Book Review
BOOK
Big Little House – Small Houses Designed by Architects
What are the challenges architects face when
designing dwelling spaces of a limited size? And
what can these projects tell us about architecture –
and architectural principles – in general?
AUTHOR: Donna Kacmar
LANGUAGE: English
PAGES: 190
ISBN: 978-1-13-802420-5
PUBLISHERS: Routledge
Donna Kacmar is a practicing
architect and an Associate
Professor at the Gerald D.
Hines College of Architecture
at the University of Houston,
USA, where she teaches
Comprehensive Design Studio
and directs the Materials
Research Collaborative.
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In Big Little House, award-winning architect Donna
Kacmar introduces twenty real-life examples
of small houses. Each project is under 100m2 in
size and, brought together, the designs reveal
an attitude towards materiality, light, enclosure
and accommodation which is unique to minimal
dwellings. While part of a trend to address growing
concerns about minimising consumption and lack
of affordable housing, the book demonstrates that
small dwellings are not always simply the result of
budget constraints but constitute a deliberate design
strategy in their own right.
Highly illustrated and in full-colour throughout,
each example is based on interviews with the
original architect and accompanied by detailed floor
plans. This ground-breaking, beautifully designed
text, off