How tiny-house movement could help resolve accommodation crisis

Compact living is sustainable, stylish, full of personality and dispenses with the excess stuff we accumulate

A courtyard was created behind a little old converted carpenter's workshop in Suffolk.

Remember Sleepless in Seattle with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, where Hanks’ character and his son lived on a houseboat? You knew from the opening scenes that the trio were going to end up anchored together, living happily ever after in their floating home.

Admittedly, this Hollywood depiction of a houseboat is rather grand, but it seems alternative homes, and modest ones at that, on water, on land or even up a tree are the route to residential happiness for some, and, as it happens, Seattle and the west coast are the US epicentre of this type of accommodation. That is according to my reading of Inspiring Tiny Homes: creative living on land, on the water and on wheels, by Gill Heriz.