The tiny home movement provides a solution to the two mounting problems of contemporary society: the skyrocketing cost of safe and stable housing and the unsustainable environmental demands of conventional homes. Yet, what truly makes the experience of living in a tiny home extraordinary is the application of biophilic design principles in a tiny space.
The deep psychological connection characteristic of living in a natural space is what every person yearns for, but because almost 80 percent of us in the United States now live in urban settings, that opportunity is often limited. In saying that living in a tiny home can embody biophilic design, I’m not being intuitive; there are actually good reasons for the claims I will make in honoring those principles.
What I love most about living in a tiny house is that this lifestyle naturally invites us to capital O outside. When your living space is a mere 160 square feet, the outdoors becomes your additional room. Biophilic design carries this relationship a step further; it takes the outside and shoves it right up against the inside, as in the models of the Cours des Arts et Métiers annex in Paris by the architects Lina Ghotmeh and Christian de Portzamparc, which transform the relationship entirely between the inside and the outside of the living and working spaces.
This has been done splendidly in tiny homes nestled in forests or perched on mountain ridges. Instead of merely placing the home with a view, biophilic design invites the natural landscape into the living space itself. Almost always, there are huge windows that reach from floor to ceiling, but the draw is not limited to just the sight. The key here is that sightlines have been established to make specific elements of the natural world visible and to draw one’s attention to them. One tiny home I spent time in had a window positioned in such a way that, every morning, the sun’s first rays would filter through the branches of a specific tree nearby.
In addition to windows, small houses can have glass doors that open up the way to a nearly uninterrupted indoor-outdoor space. These space-saving sliding doors work well in tiny cabins when there’s either not enough room or no wall to swing an ordinary door open. Not that an ordinary door is any less exciting.
I remember making a trip to a minuscule home perched on a distant hillside where the upper deck served as the owner’s main living area. The dwelling was designed with local cedar, untreated and weathered, creating a woodsy scent and an organic connection to the surrounding environment. The owner spent most of his time on the upper deck—his “outdoor room”—only retreating for sleep or during inclement weather. The experience underscored how outdoor designs and “tiny” biophilic dwellings can allow residents to live more harmoniously in their environments.
Integrating Natural Elements and Textures for a Biophilic Aesthetic
Biophilic tiny homes require crafting a basic physical connection to the outdoors, but just as important is the use of natural materials and textures that mimic nature within the home. In such small quarters, every detail gets remarked upon. Those living in or visiting biophilic tiny homes can benefit from the kind of natural calm that materials and designs inspired by nature provide, even when nature itself is just outside the window.
In one project, I collaborated with a client who longed to recreate the sensation of being in a forest while within the confines of her home, no matter the season. Together, we selected rustic wooden wall paneling and flooring, moments from the bathroom to the kitchen where she encountered polished stones (not unlike what she would find in a riverbed), and curtain fabric that blew with the slight breeze from the nearby lake, as if the curtain were mimicking the wind blowing through the trees. Her little home never wants for natural elements—wood, stone, or textile—that would not be out of place in the forest she so loves.
There’s something profoundly stabilizing about dwelling amid materials derived directly from nature. Indeed, this is a finding of science—wood, stone, and fiber are natural materials that not only alleviate stress but also bolster brain function and mental acuity, confer the studies. And in small quarters, where it’s all too easy to feel backed into a corner, living with the elements of nature is a powerful countermeasure against any encroaching sensation of being trapped.
A diminutive abode that I toured in the Pacific Northwest serves as one of my favorite exemplars of this principle. It was constructed with materials drawn from within a 50-mile radius—more or less my definition of local—around the house. The floors, for instance, were made from old boards of Douglas fir, repurposed from the nearby barn that my guide claimed not a single member of his family had ever toured. Those planks and the alloys that make up the slate countertops were a little too close for comfort in my imagining, but at least the place was “local” in my sense of the term.
Another tiny house I experienced used assorted species of wood throughout the interior. This choice created a mosaic in the nearly seamless walls and ceilings that was breathtaking in its appearance. And this marvelous effect didn’t remain static; it shifted in appearance as the light throughout the day changed. Biophilic design also embraces variability in texture and pattern. At the break of day, the appearance of the boards of pale pine morning light began casting more of a soft glow over them, while the evening light pulled out the richer tones of the cedar that appeared to be almost red in hue.
From what I hear, people who live in tiny houses enjoy a more profound connection with the world around them. They are free from the mental space clutter that the average American home contains, and they live with an acute awareness of their domestic environment. The use of natural materials in construction appears to enhance this relationship, with many tiny house dwellers extolling the virtues of wood as a “warm” and “comfortable” natural material (even when it is pouring rain outside). The few tiny houses built by myself and by friends along my path have all utilized some amount of natural materials.
Our choice of materials and our lack of space have ensured that we have all experienced the minimum amount of mental clutter and the maximum amount of domestic harmony in our tiny houses.
Incorporating Plant Life and Optimizing Illumination for the Sake of Welfare
The incorporation of flora and plant life into the biological living space is another essential aspect of biophilic design. In the living space of a tiny home, you might instinctively think there’s no room for the presence of nature, but that just isn’t so. When space is at a premium, however, you need to think a little harder about plant placement and selection, using those two elements to ensure a connection with nature both in your tiny home’s interior as well as its external spaces.
I once saw a tiny house that had put vertical gardening to excellent use—one I hadn’t seen before. Not even on the many cooking shows I’ve watched have I seen herbs displayed in such a magnificent way. Rosemary, basil, thyme, and other culinary herbs occupied purpose-built pockets in a living kitchen wall that, unlike most vertical gardening designs, was not purely aesthetic; it had a function, serving up freshly harvested ingredients for a tiny home cook. This lovely wall was possible due to materials and assembly methods that are part of the new indoor gardening sensibility.
It was also possible because the herbs needed sun; though not directly, the wall’s facing was in a part of the home that experienced sunlight.
The idea of organic architecture has deepened in recent years. Biophilic design goes beyond the mere appearance of nature in the built environment, rather adorning it “with houseplants in the windowsills.” Hanging plants, wall-mounted planters, and small indoor trees can place wonderful “plantscapes” in compact and tiny homes; thus, helping maintain the illusion of spaciousness, these “plantscapes” also fulfill the healthy desire to draw soothed “life” into one’s nest. Indeed, houseplants in compact and tiny homes can “bring the outdoors in” at minimal cost and effort.
Biophilic tiny houses depend on lighting to create the open and inviting atmosphere one hopes to experience when stepping inside. After all, compact spaces can feel compact if your eyes are only relying on a single dimension. But tiny homes can actually feel quite spacious, and not just because they’re sometimes virtuous enough to be made without fasteners, using only wood joints and sliding doors to create an open interior. When a house is biophilic, natural light is allowed to flood in, filling every nook, cranny, and joint while, apparently, defying physics by sunlight’s seeming ability to fold back on itself.
I remember lying in bed in a co-housing model sleeping area listening to the soft summer rain hitting the roof while starry light trickled in through the skylight above my head.
In another project I worked on, I had a close partnership with my team to solve a potentially serious problem with shadows. The trees outside cast shadows, and if those shadows covered too much of the home, then they would seriously impede the amount of light the home could receive. We positioned the home so that the shadows from the trees would fall in the broadest areas of the home—that is, the areas of the home that are least lived-in, or that are the most easily “shadow-zone”-ed. We were especially concerned with using the brightest light during the winter months when natural light is at a premium.
The home, too, is at an elevation where it could be subject to “shadowing” by snow if the snow were to slide off the roof (as roofing design/proportion and snow physics would dictate). Altogether, our home is using trees as a natural light control device.
Let’s conclude by discussing how biophilic design affects the feelings and emotions of the people living in these homes. Many folks nowadays feel a lack of connection to nature; tiny homes with biophilic design principles can help remedy that. Using natural materials and plants, promoting good lighting and roominess, and embracing the use of earthy colors and textures create a living space that promotes well-being. These eerily homes are tiny, and they are quit sustainable, but what is really special about them that makes their inhabitants happy is how much they connect their occupants to the natural world.
A biophilic tiny house serves as a constant reminder of our connection to nature and our ability to coexist with it. The materials we select and the light we allow to pass inside each bring us, in design terms, closer to the natural world. Such decisions underscore our relationship with nature, even within the confines of a small structure.
