Tiny houses have been a popular trend recently, and it baffles me to know why. You can find them all over the world in cities like Amsterdam, New York, Tokyo, and London. I wanted to take a deeper look into their histories, why they are so loved, and why they are so small. I have picked a few tiny houses from around the world to focus on. 

In South Kensington, London, there is a house that is six feet across at its narrowest. At its largest, in the main bedroom, it’s only eleven feet wide. It is considered to be one of London’s skinniest houses. It has two full bedrooms and two full bathrooms in only five hundred and eighty square feet! The house has all-day sun features, spa-like bathrooms, and beautiful hardwood floors. There is a five foot wide terrace outside. Would you buy it for 1.07 million? 

In the middle of the Drina River in western Serbia, the House on the Rock stands. According to local legend, the Medieval hero Marko threw the rock into the river and it has been there ever since. When people were swimming across the river, they would use that rock as a resting place. But as a group of swimmers noticed in 1968, the rock got much too hot during the summer. So, they built a small, basic shelter. The house has been carried away seven times, but people were able to either swim after it and put it back on the rock or rebuild it. Now, you can go there for a getaway or just to view the historical house.

In Tokyo, there is a micro home called Love2House. It was built by Takeshi Hosaka who lives there today. The plot has a total of thirty-one square meters. The total floor area is only nineteen meters. When Takeshi and his wife had to move to Tokyo for a job opportunity at the Waseda University of Art and Architecture, they could only manage to get this small plot. Their old place was a small house, but this was even smaller. The house is inspired by the ancient Roman villas. The ideal behind it is to “take pleasure in modesty.” Since during the winter, the house would get no sunlight, Takeshi built two curved, open roofs so that during the winter a bit of sun can peek through and during the summer it is a very light-filling home.