The challenge was to make a mobile home for a young couple and their dog that felt much larger than its very small footprint: 200-square-feet. “We added a loft over the kitchen to add space,” said a young architect. “This trailer is perfect for someone who wants to travel, and still have a place that they can call home.”
Welcome to the Tiny House Project at the Flood Brook School (FBS). For the past several months, FBS seventh graders have brainstormed, planned, and built to scale tiny houses designed to meet the specific needs of hypothetical families.
The idea was to allow the students to apply the basic skills learned in class to the real world. “Just prior to the project, we completed a chapter on proportional relationships,” said FBS math teacher Elizabeth Labeau. “It was the perfect transition to designing and building a tiny house.”
Flood Brook instructors divided the grade into groups of three to four students and gave each a different home building assignment. The common requirement was that each house had very limited space. The circumstances ranged from the couple above who wanted to live on the road to another who needed space to work from home to a family rebuilding a small fixed house after a wildfire.
The school supplied the students with materials, such as foam core, cardboard, hot glue guns, and exact-o knives. As the project moved forward, the kids added special touches like popsicle sticks, cotton balls and fabric.
“To be honest, my first reaction to the tiny house project was: Boring!” said one girl. “But once we got started, I got fascinated with building and furnishing an actual house. It turned out to be really fun.”
While the building process excited some students, others were drawn to the planning and design stages. “I liked working as a team dreaming up plans for our house,” said one designer. “But it was frustrating at times. We would come up with cool ideas and then realize they wouldn’t fit in the tiny space. So we started over.”
“The project was much more than math,” added BRSU instructional coach Tracy Zaino. “It included elements of engineering, design, collaborative skills, and especially perseverance. The project was all about the exploration of ideas and dealing with trial and error.”
Just as important, perhaps, was communications. At the end of the project the students presented their work to each other, families and friends. They responded to questions and described the special attributes of each tiny home.
Like the young architect’s home designed for the couple and their pet. “For fun we included a built-in dog bed plus a special doggie door. It’s a tiny home with something special for the whole family — even the dog.”
Flood Brook 7th graders proudly present their customized design for a Tiny House.