World's Strangest Houses

Popular Mechanics' Chris Sweeney recently created a great list of 18 of the world's strangest homes. And though there are arguably some even stranger ones out there (the toilet-shaped home, for one, or the coral castle), one of the things we like about Popular Mechanics' list is a strong focus on sustainability.

In a final form that quite closely resembles the the Barn House by Belgian architectural and planning firm BURO II (which reworks an existing barn), London-based dRRM Architects created the Sliding House in Suffolk, England. This unique dwelling is designed to be flexible, allowing the owners to take advantage of fluctuations in light and temperature, maximizing energy savings through passive heating and cooling. The 20-ton outer shell can be retracted in six minutes, revealing an inner layer that's mostly glass. It's like layering up in clothing!

One glance at the fantastical Steel House, and you'll never forget it. Designer Robert Bruno wanted it to look somewhere between animal and machine, and we think he succeeded. The unique home is perched on a bluff near Lubbock, Texas, and minimizes disruption to the area by resting on top of four skinny legs. Steel is long-lasting and highly recyclable, so green builders have been giving it a second look in recent years, especially for roofing. Inside, the Steel House looks more H.R. Giger than Martha Stewart, and it doesn't look like the most practical living space, but it definitely is thinking outside of the four-walled box.

The Shrinking American Homes

Homes are shrinking in America. After doubling in size during the last 50 years to over twice that of European homes, the national average house size dropped for the first time in nearly 15 years (by 9%, the size of one average room).

The smaller house movement afoot in the United States can take many forms, from houses the size of a walk-in closet to several thousand square-foot family houses.

On the far end of the spectrum are the so-called tiny houses. Also called wee homes, mini dwellings, or micro-homes, the definition is not exact, but they run as small as 65 square feet. And yes, people really live in them. Why? Reasons range from economic to environmental to psychological.

Even families are taking a page from the micro-homes. While a family of four may not choose to live in a walk-in closet, there are all sorts of beautiful homes with footprints well under the 2,000 square-foot average. And with the size of the U.S. household shrinking, smaller houses make even more sense (the U.S. fertility rate shrank from an average of 3.5 children in 1960 to 2.1 children in 2006)¹.

The Wingardhs Mill House is a pricey Swedish mini-home based around traditional sauna and bathing rituals.