The Temple University Tiny Home

Tiny Home Packed with Sustainability 

The Temple Tiny House, which students designed and built, packs a lot of sustainable design into its 175 square feet. The sustainability aspects of the net-zero home include a 1.9 KW solar array with salt-water battery storage, a high-performance thermal envelope, a passive solar closet for heating and cooling the building, Aquion Aspen 48S batteries, and an Outback FlexPower Inverter. Four rain barrels collect rainwater, while a 50-square-foot living roof provides storm-water management via native plants that require little maintenance while attracting beneficial pollinators. 

Natural daylight and ventilation, LED lighting, and finishes with zero-percent VOCs add to the project’s sustainability. The students chose to keep the home disconnected from city water and installed a compost toilet. The students recycled 80 percent of the construction debris. The exterior includes cork siding, a rapidly renewable resource. Inside, the students reused roof slate as a flooring material. 

Temple’s project was the first Living Building Challenge-certified home in Philadelphia. While working toward the Petal Certification, the students and the Office of Sustainability were also assembling a Climate Action Plan for Temple University. The Petal Certification was a symbolic way to push the envelope and think beyond sustainability to focus on regenerative methods. The team also wanted to lead the region and harvest the incredible energy of students by challenging them with the highest possible standard of excellence. 

The team advises homeowners to embrace the natural beauty and aesthetic of native plants—whether by incorporating them into a green or live roof or landscaping. Native plants help and support pollinators and biodiversity while providing homeowners with reduced maintenance, water, and fertilizer. Add a rain barrel to collect rainwater for watering native plants during prolonged drought, or to water other organic perennial or vegetable gardens. In Philadelphia, programs are available to help with the costs of this equipment. 

Let’s add one more thing: Think about going tiny. Tiny homes are becoming more popular as homeowners downsize for financial, maintenance, or environmental reasons. As this series on student-designed and –constructed small homes shows, these houses are easy to design and build. Moreover, they’re easy to pack with passive solar and other sustainable design strategies. At the very least, there’s so much we can learn from tiny homes, including learning to live abundantly with less. 

Do you love this series on tiny homes designed and built by students? We certainly do, especially when you consider how these projects allow students to put their theories and ideas about sustainability into practice while learning construction skills. So far, we’ve explored tiny home projects at Appalachian State University, Auburn University, and Western Washington University. These articles show how people can design and construct small, sustainable homes with little to no previous experience--and reap tremendous rewards.