more uniform than the ones I got from the back of Cowan’s.