Small Structures, Big Ideas
As the number of people experiencing homelessness grows, Minnesota housing providers and architects are working through the complex considerations of small- and micro-housing solutions
By David Schimke, with illustrations by Hannah Edwards | May 2, 2022
2022 PRINT ANNUAL
This feature appears in the 192-page, 2022 ENTER print annual, available for purchase here.
When soldiers and frontline laborers returned to the U.S. after World War II, there was a shortage of affordable housing. Many veterans in metro areas could find a bed hosted by organizations using a dormitory model associated with the YMCA, where anywhere from 15 to 60 guests would live side by side in single rooms and share a bathroom down the hall and maybe a kitchen. Residential hotels, including the Continental Hotel (the Ogden Apartment Hotel until 1948) in Minneapolis, equipped their small rooms with Murphy beds and hot plates.
“People were also renting rooms in their houses,” says Matthew Finn, AIA, an architect at LHB. “I think about how long men and women stayed in transitional situations like that. Usually, for the returning GI, it was a year or two, sometimes less. When housing was in short supply, these sorts of solutions were common.”
Fast-forward to today. As the U.S. comes out of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had a disproportionate impact on the economically vulnerable, media stories about housing insecurity are nearly as common as they were during the 1980s, when the income gap widened, average wages declined, and homeownership rates fell.
According to the Wilder Foundation, there are more than 12,000 people experiencing homelessness in Minnesota. On any given night in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, some 1,300 people are looking for a place to sleep, and around one-quarter of them spend the night without shelter. “As a community, we have done a lot of great work housing thousands of people over the last several years,” says Steve Horsfield, executive director of Simpson Housing Services. “But because so many folks are on the bubble, we are also managing a churn that keeps the numbers really static, which is depressing.”
Micro- and small housing solutions come in many different sizes and configurations. Some providers employ a version of the traditional mobile tiny house.
As housing providers, architects, and designers look to provide affordable alternatives to the larger, multi-bed options run by organizations including Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army, some have turned to the “tiny house,” that budget-sized dwelling evoking Thoreau’s Walden and the promise of living simply and affordably. Tiny houses were advanced at the turn of the 21st century by builder Jay Shafer and popularized 15 years later on HGTV. Today, various iterations of the tiny house are being used by social-service providers in 10 states to support people experiencing homelessness; this approach is particularly prevalent in northern California and the Pacific Northwest.
One of those architects is Jacob Mans, AIA, an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota and partner at Decentralized Design Lab. Mans says he has built small houses in the past but finds the term tiny house problematic, in no small part because of its association with popular home shows, which are lighthearted by design and drive ratings by highlighting the unattainable. “As soon as we talk about tiny houses in the context of homelessness or affordable housing, people tend to think about some cute, kitschy thing that you can pull around on a trailer, when we should be talking about what it means and why it’s important to build much smaller in general,” he says. Mans believes that, in addition to providing shelter to vulnerable populations, small housing—his preferred term—could prompt actionable discourse on broader socioeconomic issues, including consumerism, environmentalism, and economic sustainability.
Geoffrey Warner, FAIA, is the founder of Alchemy Architects, which trademarked the weeHouse in 2003, a prefab system initially employed as a rural getaway. He agrees with Mans that using the tiny house moniker is problematic, largely because of its association with the DIY movement. He prefers the term micro-housing for use in both policy and design. “The idea of a small, manufactured house is an architectural fetish for most architects,” says Warner. “I typically run away from that as fast as I can, because you could make all sorts of cool things that are fantastic but totally detached from reality. The focus needs to be on how we can make communities and cities better in some way. One argument for micro-housing is that, while large structures that hold a lot of people are very green and cost-effective, they are not for everybody or everywhere.”
Another micro-housing configuration is to create freestanding units and common areas inside a larger, climate-controlled facility.
In Minnesota, several intriguing micro-housing initiatives are underway. In March 2021, the Minneapolis nonprofit Avivo opened the AWH Architects–designed Avivo Village, which consists of 100 70-square-foot dwelling units inside a North Loop warehouse. Each resident has a bed, a desk, and a window; showers and bathroom facilities are communal, and there’s a large space where people can socialize. In St. Paul, the Settled project works with churches that are willing to provide space for 140-square-foot houses equipped with gravity-fed ceramic water tanks and lofted beds. Envision Community—a collaboration between Hennepin Healthcare and 19 community partners, including social-service providers—is pursuing a model in which 15 to 40 people live cooperatively in micro-homes clustered around a common building.
Mans, who along with Warner is a member of Envision’s Architecture and Development Group, notes that the early prototypes assumed residents could be comfortable with their own private compostable toilet and hand sink and would share full-service bathrooms and kitchens. It was also assumed that the units, which will be attached in horizontally expandable, L-shaped pods, would not need to be noise-proofed like a typical residential building. This low-tech approach was intended to save money and space.
There is consensus that, if invested parties continue to put the needs of the clients first, micro- and small houses could be part of a larger housing toolbox.
But as the COVID crisis played out, “it all switched,” says Mans. “Concerns over acoustics and mechanics became more of a reality as the need to quarantine and be separate from one another grew. As we were talking to housing advocates and prospective residents, it became clear that higher-tech solutions were needed. Now there will be a full bathroom in every unit, so that sanitation won’t be an issue if people need to quarantine or be separate.”
While the need for significant design modifications is not unusual, in this case the changes highlight the experimental nature of the micro-house approach. They also confirm the commitment among architects and designers to let those who work directly with people experiencing homelessness steer the ship. This is particularly important because at-risk people also need ready access to healthcare, mental health professionals, and employment services.
At Avivo Village, many of these services are provided on-site, including support for harm reduction, mental health, chemical dependency, and housing stabilization, among other needs. “We worked closely with Avivo and White Earth Nation leaders and other members of the project team to understand the needs of the residents,” says AWH Architects’ Mike Gordon, Assoc. AIA, who had an earlier career in behavioral and mental health at Hennepin County Medical Center. “How do you balance the public spaces in the building with the residents’ needs for privacy, [their] vulnerability, and security? That’s the tricky thing. With the tight budget and timeline [the village was designed and built in a matter of a few months in the middle of the pandemic], there was no way the project was going to be perfect, but we think it’s a stepping-stone.”
Small houses can also be clustered around a larger common building with shared spaces for cooking and gathering.
Innovative design plays a crucial role in generating success. “When you look at cost, durability, and sustainability holistically, there can definitely be elements of luxury within an economic solution,” says Warner. “For example, in the Envision units, we have big tilt-turn, triple-glazed, triple-sealed windows that swing out into the room. They are secure, and you can inhabit that window. It’s an absence of wall, which in tighter spaces really makes a difference. So, yes, we could’ve put a little window in there for $100. But if we spend $800 or $1,000 on a window, it can totally transform the space, making you think differently about how you use it. And that same window can come with important energy and durability benefits, leading to higher comfort and sustainability at a lower operational cost.”
At LHB, Matthew Finn works primarily with providers of larger overnight shelters, and he is particularly attuned to the evolution of trauma-informed design, which includes considerations for everything from raw materials to color palettes. “We are focused on ensuring that when someone comes into a facility, it’s a welcoming experience,” he says. “That means everyone is treated professionally and with dignity.”
Not that long ago, for instance, front-desk staff at one shelter sat above the crowd, which created a less welcoming, unproductive power dynamic. Now the focus is on hospitality. That means no more metal detectors or bulletproof glass. “We want it to feel more like housing and less like an institution,” Finn explains. “From a design perspective, that means clear signage and easy access to food, showers, and storage. In the larger shelters, there’s also more attention paid to gradually presenting opportunities for more personal space. There’s often a continuum from bunk to private room to permanent solutions.”
Whether micro-houses are designed to be one of those more permanent solutions or a bridge to something more stable depends on the project and its mission. Initiatives like Avivo Village offer transitional housing. Some developers, like those at Envision Community, hope to have people who are housing insecure living alongside other residents who are financially stable and choosing to downsize. They hope to cultivate a new kind of community across income levels.
Yet architects and designers involved in these efforts note that challenging questions remain about the integration of micro-housing into existing neighborhoods: Will people living in areas of the city that have the essential amenities for lower-income residents, including mass transit and access to fresh food, welcome their new neighbors? To what extent will someone living in a small house surrounded by more traditional housing feel marginalized? Could altering zoning codes—to which the City of Minneapolis is committed to make projects like Envision Community a reality—open the door for less scrupulous vendors or substandard living conditions?
It’s also important to understand, says Steve Horsfield, that many of the people most in need of shelter are not suited for independent living, no matter the size of the structure. According to data collected by the Wilder Foundation in 2018, 81 percent of adults experiencing homelessness have either a chronic physical condition, serious mental illness, or substance use disorder; those with post-traumatic stress disorder tripled between 2000 and 2018.
“We have a 100,000-unit shortage of deeply affordable housing in the state,” Finn points out. “So, while small houses are popular and intriguing, to suggest they will put a significant dent in that number is unrealistic.”
But there is also consensus that, if invested parties continue to put the needs of the clients first, micro- and small houses could be part of a larger toolbox. “One simple thing is that it’s more beds to get people off the streets and safely inside,” says Horsfield. “The second real value is that we’re diversifying the model. Projects like Envision give us an option we didn’t have just a few years ago.”
Finn hopes that efforts like Envision Community will encourage more Americans to begin reckoning with the long-term consequences of their desire for “larger house footprints than [are found in] any other nation on the planet.” In the 1950s, he notes, the average size of a single-family dwelling in the U.S. was about 900 square feet. Today, it’s almost 2,300.
“That’s the critical thing we should be talking about,” says Finn. “We can design smaller spaces to feel bigger, and we can do it in a way that is more multifunctional. We can also start to talk about making housing that lasts twice as long or can be renovated twice as easily. It’s all part and parcel to a larger conversation.”