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Living Large in a Sensible, Small Cabin

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Learning to live in a smaller space is a useful skill to acquire if you want to reduce your energy use. A well designed tiny space can actually make life more efficient and help you find what is truly essential to a good life.

Ray and Mary Johnston of Johnston Architects have attempted to that with this 1,200 square foot cabin they designed for their own use in Twisp, Washington.

Ray says “Spatial economics is the idea that you should be able to live within the radius of your interaction,” says Ray, of Johnston Architects. Their small but very efficient home is designed to achieve that reduction in energy use, simply by reducing the space needed for living.

The cabin they designed overlooks the mountain view of the Cascade Sawtooth Mountains in Washington state.

Images: Johnston Architects
Source: Sunset Magazine

If you can eliminate everything that you don’t absolutely need, you are well on your way to reducing energy use.

One way to add a feeling of space, while not actually building it into the footprint of the house, is to make full use of a large and expansive view.

This is a small house with a big view.