||Students in the Sustainable Living Program will graduate with
a very practical skill: the knowledge and ability to build their
own tiny house and live in it mortgage-free, thanks to a
recently completed course taught by Mark Stimson. During the
course, which covered much of what an architecture student would
learn in the first semester of an architecture program, the
students learned the elements of building, the principles of
structure, and the drafting skills necessary to create a plan
for a house, as well as the ability to wield a range of tools.
Each student drafted a complete plan for his or her own house,
including floor plans, elevations (side views), and structure
diagrams. In addition, the class as a whole built the frame of a
tiny house. Mr. Stimson said that he would be moving their tiny
house to his property in Texas, where it will be completed and
be part of his new desert retreat and ecology station project.
He said that there’s a nationwide tiny-house movement, and that
while specifications v