How much of your personal comfort would you sacrifice to make a stand or an artistic statement slash protest? This man is going all in, pledging to live an entire year in a tiny house built inside a building waste container.
Tiny living is all the rage right now, for a variety of reasons that range from rising living costs and the ongoing housing crisis, environmental concerns, and the desire or the ability to live a more nomadic life that combines work and play in equal measure. The appeal of mobile houses, be they tiny houses, vans, skoolies or other types of RVs, is undeniable even by those of us still living in city apartments or brick-and-mortar homes.
In an unofficial ranking of the world’s strangest tiny homes, the Skip House would probably rank up there with the best. It’s a small, single-person home build inside a skip: a British term used for containers used for building waste or recyclable garbage stuff. It is fully functional and, once you get over the initial shock of its teeny-tiny size, quite nice-looking, and it’s meant as a way to counter the insane, ever-rising living costs in one of the world’s most expensive cities, London.
The Skip House is a project by Harrison Marshall, the co-founder of Caukin Studio, a design and construction studio that aims to “create impact through architecture.” Before this, they did two other skip projects, one in London and the other in New York, so as they say, they’ve been around the block. However, this is the first time they do a habitable space that will be used as a permanent residence.
Photo: Harrison Marshall / Skip House
Marshall moved into the container home in January this year, and he plans to stay put for an entire year. He says the average rent for a studio in Central London, where he lives right now, is £1,400 (approximately $1,700 at the current exchange rate), before bills and council tax, which is more than he could afford – assuming he ever found an available spot, that is. So, instead of fighting against the current market trend, he’s working his way around it, by building a £4,000 ($4,750) tiny that he can call home.
To use phrasing from naval design, the Skip House has a steel “hull” and a wooden superstructure, and an interior that is meant to seem less claustrophobic through minimal styling and the use of naturally-colored plywood. The irregular windows help to soften up a bit the boxy, cramped interior. There’s a small kitchen with a portable one-burner stove, a small sink, a chair that substitutes for the dinette area and office, and a loft upstairs with the bedroom.
For the first weeks, the place had no electricity, so it got a bit cold in the infamously fickle British weather. It doesn’t have a toilet, either, much less a shower. Still, Marshall says it’s comfortable, cozy, and quite home-like, which is impressive if you also consider the fact that he lives in the heart of London. There's an extra bonus in the ability to move it at will, should he ever consider it.
Photo: Harrison Marshall / Skip House
There’s a catch in the story, as you probably imagined, and it’s here that it comes in. While fully functional, Skip House is an art statement. Marshall himself describes it as halfway between an art installation and performance art, “an exploration and a statement” as more people are making drastic lifestyle changes to adapt to the rising costs of living. It’s a protest and an exploration on alternative living, because Marshall believes that we are only limited by our imagination – and that includes our inability to cope with the housing crisis.
The bigger catch is that Skip House is possible only because it’s an art installation. It sits on land donated by arts charity Antepavillion, it uses water from the neighbors, and features a portaloo donated to the project by a company. He showers at work or at the gym, so his monthly expenses are now down to just £50 ($60). In other words, the kind of alternative living that Marshall does is only possible because others have helped him, not because it’s actually possible for anyone who is not an artist.
In less harsh terms, the Skip House does have its merits in the way it exemplifies how even small spaces and apparently-strange solutions can become homes, with the right backing. Turning a garbage bin into a tiny home is not a novel idea and has been done before (also for art installations), but this is perhaps the first tiny built inside a skip container. Plus, it’s actually quite nice looking and would actually make sense in a real-life scenario if you put it inside a community, and all units would share bathroom facilities.
Photo: Harrison Marshall / Skip House
Marshall is fully aware of all of the above, which is why the first thing he says about Skip House is that it’s “a statement, not a solution” to the housing crisis. It’s a project about living for less, which also rings the alarm on the housing situation in London and most big cities, and invites people to think outside the box. Thinking outside the box might get them into another box, but at least it will be a skip-tiny-house-shaped one, with the basic creature comforts to make do for a permanent home.
Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends. Full profile
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