Reimagining the Tiny House Typology in Aotearoa

Abstract

Ko te whare e hanga te tangata, ko te tangata e hangaia e te whare. The whare (whare tangata) builds the people, and the people build the whare.

This Māori whakataukī refers to the whare (whare tangata), meaning ‘house of humanity or womb.’ Emerging from this first house we begin building connections to people, the whenua (land) and the houses we live in. A whare brings a group of people together with a common purpose: this collective action supports well-being and can uplift communities through the provision of good housing. This whakataukī guided students as they designed a kāinga tuaiti (tiny home) to contribute to a pressing design problem: the provision of low-cost accommodation in Aotearoa. Rationing strategies were used to limit building size, materials, weight, and cost. Concomitantly, an emphasis on delight was placed on the judicious design of a domestic interior in relation to its contents. This paper examines ‘makeshift’ and peripatetic architectures that offer recreational, transitional or permanent accommodation including whare raupō, caravans, transitional housing for homeless communities, and relocatable houses on coastal sites. These precedents are examined alongside the directives of the brief and a discussion of student work. In addition to designing individual tiny houses, students were afforded the opportunity to mahi tahi (work together as one) in small groups to create a shared amenity building that supported their tiny co-housing community.