Since July this year a small piece of the Dutch city 's-Hertogenbosch has been transformed into an architectural playground. By the initiation of REZONE, an organization that creates projects in the field of architecture, art, city planning and new media, a terrein of 6000 square meters will be used for experimenting with innovative houses for one year long. In other words, the purpose of this project is not to make common building from brickstones, but ones that make you think 'wow, so it's possible to live that way too!'. This project is fittingly named as Minitopia - the terrein represents an architectural utopia in a minimal size.
According to the first pamphlet of Minitopia the project consists of 'a number of living experiments' with which 'Rezone will research whether a
building can be "hacked" and in that way opened to a user in a sustainable way." Currently the terrein has three houses: the Tiny House, WikiHouse and Inflatable. The number of houses will increase as the project moves on.
The Tiny House by Mill Home represents the Tiny House Movement that originates from America but is gaining steadily a foothold in the Netherlands as well. The high living expenses and the long waiting lists for homes are some of the reasons that the Dutch are reconsidering alternative ways of living. Tiny houses (usually between 10 to 50 m²) have been represented as one option since they are affordable and fast to build. Because of the modular building technique, meaning that the building is built from ready-made parts (=modules), the house can be practically set up in one day. This enables further that the house can be placed anywhere (of course, the regulations don't allow that 
Others choose for the tiny house because of its sustainability. Living small means less need for electricity, heating and cooling, and less materials for building. In Minitopia the Tiny House is equipped with sun panels so its self-sustainability is increased. Not to forget, living small means living with less (a topic of which I have written earlier): the pamphlet of Minitopia then rises the question whether it's necessary to live with much stuff.
The second building of Minitopia is the WikiHouse, a research project of REZONE on a new building system that is sustainable, flexible and brings its production closer to its inhabitant. The idea of the WikiHouse is based on an online, open-source construction kit that is available to everyone. You only need to download the building templates, cut out the parts in plywood with a CNC milling machine and finally start hammering away! With this futuristic building technology REZONE aims to recreate the iconic, but never realized, Maison d'Artiste by the Dutch architect Theo van Doesburg in a modern way.
Lastly, the Inflatable is a mobile workspace created by Studio Air Design. Imagine: you don't have enough space for a business meeting and you don't have enough time to arrange other location. So what do you do? Inflate an extra space! After that everyone is gone you just empty the 'extra room' and set is aside. Handy!
The ecosystem of the Minitopia terrein has been further researched to see whether it's suitable for self-sustainability. Until now the results have been that the terrein has a variety of trees and plants that are largely edible.
Projects like Minitopia show that there are more options available for living spaces than what we are accustomated to think. The tiny house community is growing steadily in the Netherlands, but the idea of downloading a house in the WikiHouse kind of way needs still some adjustments before getting big. I am very excited to see what kind of houses will appear to the terrein next! The progress of Minitopia can be followed on REZONE's blog.
Photos: 1 by me | 2 Droomstad Den Bosch | 3 Mill Home | 4 NRC | 5&6 REZONE | 7 Boschveld ambachtcentrum
Sources:
Rezone (website & 1st pamphlet)
Sanny Visser, 'Een heel huis op 15 vierkante meter' via NRC
Suzanne Labarre, 'WikiHouse, An Online Building Kit, Shows How To Make A House in 24 Hours' via Co.Design
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