The school bells have rung, the students have returned, and the tiny house has moved closer to construction. This summer was a blur, but we were able to finalize our building design, connect with more donors, work with Western on siting the house, and even speak with a fellow tiny house researcher from across the nation.
This summer, ZeNETH also had to say good-bye to a number of amazing student leaders including Olivia Dingus and Aisaya Corbray. Olivia’s ability to strategize and navigate the University’s systems was critical to our success – the University of Wisconsin Madison is now lucky enough to have her as an economics graduate student. Aisaya, our resident urban planner, stayed on ZeNETH over the summer to coordinate and manage the project and the many relationships we’ve cultivated across the region. Her dedication to housing solutions will now be felt by the Low Income Housing Institute where she will continue to advocate for equitable housing.
Since the start of this project our work has held onto the mission of being available to all through open-sourcing. We wanted to design something that others could learn from and repeat for their own needs, and thanks to the incredible Dave Kangas at A1DesignBuild we have achieved something quite worthy of imitation. The full building plans for our net-zero energy tiny house are available for free on A1’s site, and on our Design page. Drool away, building nerds.
A1DesignBuild. Western Solar. Sanitary Services Company. Silfab. Trane. Foundation Restoration. Our donor list keeps growing and we are progressively humbled by the generosity of these local businesses. When they show up to the table I can tell that they actually care about the work we are embarking on. One aim of ours has been to not create the slickest most high-end tiny house possible, but to create something that is absolutely replicable on personal and commercial scales. However, it just so happens that these local companies do top-notch work and when they come together on one project like ZeNETH a beautiful thing happens: we witness what it’s like when people are inspired to work together and envision a home that reflects our shared values and the potential for our shared future.
Our project is still in need of raising funds to help see us through the siting stage for bringing the tiny house to campus. We have added a donate button to our home page for donors to make a tax-deductible contribution directly to ZeNETH through Western’s Foundation. Those funds will go immediately towards this last leg of our work.
With so much still to say, it appears I will have to write another blog post soon. However, I will leave you with this tantalizing tiny house morsel. Dr Maria Saxton of Virginia Tech reached out to ZeNETH this summer to ask us about our project as she had just completed her doctoral research in, “measuring the ecological footprints of tiny home downsizers”. Amazing, right? I will dedicate an entire post just to Dr Saxton’s work, but for now I will just repost her fancy infographic below (full file at bottom) which helps make a very intriguing point about environmental impact and tiny houses.
Happy Fall all!
