Hobbit House

A Real-Life Hobbit House

This Wales-based home is, in fact, designed much like much like what I imagine a hobbit house would be, but this is more than a novelty home. The builder, Simon Dale, and his father-in-law created this house with a low-impact approach and maximum regard for the environment in mind. It was also a do-it-yourself project, built on the cheap by hand: A-mazing!

This building is one part of a low-impact or permaculture approach to life. This sort of life is about living in harmony with both the natural world and ourselves, doing things simply and using appropriate levels of technology. These sort of low cost, natural buildings have a place not only in their own sustainability, but also in their potential to provide affordable housing which allows people access to land and the opportunity to lead more simple, sustainable lives. For example this house was made to house our family whilst we worked in the woodland surrounding the house doing ecological woodland management and setting up a forest garden, things that would have been impossible had we had to pay a regular rent or mortgage.

Check out more of the article here (and the yahoo article here).