Local builder hopes Calgarians can downsize with a tiny home

In an age of everything getting bigger, sometimes its better to downsize.

That’s the vision of ZeroSquared, a new tiny house builder in Calgary, which has just released a concept for their design

The Aurora is an expandable tiny home, at 337-square feet, but it’s bigger than it sounds says marketing specialist Melissa Buzan

“Even though you’re still in a tiny home, it gives you a bit more breathing room and it’s still accessible and still able for people to feel like they’re in a spacious place, even though they’re technically not.”

Designers have made the most of the limited space they have, putting in a murphy bed on the ground floor so it can be pushed up and the room turned into an office space, maximizing cupboard and countertop space, and there is even room for a full sized fridge and oven in the kitchen.

That makes something that looks more like an up-scale apartment than a cabin in the bush.

“The interior, you can’t even tell that it’s actually a tiny home, it looks like a normal apartment. So once you park this tiny home and expand the sides, that’s essentially what it’s created into.”

High-tech materials ensure it can also withstand our weather.

Once built, the home can be put on any plot of land in the city without any special permits, or you could pick up and keep moving around.

“Overall it gives you more freedom. If you ever did want to move to another part of the city or to another province, you can actually take your home with you,” says Buzan. “And if you did ever want to change your home or make renovations to it, all of those things are so much easier than such a large space.”

The standard version can be plugged into normal services like electricity and plumbing, but there are also off-the-grid options like solar panels so you can kick the energy bill.

The Aurora costs about $95,000, ranging a little bit depending on your customization options, and you can reserve one now at zerosquared.ca.