By Sara Seddon Kilbinger
Tiny Houses only surfaced in Germany a few years ago but the Tiny House Festival dedicated to them in Karlsruhe next month (July) shows that interest in them is on the up.
The festival, which will run from 1-3 July, will bring together manufacturers, builders and residents to share their insights on minimalistic living. Around 50 companies will participate, including developers Berghaus, Winzig Wohnen and PixelHome GmbH. As part of the festival, a Tiny House village consisting of more than twenty houses is being created in the landscaped atrium of the Messe Karlsruhe.
Around one in four people in Germany could imagine living in a very small space, according to a recent survey by private German mortgage lender Interhyp, up from just 13% two years ago.
“We see in our survey that interest in tiny houses has risen more strongly than interest in other alternative forms of housing," said Mirjam Mohr, head of Interhyp AG's private customer business. Other niche forms of housing have also piqued people’s interest, according to the study, with 14% of participants in favour of tree houses, compared to 11% two years ago. In addition, 34% of those surveyed would consider living on a houseboat, up 5% from two years ago. Eco-friendly homes were important to 47% of respondents, an increase of 4% in the same period.
“The Tiny House movement became an unstoppable trend in the past several years”
As Berghaus puts it: “The Tiny House movement became an unstoppable trend in the past several years and due to recent global events, more and more people have started to re-evaluate their way of living. It is not surprising that the idea of having a Tiny House attracts a significant amount of individuals, as it is implementing an innovative style of life.”
Tiny House settlements already exist in Germany, in places such as Mehlmeisel in the Fichtelgebirge and in Hollenbek near Hamburg. According to a Statista survey, about 13% of Germans can imagine living in a tiny house – lower than the Interhyp figure - including students or professionals who want to reduce their housing costs or temporarily live in another city. For the self-employed and tradespeople, the tiny house can offer a cheaper alternative to an office or staff flat.
Prices typically start at around €25,000 but can go as high as €100,000, depending on the cost of the plot of land, size of the home and quality. There are also stringent rules in place for anyone wanting to buy a mobile tiny house. All mobile tiny homes are required to pass the TÜV, just like any other vehicle. In addition, external dimensions, weight and gas and electricity are controlled. Currently, mobile tiny homes in Germany are not allowed to be bigger than 2.55 metres wide, 11 metres long and 3.7 metres high. On campsites, they are generally not permitted to exceed 50 m2.
The term ‘tiny house’ still in need of widely-accepted definition
However, under building law, a Tiny House does not enjoy any special status, according to Christian Brecht, managing director of Livee, a German Tiny House service provider. He notes that Tiny Houses often cannot meet the building code requirements that apply to many building plots in Germany. Ultimately, municipal development plans decide what is and what is not permitted. Neither are Tiny Houses allowed in residential areas because of their shape and size, which has resulted in the creation of Tiny House settlement projects such as the one in Hollenbek near Hamburg.
In addition, the term Tiny House is still problematic and Germany’s Tiny House Verbands, an association with which more than 30 companies and organisations are affiliated, is still working on a definition of the term ‘tiny house’, which is not regulated, according to their spokeswoman Regina Schleyer. Meaningful statistics are hard to come by and no-one knows how many Tiny House settlements there are across Germany and by how many people they are actually used. Still new projects appear to be on the rise, including Erfde in Schleswig-Holstein where 20 plots in a new development area have been reserved for around 160 Tiny Homes. In Berlin, German architect Van Bo Le-Mentzel has continued his tiny house experiment by creating a micro village on the grounds of Berlin’s Bauhaus Archive, where he has been granted permission from the design museum to temporarily use their garden, and where people in need, including refugees and the homeless, can live in homes not exceeding 10 m2.
