Ben Keel

11/19/15
English Comp 1120
Final Paper
Dr. Gardiner

Sustainable Green Living in Modern Culture

Modern society is obsessed with the idea of the American dream; that
quintessential, Hollywood style of American family life in the 1950s, the perfect family
with big house with the monstrous, gas guzzling yacht of a car in the driveway. This
lifestyle sounds great, but people often seem to forget about reality. The mantra of
bigger is better has hijacked the minds of the American people, when in reality, society
needs a more minimalist and sustainable approach. Green living movements, such as the
Tiny House Movement, passive architecture, and off-grid living, are new methods of
living for people who want to make as little of a carbon footprint as possible. There are
many upsides to living in this manner; like little to no utilities payments or the ability to
easily live anywhere in the world. Even with the prospect of an effect on psychological

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health or legal problems; green culture--and the lifestyles associated with it--is still a
viable option to reduce the global carbon footprint.
Micro houses are built with the idea of putting an entire, full sized house in as
small of a space as possible. Many micro houses are made from repurposed shipping
containers. These are very popular styles of houses in rural places, due to the ease of
which the shipping containers can be delivered to the site. A typical shipping container
house consists of one or two containers joined together, with windows and doors cut out
of the metal. These houses usually use very little power, and use either solar power or
generators to provide electricity. This method of living makes these houses great for the
environment, since they can use materials that would otherwise be discarded, all while
using as few non-renewable resources as possible. These types of houses have as little
square footage as possible, while maintaining a useable and comfortable living space. A
popular design consists of a tall, narrow structure with a ladder connecting the rooms.
The idea behind micro housing is to use the smallest footprint possible, while
maintaining a functional living space. This small footprint helps these micro houses
achieve a very eco-friendly status. Most houses generate their own power, and are
designed using very green material. Many of the designs feature solar panels, built in
rainwater collection and filtration systems, or even the ability to generate power from
wind turbines. Micro housing is also eco-friendly due to the recycling aspect of the
materials used. These houses utilize otherwise unused spaces, such as the roof, for
gardens, which make these houses very useful in the tight quarters of an urban setting.

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Micro housing is also popular in woodland/outdoor settings, due to the ease of

construction and minimal environmental impact. This type of house is easy to make in a
portable manner, so people would not be as tied down to one specific area.
In an urban setting, micro housing is a solution to overcrowding and the shortage
of affordable housing. A micro house is typically about 150-350 square feet, which is
about one tenth of the average size of an apartment. This means a very affordable, quick
to build house is available; and can be built in places like city alleyways, or even on top
of pre-existing structures. According to a representative from a company called
NOMAD Micro Homes in British Columbia, a system similar to IKEA furniture can be
used assemble micro houses. The houses are made in pieces that lock together, to form a
livable space of about 165 square feet very quickly, but multiple units can connect to
form bigger spaces. The houses are built on a pile system, a set of heavy posts driven
several feet into the ground to act as an anchor system. This eliminates the need for a
concrete foundation, and creates an almost non-existent footprint for these homes. These
tiny floorplans are great for the environment, but could be detrimental to someones
psychological health. In an article from The Atlantic; the author, Jacoba Urist, covers a
study that shows possible side effects of living in a cramped apartment of less than 400
square feet. New York Citys housing crisis was set to be solved by a competition based
program that pitted architecture firms against each other, in order to find a solution by
putting as many housing units in as little space as possible. The winning firm
nARCHITECTS, proposed a plan that incorporated ten foot ceilings and Juliet balconies

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to give residents substantial light and air--into a space varying from 250-370 square
feet in a Brooklyn apartment building. Critics of the design of the building are worried
that the potential health risks of living in an overcrowded, tiny space might outweigh the
positive effect that the apartments bring to the New York City housing issues. In the
article, Dak Kopec, author of Environmental Psychology for Design, says Sure, these
micro-apartments may be fantastic for young professionals in their 20's, but they
definitely can be unhealthy for older people , say in their 30s and 40s, who face
different stress factors that can make tight living conditions a problem. Stress caused by
living in tight, crowded quarters is broken down into two basic categories. The first kind
of stress is caused by being physically crowded with objects like furniture and other
belongings. This type of stress is elevated in a micro apartment setting due to the
miniscule size of the living space. Since many of these apartments are too small to hold
more than one piece of furniture at a time, residents are forced to constantly reconfigure
the space with furniture that folds out of the way when not in use. This constant moving
around creates a sense of frustration and chaos and destroys the idea that home is a place
to relax and unwind. The second form of stress is caused by social crowding. In these
micro apartment buildings, the amount of residents can be anywhere from triple to
quadruple the amount in a standard apartment. The social crowding that is a product of
this can cause stress due to constantly being very close to a lot people. This type of stress
has been shown to increase substance abuse and the possibility for domestic violence in
some people. For obvious reasons, these two forms of stress combined in a long term
situation can have harmful effects on the human body. While humans are meant to be

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communal creatures, solitude can be a healing experience for many. Thoreau, as with
other topics, also has many thoughts on the idea of solitude. In his book Walden,
Thoreau says It would be better if there were but one inhabitant to a square mile, as
where I live. In saying this Thoreau brings up an interesting discussion on the benefits
of solitude and how being alone can effect a person. Thoreau, having called solitude a
glorious society and saying he has an appetite for solitude, like an infant for sleep,
shows mankinds desire to have time alone. This idea is what Urist talks about in her
article, and why being physically and socially cramped in a small space is detrimental to
ones health.
In Lets Get Small by Alec Wilkinson, the author talks about the three different
types of people that choose to live this lifestyle. People who live in tiny houses, or
aspire to, appear to fall into one of three overlapping categories. The first consists of
young people who see a tiny house as a means of owning a place while avoiding
property taxes and maybe rent, since they can often find places to park their house free.
This lifestyle brings up the issue of legality for tax reasons. Aside from the many
positives that come from micro housing, one potential drawback is the possibility of
legal and tax issues with the property. According to the Alabama Department of
Revenue, building a permanent structure on property will affect the property value and
increase taxes on the piece of land. The issue with most individual micro housing units is
that they are either not permanent, or do not have the square footage that would be added
to push the property into the next tax bracket. This means that the house doesnt add

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enough value to the property to be considered a house, which could be problematic in

some areas.
The second group of people Wilkinson mentions includes older men and women
who have either sold or walked away from a house they couldnt afford. Wilkinson says
A subset of this group is retired couples whose children are gone, and who want to live
more simply. Both of these groups include transients; that is, people for whom a tiny
house is temporary.(Wilkinson) These two approaches to living are more of a novelty or
recreational type of living. The first of these two approaches is probably the most
economical way of living this lifestyle, as it reduces the cost of living by allowing the
owner to put their house wherever they please to avoid property taxes. This lifestyle is
essentially life inside a small camper trailer or recreational vehicle. The second of these
lifestyles is more geared towards retired couples. This type of living takes the place of
the stereotypical road trip after retirement. Instead of the iconic trip down Route 66,
these retired couples just move into a tiny house in a wilderness setting, away from
society and into a minimalist state of mind. As mentioned beforehand, these lifestyles are
designed with the intent to be temporary; maybe living in this style for a few years at
most. The economically minded approach to living minimally has started gaining more
mainstream popularity ever since the housing market collapse in 2008. In Dan Okos
Itty Bitty Houses the author talks about a company in Texas called Texas Tiny Houses,
where Brad Kittle and Sarah Suskana build these small houses in response to the recent
turn away from the bigger is better mantra of homebuilding. Wisecracks about low

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overhead aside, many Americans are embracing the idea that a bigger home is not
always better. Concerns about carbon footprints and energy costs mean that where
McMansions once sprouted, a small-house movement has taken root. Just ask Brad
Kittle, who runs Tiny Texas Houses, a company specializing in very small dwellings
the largest has a 12-by-28-foot floor plan constructed almost entirely from salvaged
wood.(Oko) These homes, while designed in response to the housing market collapse in
the mid 2000s, are also environmentally friendly because of the use of recycled wood
and other materials.
The third group of people that Wilkinson mentions in his article are the people
who are more environmentally minded and living this way for a reason. Wilkinson says
The third group is composed of people determined to live environmentally responsible
livesto live "lightly" as they put it. (Wilkinson) According to Greg Johnson, the
publisher of a tiny-house Web site called ResourcesForLife.com, to inhabit a tiny house
"you have to remodel your sense of what success is and how important it is to you to
convey to the outside world 'Hey, I have a big house and big car and I'm successful.' If
you have a piece of inner tranquility, you don't have to prove anything to anybody." This
group of people is seen to align with the late 19th century transcendentalists such as
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau in the sense of living a simple life and living by the
land. In the article by Wilkinson, A tiny-house builder talks about this third group, saying
that "They want to live off the grid. A lot of vegans. The younger people are idealists.
They're big into off-the-map and sharing their experience."

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Living in a green, sustainable manner can be taken to a whole new level by living
off the grid. Off the grid living is a lifestyle in which the person or people living do so in
a primitive, but high tech manner; using only renewable resources such as wind or solar
and have little to no carbon footprint, barely leaving a trace on the surrounding
environment. In the video by CCTV News, a pair of Slovakian architects, Tomas Zacek
and Matej Pospisil talk about the new eco-capsule that they co-invented. The ecocapsule was inspired by American pioneers, who went deep into the wilderness and lived
off the grid. The eco-capsule has a sophisticated energy system that harvests wind and
solar energy from built in turbines and solar panels when available, but stores surplus
energy in battery banks to power the capsule when these renewable resources are not
available, or to supplement them in poor conditions. The sleek, pill-like design of the
capsule and the high performance thermal insulation help to prevent heat exchange with
the surrounding air, keeping the capsule cool in the summer, and warm in the winter
without much need for an HVAC system. The capsule also utilizes a rainwater and
moisture collection system with an extensive filtration and purification system based in
the membrane of the unit. According to the video posted by ThinkTank, the capsule
measures in at 86 square feet, and has hookups for and undercarriage to allow it to be
towed like an RV. It also features a charging port for electric vehicles. This very ecofriendly form of living is becoming very popular because it allows people to travel the
world in their home, while leaving a very little carbon footprint behind. Thoreau writes
the following on conservation:

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What are the natural features which make a township handsome? A river, with
its waterfalls and meadows, a lake, a hill, a cliff or individual rocks, a forest, and ancient
trees standing singly. Such things are beautiful; they have a high use which dollars and
cents never represent. If the inhabitants of a town were wise, they would seek to preserve
these things, though at a considerable expense; for such things educate far more than any
hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education. I
do not think him fit to be the founder of a state or even of a town who does not foresee
the use of these things, but legislates chiefly for oxen, as it were. (Thoreau, Journal)
Thoreaus ideas on preserving the wilderness can be applied to off the grid living.
By saying that the land is more valuable than any dollar amount, he is saying that society
should do as much as possible to preserve the natural beauty of the land. In another
journal of his, Thoreau writes that Each town should have a park, or rather a primitive
forest, of five hundred or a thousand acres, where a stick should never be cut for fuel, a
common possession forever, for instruction and recreation.(Thoreau, Journal) this
further demonstrates Thoreaus ideas on keeping a small footprint and preserving the
land through conservation efforts.
The same measures mentioned above are not only being used in these small,
portable, off the grid housing capsules, but are also being implemented in urban
apartment buildings as well. In an excerpt from the Proceedings of the Estonian
Academy of Sciences, the authors talk about the methods that are being used in a more
eco-friendly form of building. The term for these types of buildings is passive house, and

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they are designed without any mechanical means of heating or cooling in order to save
energy. The heat sources for space heating and hot water in the nursery school are
district heating and solar collectors (70 m2). The heating system is a central air heating
system, combined with the ventilation system. The heat source for space heating and hot
water in the community center is a ground-source heat pump (GSHP). A hydronic floorheating system combined with the ventilation system is used. According to the design
solution, both buildings are operating with a constant air volume (CAV) ventilation
system and without mechanical cooling systems. Demand-controlled ventilation was not
installed because the ventilation system is used also for space heating.(Raide) These
methods were implemented in two buildings as a sort of test of concept for passive
houses. This form of heating and cooling is very energy efficient because of the lack of
automated systems that constantly use energy. If done correctly, passive houses could be
a solution to the American dependence on non-renewable energy for heating and cooling
homes and places of work. By implementing these relatively low-technology designs
into homes, not only will energy costs be reduced, but society could scale back to the
point where wind and solar farms, along with nuclear power, produce enough energy to
power entire cities without the use of coal, natural gas, and petroleum.
Sustainable design and minimalist lifestyles are the direction that the world is
beginning to head. Fashionable housing options are being built with sustainability and
the environment in mind. As the world begins to steer away from fossil fuel dependency
and more towards renewable resources and environmentally friendly energy sources,

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industries other than the energy industry will begin to follow, creating a cleaner, greener
world.

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Works Cited
Cranston, Hannah and Iadarola, John. This House Lets You Live ANYWHERE In The
World! Perf. Youtube.com. ThinkTank, 30 May 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNR_OxqNrzA>.
"The Henry D. Thoreau Quotation Page | Walden Woods." <i>The Henry D. Thoreau
Quotation Page | Walden Woods</i>. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.
&lt;http://www.walden.org/Library/Quotations&gt;.
Oko, Dan. "Itty-Bitty Houses." Sierra 94.1 (2009): 35. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 11 Oct. 2015.
Raide, Indrek, Targo Kalamees, and Tnu Maurin. "Lessons Learnt From The First
Public Buildings In Estonia Intended To Be Passive Houses." Proceedings Of The
Estonian Academy Of Sciences 64.2 (2015): 157-167. Academic Search Premier.
Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
"Thoreau's Cabin on Walden Pond - Tiny House Design." Tiny House Design. N.p., 10
June 2008. Web. 18 Nov. 2015. <http://www.tinyhousedesign.com/thoreauscabin-on-walden-pond/>.

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Urist, Jacoba. "The Health Risks of Small Apartments." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media
Company, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 13 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/the-health-risks-of-smallapartments/282150/>.
Wilkinson, Alec. "Let's Get Small." New Yorker 87.21 (2011): 28. MasterFILE Premier.
Web. 11 Oct. 2015.
Zacek, Tomas. Slovak Architects Design Self-sustaining Mobile Home. Perf.
Youtube.com. CCTV News, 19 Aug. 2015. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa5GpZ8HK1A>.