Efficient small home design tips

[RobertSmalls]

I came across this very good collection of advice for designing homes that make good use of limited space. It contains obvious advice like eliminating hallways and single-purpose formal rooms. There are also less obvious tips, such as using high ceilings and light tubes to make rooms feel less cramped.

Small, Efficient and Beautiful - Oikos

Another item that gobbles up interior space is wall thickness. The taxable square footage of a house includes the unusable space inside the interior and exterior walls.

Polyurethane and polyisocyanurate spray foam insulations have much higher R-value per inch vs fiberglass batts or cellulose fill. This could solve the problem of how to make windows and doors look right when your walls are 12" thick. EcoSteel claim their R24 3" insulation panel offers 2.5 times the performance of a 2x4 wall with fiberglass, when you account for thermal bridging. I wonder if steel construction can be economically scaled down to the ~500ft² (plus garage) that I have in mind.

Steel Homes | Prefab Homes | Technology Overview | Steel Detailing | Revit Structural Engineering