Hello everyone!! I’m Ong Fei, a Y1 student studying Environmental Studies in NUS. While many refer to me as my full name, others call me by one of my numerous nicknames such as Onggie and One Fei.
When I was scrolling through social media a few weeks back, I realised that more social movements are trending recently. It got me thinking why is that? Therefore I did some digging and found out one of the main reasons is technological advances (source). Besides, it is expected that the occurrence of these movements will continue to rise.
With human activities so connected with the environment, these movements can affect the environment, whether positively or negatively. That is what I will explore. More specifically, the Tiny House Movement. It is often claimed to be an eco-friendlier lifestyle (source) and I want to know if that is true. Also, I am just really into the idea of living in a 40 m2 off-grid house.
So join me as we explore whether tiny houses are as eco-friendly as advertised and whether it is possible to see such a movement here in Singapore.
Header image: Photo of my niece and I in Phuket taken earlier this year before COVID struck.
Hello Ong Fei! Wow this concept of tiny houses are super cool and super relevant especially since Singapore is always coping with the problem of land shortage! If we could revolutionise our housing buildings into more environmentally-friendly tiny houses, would that have a much better overall impact on our environment?
Hello Yee Qi! I also thought that tiny houses were super cool when I first knew about their existence. (check out this channel for cool tiny house videos)
I was actually thinking of exploring whether tiny houses are feasible in Singapore and its impacts in one of my future posts. So it was kinda unexpected that you also thought of the same idea.
From what I have read so far it is quite hard to replicate a tiny house community in sg because of the building restrictions, land-use restrictions and other concerns. Also, there is a tiny house company founded here in sg but based overseas called Big Tiny, so I guess there is a reason for that decision (maybe the local market too small, so not profitable – please don’t quote me on this!!). As tiny houses are more commonly found in countries such as Australia and the US which has more land than us, it would be hard to relate directly back to sg.
So, for now, I don’t have a concrete answer and say yes, it would have a much better overall impact. But, I will notify you when I manage to upload that particular post. Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciated it!
Cheers,
Ong Fei