Jay Sifford Garden Design Very interesting article. I feel that personally I'm trying to strike a balance between living wisely and resourcefully, and striving for the reward of the traditional American Dream. Creativity is not the issue for me, as living on a smaller scale frequently requires more creativity than living more traditionally. On an emotional level, traditions are sometimes difficult to give up. This article helps a bit. Thanks.

tcufrog One trend I'd like to see is reusing or upcycling items instead of sending items to the landfill. I'd also like to see remodelers and builders choosing ecofriendly, sustainable, and locally sourced options if they choose to rip out what is already there. Finally, I'd like it to continue to become easier to pass on removed materials instead of passing them onto a landfill. For this to occur members of the construction industry need to learn about the options and encourage their clients to do them.

Peter Medvin Great and thoughtful article. One trend that I think is missing is the use of convertible spaces. This is happening as people downsize, either because they are Baby Boomers with an empty nest or folks who just want a smaller, simpler lifestyle. There are new and innovative design ideas to facilitate this trend, one of which is Zoom-Room, the electronic remote controlled, retractable Murphy Bed. In addition to being comfortable and effortless to use, it is completely undetectable, allowing you to create a guest room out of virtually any space. Check it out at www.Zoom-Room.com.

AMBIT great article!

Hi-Lite Manufacturing Co. FANTASTIC ARTICLE.

ghost713 The Tree House appears to sit near the border of the property. I'm surprised that it does not violate any local zoning codes.

andie morgan The tree house in Los Angeles I believe is at least 25 feet from the property's edge which appears to include the landscaping high up to the right. My confusion is where does the electric Murphy Bed disappear to when closed? The photo makes it look as though the bed slides into the wall! That is a very deep wall.

andie morgan One summer, I volunteered at a Christian missionary farm that goes around the world teaching very poor or third World country communties better farming techniques to increase the food supply for eating and selling. In the crowded cities, roof top farming can be maintained with little or no soil using recycled material such as cans in large wooden frames to hold the roots and stems of large vegetables. It is fascinating what can be done with so much of the materials that we waste and throw into dumps.

CAROLE MEYER John.....as always, very interesting post.

vallner Why is alwayssmall and minimalistic the way to go. Would like to see a wider variety of ideas other than city and compact living ideas...

Diana Bier Interiors, LLC Breaking up a house into 3 parts? Are you serious? How is that efficient? Especially in Maine where during a cold winter you'd have to open and close the door many times in a day and let cold air in and heat out. Or in a hot climate where the air conditioning would escape. Not to mention the inconvenience!

John Hill Diana - You're almost answering your own question. A smaller building would require less energy to heat and cool than a bigger one (setting aside particulars of a design and any zoning that may follow from that). And given a tight envelope, the heat or cold escaping would be minimized even more.

With this example, I could even see the building on the left not being occupied at certain parts of the year, so the heat/ac to it could be turned off or down low, also saving energy.

As far as moving from one building to another, I don't think everybody sees the outdoors as an "inconvenience." There's actually a house in Osaka, Japan, by Tadao Ando (yes, a much different climate than Maine) in which a courtyard is the circulation between rooms:

Diana Bier Interiors, LLC John,

I think all of your points about 3 separate houses could apply to one house of the same size, and would be MORE efficient.

Point one: Many homes have wings that can be closed off at certain times of the day/year, etc. And others could be build with sliding doors or other partitions without having to build multiple structures.

Point two: All else being equal, no matter how tight the building envelope, opening and closing doors will almost always allow heat/air conditioning to escape.

Point three: on a tight building envelope with setbacks, building one structure would be more efficient than 3, no?

Point four: As for the inconvenience, yes, the outdoors are wonderful when one lives in a mild climate with minimal precipitation, but few of us live in such paradises! Here in the Northeast US, our winters can be severe and summers very hot and humid, not particularly conducive to wanting to be outdoors.

Other than that, it's a great idea....

efpico I have to agree with Diana on the split house. I find it hard to believe that there are any efficiencies gained with that approach either in materials or energy used. I would also find it incredibly inconvenient in the Northeast.

John Hill My point with the "split house" was never to tout efficiency or the like, it was about how buildings sit on the land, how they can be sized and located to preserve important parts of a site. Yes, I know that sort of consideration does not exist in a vacuum, but it sounds like such strong opposition to the idea is reinforcing the supposed need for big houses with big footprints. And I'd say that hypothetical speculations about the owners does not help the argument.

Diana Bier Interiors, LLC John, I'm not understanding how "such strong opposition to the idea is reinforcing the supposed need for big houses with big footprints." Who said anything about being in favor of big houses? I said no such thing, and am in fact totally against overly large homes, especially the so-called McMansions. However, there is a failure in logic to suppose that the opposite of split houses is large houses! I'd propose that the answer to the split house would be a well-designed smaller home.

And your statement " And I'd say that hypothetical speculations about the owners does not help the argument." also totally baffles me--just what hypothetical speculations about the owners are you referring to???

John Hill Diana - Looks like the comment the last part (and to a smaller degree the first) was addressed to has been removed.

Diana Bier Interiors, LLC Then I guess that explains my confusion!
On another note, I do appreciate your articles--they are thought-provoking and interesting.

ebova As for split houses, I love the idea. I have lived with my 93 year old mother for the past six years. She is independant and we would both welcome the space a split house could give us. Brilliant idea!

Lanecraft Lane and Coach Houses Inc Thanks for those predictions John! There are all "on point" as host Guy Fieri is saying these days on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives! ...back to topic though, I've never added so many images from a post to my ideabooks...absolutely beautiful examples of very fine work.
And to add to the vibrant discussion on "breaking up the house" or "split" houses:
The points about total efficiencies (building envelope, heating, etc.) in one structure certainly make sense, and the development costs per square foot are definitely higher when taking an urban single family lot and dividing it into 2 or 3 small lots. But having a separate cottage or house to live in is just such a great thing!
This is happening here in Vancouver with fee simple row houses and laneway and coach houses and in Venice California with the Small Lot Ordinance. It's certainly a more expensive proposition to build with more kitchens and bathrooms (compared with the original single family lot) and other additional code and safety issues that come with buildings in close proximity to each other, however the smaller lots that are created by subdividing the larger lot allow for a much smaller urban footprint. For thriving cities that have traditionally always valued such things, they increase urban density which in turn makes walkable neighbourhoods more viable. The per square foot costs of each small structure will be higher, but overall, smaller and therefore more affordable ground-oriented dwellings have been created.
And when designed and built with passive house principles, the sustainability factor gained easily eclipses any other type of dwelling.
Thomas
www.lanecraft.com
(Vancouver, BC)

Stone & Land, LLC John, sorry I'm late in finding this article. I think all your trends are thought provoking. Urban vs Suburban vs Rural debate has probably gone on for as long as people had the resources to inhabit one area and form communities. Lately especially after so many natural disasters, it has made me think how disconnected so many of us are from the land and vulnerable we seem to be. I think regaining the knowledge to be self sufficient is craved by younger people. There’s a search for what worked in the past, but using some technology available now. I just attended an IL American Society Landscape Architecture roundtable discussion. I learned about " The Plant " an adaptive reuse of an old meat packing plant that is trying to be a net-zero energy vertical farm. Cool stuff http://www.plantchicago.com/

Also discussed is where do Landscape Architects fit in. Why are the Architect and Engineers squeezing us out of the mix when it comes to bigger public projects? I think our profession has a bit of an inferiority complex, but I won’t bore you with the details. Also I think that most of them are realizing that there won’t be any money for the next big project. I tried to make the point last year but I don’t think it was taken very well, first year sitting at the table. I think Illinois is more broke than Greece and the US Government isn’t that far behind. Maybe it’s these uncertainties and the Great Recession that has fed into young people wanting to have more control in their lives.

Getting rid of the lawn – Blasphemy! Just kidding, but many of the recent designs I’ve done, the clients want to include new space for vegetable gardens and native plants, hopefully with some edible components. Just hard to let go of turf, especially when you want the kids to go out and play.

I’m searching through your ideabooks to find more ideas for small square foot living and modular or separated living, like reuse of shipping containers which is very interesting to me. I thought I read an article by you a couple of months ago that had some nice examples but I was new to the site and didn’t book mark it. Anyway thanks again for a nice article.

ebova Landscape Architects suffer from being the last consulted on residential projects. Budgets are consumed with the house design and construction. Homeowners don't considers replacing any of the native plants that have been destroyed in construction. Almost always, they replace with non native ornamentals. Education and good pr would help.

John Hill Stone & Land - Thanks for the thoughtful comment and the link to Plant Chicago. I just realized I had bookmarked that site a while ago but never did anything with it. Time to take a look at it again.

I'll admit that my experience as an architect tends to put building before landscape, but my subsequent grad school education (Urban Design at City College) helped me to consider landscape and building design at the same time. Every now and then it's good to have a reminder.

I can't think which Ideabook you're referring to. There was one on the small apartments in SF that I contributed to. Could be that one:

Stone & Land, LLC Thanks John, maybe container homes or a cargotecture story hasn't been done yet. I really couldn't find too many examples with a search on Houzz. Might fit in with many of your 2013 predictions.

BTW I did a tour of The Plant today. Former PEER Meat Packing, now reused sign reads bEER. Building is still in progress, but it is amazing the amount of remodeling with reused material has been done on a shoestring budget. The demonstration aquaponics is functional with greens being sold at a Logan Square Farmers Market, but several businesses incubating and some will start producing food like meat pies, bread, aquaponics grown microgreens in a month or two. The brewery space and shared kitchen spaces sound like they'll be next on the construction schedule, along with the anaerobic digester to supply power and cooling to the whole operation, turbine and . I saw an interesting building close by and it happen to be a LEED Platinum building with wind turbine, PV arrays and a green roof. The turbine was spinning hard today. Our guide at The Plant said that Testa Produce gets 1/3 of their power from the turbine and it has a 10 yr ROI. Very interesting neighborhood. Sorry if this isn't quite houzz material but it could be inspirational and shrunk down to a Sustainable Homestead scale too.
Sorry with the rotated picture, don't know why that's happening. Maybe too much bEER.