You may be aware of the tiny houses movement. In the face of McMansions and the incredible environmental insensitivity of the American public, there has been a movement to re-evaluate and reconsider our course. Check out The Tiny Houses Website, tinyhouses.net for a look. My wife Jean, daughter Lucy and I built one that is featured on the site. There is something that happens to people when they lose the sense of scale that the hands provide. We get carried away. Houses become larger and more inefficient. We have to hire people to keep them in order. They fill to the brim with meaningless stuff. They take on a life of their own, having huge impact on the environmental resources.
There is a bumper sticker slogan that applies to our situation: Live Simply that others may simply live. It is something you probably wouldn't learn in the Christian churches in Northwest Arkansas, but it is a message shared by most of the wise men and prophets of history.
Our own tiny house was made as more of a luxury than a necessity of life. We have a larger home only yards away and our tiny house serves as a guest cottage and may have other uses in time. I am involved in building an art school in Eureka Springs, and the tiny house may serve as a model for student housing. We'll see. The photo above is our "tiny house."
Interesting that you speak of the scale of hands. My tiny house project is nearly finished, and though I didn't build it myself, I have been fascinated to watch it being assembled by essentially 1 man. He did everything from strip the original structure (it was once a garage) to dig new footings to finishing details like making a concrete counter and staining the cabinets. There were only 4 or 5 days he really had help over 4 or 5 months of work... mostly with utility connections. I think somehow you can tell when you're in there that it's been done by one guy, and it's a nice feeling. You can see some pics on my blog. Cheers! bottleman
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