"Tiny Cabin, Giant View"

I'm fortunate that both my parents continue to clip out and send me interesting articles from the various publications they read. I particularly enjoyed a recent Wall Street Journal article about a tiny, idyllic cabin in the Sierra Nevada mountains outside Tahoe. Snowboarder Mike Basich built his home from granite stones and wood he collected from his property and milled himself. The off-grid cabin, which is several miles from the road, also boasts a fire-heated hot tub and his own personal ski lift. Impressive and inspiring!

Tiny Snapshot

While skiing Canyons Resort this past Monday I enjoyed seeing the collection of tiny buildings scattered around the mid-mountain area. They help make the area feel like a friendly little Alpine village.

Tiny home goes skiing

There are a lot of tiny home videos that showcase the structure or highlight parts of the construction, which can be an invaluable resource for future tiny home builders. However, one of the aspects often missing from these videos is the passion for whatever the tiny home enables: art, music, travel or, in this case, skiing/snowboarding. People are drawn to tiny homes for a wide variety of reasons, but one of the most common motivations I've seen is a desire to focus on things for which the owner is passionate while avoiding the financial and psychological encumbrances which "traditional home" ownership may present. To be sure, this professionally produced piece will no doubt appeal to anyone, like me, who loves skiing and the epic skiing footage found in Warren Miller films. It also, however, effectively conveys the notion that the real benefit is not the tiny home itself, but the journey and the experiences and relationships the home enables.

Outdoor Research and others sponsor extreme skiers Molly Baker and Zack Giffin and helped produce this video as well as well as the Tiny House Tour episodes. Fortunately, the commercialization is relatively subtle. Actually, I think it's great to see a reputable company like OR indirectly promote tiny homes on their home page even if the end goal is simply to sell more clothing and gear. Design decisions may have been informed by the tiny home's role as a maximum-occupancy ski hut and branding opportunity. Curiously, there is no bathroom or shower, but that may be because they needed the space to accommodate five adults (cameramen included). The beautiful little wood-burning stove is probably great for drying ski gear, but the stove's footprint, including clearance from the walls, can make it impractical for many tiny home owners. The element I particularly like, though, is the unique stairs going to the loft. The woodwork is magnificent, yet the stairs are simple, sleek and keep the room open instead of acting as a barrier. The stairs look like they function effectively as seats or temporary spots for gear or drinks.

Sidebar: Warren Miller was a pioneer of documentary ski films starting with Deep and Light in 1949. He produced, directed and narrated his films until 1988 and remained involved until 2004. Interestingly, he got his start in the 1940's while living in a trailer at a ski resort (Sun Valley) parking lot, not unlike Molly and Zack.

Plastic bag bans, health, and the environment

I was very proud when San Francisco in 2007 became one of the first major cities to ban plastic checkout bags. Lightweight and durable, they're almost irresistibly convenient, but these same characteristics make single-use plastic bags so pernicious in marine environments where they persist beyond our lifetimes, traveling currents and endangering marine life. Reusable grocery bags seem like a no-brainer, but continuing buzz based on a couple of university studies now has us concerned reusable bags harbor potentially harmful bacteria. Let's forget the questionable methodology and conflict of interests (one study was funded by the plastic-bag-friendly American Chemistry Council), and assume reusable grocery bags, like just about anything that touches food, can potentially harbor bacteria. Fortunately, it's actually fairly simple to eliminate any threat freeloading bacteria might pose through cleaning (by hand or machine) or by simply letting the inside out bag sit in the sun for a few hours.

While bacteria can generally be managed with a dollop of vigilance, the reusable bag proposition becomes more complex when you consider their production. For example, cotton bags may be biodegradable, but their production requires resource-intensive cotton: an interesting British study found that cotton bags require 131 uses to equal the global warming impact of conventional plastic bags. Repurposing containers as grocery bags is the ideal. The truly committed can even knit their own reusable bag from discarded plastic bags. The bottom line is we should consider the entire life-cycle of reusable bags including production, use/cleaning, and disposal. Beyond that it's a matter of personal preferences and habits: if it's easier to store and bring a certain type of bag on a consistent basis then it's probably a good choice.

BioLite stoves

BioLite Campstove

I'm always interested in camping equipment innovations which reduce weight/size, increase efficacy, and/or eliminate the need for other equipment. While I'm not one of those guys always sporting the "latest and greatest" equipment, I do focus on significant technology improvements. Recently I've become intrigued with the BioLite CampStove which burns wood efficiently (with the help of an integrated fan), and converts thermal energy to electricity to power the fan as well as charge small electronics like cell phones. In addition, the CampStove technology and funds from CampStove purchases enable the company to provide those in developing nations currently cooking with unhealthy open fires with a cleaner, low-cost, electricity-generating cook-stove, the BioLite HomeStove.

Gas camp stoves can be convenient, but the gas canisters are bulky, bad for the environment, and must be purchased at stores. Wood burning stoves are lighter and more sustainable. There are wood burning camp stoves that are less expensive than the $129 CampStove and lighter (~5-10oz vs. 33oz), but they require you to blow into the stove fire constantly thereby breathing in acrid smoke. Not pleasant. If the CampStove's fan works as it should then it will stoke the fire for you, and require less wood gathering since the combustion is more efficient (YouTube reviews). The thermoelectric generator converts heat into electricity not only to run the fan, but to charge small electronics. That's great for emergencies like Hurricane Sandy, but I leave electronics behind when I'm camping. I hope to see BioLite offer a similar but lighter, less expensive power module that removes the USB charging components.

The technology along with capital from sales of CampStoves enable BioLite to provide low-cost HomeStoves to developing countries. This social entrepreneurship could significantly help billions of people who daily gather wood and cook over open fires, inhaling smoke and carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion. The HomeStove, which is in pilot programs around the world, could reduce wood required as well as emitted smoke and CO while charging cell phones or small lights (very important in rural off-grid villages). It's still early, but the impact HomeStoves have across the globe could be monumental.

BioLite HomeStove

Design Elements: China random

Roof corner of imperial building in Forbidden City (Beijing)

These are some very random images from a recent trip to China.

Forbidden City (Beijing)

IBM tower (Beijing)

Long Corridor, Summer Palace (Beijing)

Long Corridor, Summer Palace (Beijing)

Summer Palace (Beijing)

Beijing

Xi'an

Door hinge (Hangzhou)

Dragon wall, Yu Garden (Shanghai)

Jing'an Temple (Shanghai)

Jing'an Temple (Shanghai)

Shibaozhai Pagoda (Zhong County)

Shibaozhai Pagoda (Zhong County)

3-wheeler in Yangshuo

Hong Kong Island

Housing in China

Fengjing (Shanghai)

Recently I had the good fortune to spend three weeks on a tour through China with my dad. It was a spectacular trip that included a wide variety of sites in and around six cities as well as a four-day cruise on the Yangtze. The history and culture are fascinating, and we enjoyed many marvels such as the Forbidden City, Great Wall, Terracotta Army and Three Gorges Dam. It's also interesting to see how China deals with housing given the enormous numbers of people living in even "small" cities.

One of the advantages of utilizing a tour company for a trip like this is you get to see and experience a great deal in a relatively short time period. Another advantage is the interesting "cultural connections" where we could meet local residents in their own homes, which were often comprised of just two or three small rooms. To be sure, many of these people were older and retired which, of course, gives them time to entertain inquisitive Americans. They seem generally happy with their homes because they are part of long-standing, tightly-woven communities. Many others, however, live in high rise apartment towers (a seemingly infinite number of which are currently being built) which provide more space and modern conveniences, but also sacrifice some of the community aspects. Many of the younger people with whom we spoke lived in these apartments with three or more generations of their family.

Of course, China is a very large and varied country, and I would expect to see different housing solutions in different regions. In the city of Hangzhou with its idyllic West Lake, we saw many multi-story, detached homes. After visiting a tea farm in the area, we had lunch with a farmer's family in one of these homes. The farmer indicated that he, like many others in the region, lived on one floor with his family and rented out the rooms on the floor above them. Whether it's an older two-room home in a village, an apartment in a ubiquitous high rise, or a multi-story home in prosperous Hangzhou, very little space is unused and idle in the Chinese home.

Fengjing

Beijing hutong

Xi'an: Just a few of the many high rise buildings under construction

Yangtze River: Three Gorges Dam forced many locals to relocate to apartments on higher ground

Smiling residents in Fengjing