Like many student tiny home projects, the Northern Nomad is the brainchild of the students themselves. A group of five engineering students designed a mobile, net-zero energy tiny home for their senior capstone project. Under the direction of Professor Scott Bucking, Northern Nomad’s project supervisor, they were able to create a genuinely buildable design.
Stemming from a desire to study building performance and incentivize learning, Professor Bucking and one of the original students decided to make the design a reality. Through assembling a construction crew with an interdisciplinary team of engineering students, and fundraising and partnerships with over 30 industry sponsors, they were able to create the tiny home deemed the Northern Nomad.
Why a tiny home?
Before jumping into the design details of the Northern Nomad, it is imperative to share the goal of the project: to collect data on home performance. The team wanted to examine various building technologies, such as building-integrated photovoltaics, and gather data on how they perform. In short, they wanted a testbed for building research.
A tiny home was a viable option because it could be built within a relatively short amount of time, be mobile, and did not require a permit to build. In addition, tiny home design is a trending concept, so it was appealing to the students and various stakeholders of the project.