Tree Hugger

Low-cost Rural Studio homes aspire to be built for $20,000

The houses are designed to appear to be sort of normative, but they're really high-performance little machines in every way.

Tree Hugger

Low-cost Rural Studio homes aspire to be built for $20,000

The houses are designed to appear to be sort of normative, but they're really high-performance little machines in every way.

By Kimberley Mok

One major reason why tiny homes are so popular is probably that they are cheaper to build than your average home, usually costing anywhere from a few thousand to many thousands of dollars -- still cheaper than average. The only drawback is that tiny homes are, well, tiny, typically measuring under 280 square feet. But what if you could get a home twice the size, for about the same price? That's the aspiration behind Rural Studio of Auburn University's 20K House, a decade-old project that has aimed to design low-cost, efficient homes for the broader public.