Over the past decade, Tiny Housing has become something of a viral sensation in the US. From Instagrammable enclaves for young professionals to vast municipality-supported schemes seeking to address homelessness, tiny house sites are proliferating across the country.



This book takes a look at life inside the ‘Tiny House Nation’, shining an intimate light on a phenomenon widely celebrated in the mainstream media. The book presents textured narrative accounts from and striking images of Tiny Home residents, their homes and communities, while analysing the broader socio-economic structures shaping their lives. In so doing, it paints a compelling and complex picture of a trend at the crossroads of several key social, cultural and economic shifts, at a pivotal moment for America’s housing future.

Fundamentally, this is a book about paradoxes. The paradox of tiny housing offering freedom from the constraints of capitalism, whilst at the same time remaining embedded within capitalist systems. The paradox of those who ‘go tiny’ both choosing an alternative lifestyle, and those who are pushed into tiny housing as a consequence of limited choice. The paradox of Austin, Texas, as both a countercultural enclave and hyper-capitalist tech haven. And the paradox of tiny house ethoses in Austin, as both centring community and shared assets, and individualist libertarianism. These paradoxes do not necessarily sit in opposition to one another, but are all bound up in the complexity of what tiny housing has to offer as an alternative way of living.

Despite its unattainability for all but the most privileged, the American Dream - the home-owning society, the suburban bliss, the white picket fence - remains emblematic of the residential Good Life. But in the decades since the turn of the millennium the dream has been shrunk down, expectations of a decent home literally reduced. Whilst for some this has led to forms of freedom and fulfilment, it has also contributed to the normalisation of cities so outrageously expensive that all people can afford are miniature homes on the urban periphery. As this book shows, both impacts of tiny housing are equally true, and one does not cancel out the other. Tiny housing embodies an important societal crossroads. In some respects, it offers an alternative to the prevailing housing status quo. In others, it demonstrates what options have already been taken away from us.

from the Introduction



‘In the rest of this book, we’ll lead you through our exploration of tiny housing in Texas. We’ll start, in the next chapter, by introducing some of the places and people we encountered on our travels to set the scene. Then, the ‘pathways’ chapter examines the various conditions and journeys through which people end up living tiny. As you’ll see, our attempt to produce a diagram of pathways to tiny living escalated into the production of a fully blown board game. We describe this diagrammatic board game to show the complex and nuanced personal and structural circumstances that lead people into tiny housing. From there, we go into three empirical chapters, focusing on economies of tiny living, the materiality of tiny housing as domestic spaces, and community culture. We then draw the book to a close, and speculate about what tiny housing means for the future of domestic life, especially in relation to the American Dream.



‘Throughout the book our descriptions are accompanied by photographs taken by Cian Oba-Smith, who accompanied us on our first trip to Texas in 2022. The hype around tiny housing is undoubtedly driven, in large part, by the aesthetic cultures surrounding it. Tiny homes are the picturesque, boutique, upmarket cousin of mobile homes and trailers. They are distinguished from these other types of small housing, as we’ll argue in this book, specifically by their aesthetics. Anyone who ventures into the world of tiny housing for more than five minutes will see how thick this aesthetic culture is. From beautifully curated Instagram pages, to countless coffee table books, to Etsy shops dedicated to crafted tiny house merchandise, a key part of living tiny is enjoying and embracing its aesthetics. By working with Cian we were able to focus (literally) on these aesthetic dimensions of tiny housing. However, we were also able to capture some of what’s not presented in promotional tiny house materials; the constraints, the challenges and the complexities that come along with the joy and the freedom. We’re positioning this book as something of a disrupted coffee table book. On an initial flick through it might not look too different to the photography books that valorise tiny living, but you’ll already know, if you’ve read this far, that our approach is more nuanced. Our attempt has been to expose the ‘real’ Tiny House Nation. Not to attack it, not to deny its beneficial impacts for a huge number of people, but to inject some nuance into the debate so that we can take forward the positives of tiny living without normalising the negatives.’

Describes the transformations we have witnessed due to the development of nuclear science and technology, accelerating policies interdependent on energy, and military procedures that have led us to make a provocative claim that, in many respects, planet Earth is getting closer to the embodiment of the project we call Nuclear Gaia.

The book examines media archives and online platforms that recover data and memory and shape community knowledge of nuclear events from the distant and nearer past. These are the pieces of evidence that we are on the eve of creating new forms of social justice, carried out by open-source investigations (OSINT) groups, independent researchers, artists, media makers, activists, local communities, and civic groups.



Thus, analysing nuclear processes and their social and environmental consequences is no longer the exclusive domain of experts, scientists, politicians, and the military. The authors hope that such communities’ practices and decolonial discourses, combined with the critiques within our methodology as post-nuclear media studies, can also change the fate of nuclear industry victims by creating media space to discuss and regain justice as socially sanctioned and shared rules for understanding and using nuclear energy both in past and the future.

Architectural expressions resonant with Islamic traditions appear in diverse modes across the Americas, from Andalusian-inspired colonial patios in Peru to the modern and contemporary patronage of immigrant communities in the United States and Canada. This volume examines the multiple manifestations of Islamic architecture that permeate the region’s built environment to invite an expanded framing of this architectural legacy via a hemispheric consideration of aesthetics, narrative, and patronage.

Chapters consider a broad range of topics from the migration of aesthetic traditions and construction techniques tied to the architectural forms of the Islamic world in the colonial “New World,” to the direct contributions of modern and contemporary migrants in shaping a collective identity and the built environment.

By placing in productive dialogue sites that represent Islamic and Islamicate architecture across North and South America – two areas outside of the traditional conceptions of the Islamic world– this volume bridges transregional and transcultural gaps in the current literature.

The fashion product and accessories categories in market competition are identical to the well-known brands of the designers who created them. Such high-end fashion products have certain distribution and marketing for the high-end target market. High-end fashion consumers have habits and behaviours in consuming products by using social media to interact with others or even showing off their fashion product collections to the public on Instagram. The aims of this research are: (1) to analyse the community of luxury brand enthusiasts, building their self-identity and interacting symbolically within the group as a subculture; (2) to analyse luxury brand fans building cohesiveness and solidarity in consumption behaviour and (3) to analyse the community of luxury brand enthusiasts to build urban woman culture as a lifestyle for modern women. The research methodology uses a phenomenological approach, using direct individual experience to explore the experiences of individuals from the upper middle class as consumers in their communities. In-depth interviews, Instagram document analysis and field observations were the data sources in this research. This research found consumer engagement in a community loyal to luxury brands, especially fashion and accessories. Relationships between individuals in the community have a strong bond in the interactivity of experience-sharing, which maintains long-term relationships by sharing values. Loyalty is built towards not only luxury fashion and accessories brands but also to community members. Urban women have space for interactivity and self-existence in showing their achievements, appearance and leadership in business and society.

The Social Object uses the methods of design history, material culture studies and the social construction of technology to analyse the domestic spaces and objects in the homes of the middle class in India. The book describes how people make meaning of the objects they buy, own, and gift.

This is a book about the biography of projects and objects. The projects in the book serve as book ends to a detailed and affectionate account of the biographies of objects within the homes of the not so rich.



The aim of the author has been to silence the voice of the designer to allow the accounts of objects to emerge as periodic irruptions that reveal a hidden maelstrom of passion, ideas and failed projects. The book opens with the biography of a project dealing with waste, leading the reader to a very particular kind of object, the bads. This object is illicit, handled by criminals and in the writing by the author serves to invert the dominant discourse of objects as commodities. This book makes the case that the program of design is better seen as a democratic community, where the householders, the zietgiest, technology and all manner of hidden agents collide to allow unforseen periodic objects to emerge.

Varadarajan argues against a simplistic universal account off the way we think about how objects are designed. As an enterprise, the book was a journey to assemble the evidence - of places and objects - and observe the enactment of practices with the objects. It was also a project of speculation upon the possible ways in which objects come to be, as local collaborations of action.

The purpose of this research was to examine identities of female motorcycle riders who have purchased or acquired Harley-Davidson (H-D) apparel or accessories, their relationship to the H-D subculture of consumption (HDSOC) and use of H-D products such as apparel within and outside the SOC. An inductive, qualitative, grounded theory approach was employed. Purposive and snowball sampling resulted in a sample of 23 female riders who owned H-D branded apparel items. Face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted, which consisted of open-ended questions to facilitate discussion. The data provided insights into a segment of the current HDSOC and women’s identities as motorcycle riders. Three key themes emerged: (1) communitas, (2) performativity and appearance labour and (3) self-esteem and efficacy. The symbolic consumption of material artefacts was a bodily practice that resulted in simultaneous performativity of female gender and biker roles. The participants wanted to be a part of the H-D community, while consciously attempting to soften old stereotypes held by the public about bikers as outlaws. Their visible display of riding behaviours and wearing of H-D branded apparel was, in part, an effort to change meanings of rider identity.

Sneaker resellers exist in an interesting space. While they do not produce any durable goods, they nonetheless produce value for a host of stakeholders in the modern shoe industry, including sneaker companies, reselling platforms and consignment shops. The modern reseller extends the hype of the sneaker by using sophisticated means to take sneakers immediately off the market so that scarcity is accented. While sneaker resellers are derided by sneaker enthusiasts and some executives at the likes of Nike and Adidas for abusing the system by price gouging people who actually want to buy the shoes, these individuals play an important role in the modern sneaker economy. Using the theory of immaterial labour by Lazzarato and Hardt and Negri, the purpose of this manuscript is to explain how sneaker resellers act as more than ‘middlemen’ as what they produce cannot be easily quantified, but it is no less important. The researcher interviewed nineteen sneaker resellers throughout the continental United States to better understand how they operate in the secondary sneaker market, where they have the potential to significantly mark up prices. The data reveal how the immaterial labour of modern sneaker resellers is significant because of the ways in which they induce artificial scarcity, lend legitimacy to modern reselling platforms like eBay and Stock X, and develop and cultivate relationships with stockroom employees to secure the most sought-after shoes.

The objective of this research is to get insight into how Muslim women define aurah and how that definition affects their acceptance of a modest fashion lifestyle. Influencers are included in the study since the findings touched on social perspectives. To determine the extent of their effect on Malaysian Muslim women, the influencers’ point of view is presented. Furthermore, the presence of influencers might be used to determine whether it helps Muslim women feel more comfortable with a modest fashion lifestyle. This study uses a qualitative research approach to investigate the significance that people attribute to certain encounters or experiences. Three factors – the interview questions, the interviewer and the interviewee – support this throughout the interview. The implications of this study’s findings were examined considering social identity theory. Recommendations for businesses are offered at the conclusion of the article if their interests align with modest fashion.

This study explores the shopping experience of Black millennial women, particularly in purchasing hair products, and their perception of mainstream retailers’ commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Given the historical context of both blatant and subtle racism in retail spaces, these experiences can contribute to feelings of disempowerment. As major corporations have increasingly promoted DEI commitments, a critical gap remains in how marginalized groups, notably Black women, perceive and experience these efforts. By centring the narratives of professional Black millennial women, this study attempts to grasp the internal and external factors behind their shopping intentions and experiences, focusing on their shopping experience for hair products due to their unique and specialized significance in Black women’s lives. Using a phenomenological approach grounded in critical race theory and intersectionality, we discover how retailers’ DEI performances influence Black millennial women’s experiences in mainstream retail spaces.

The objective of the research was to design a web platform under the principles of user-centred design (UCD), which could be adaptable to electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and PCs. The proposed platform will generate a simple and efficient channel for commercializing their designs since users from their companies or homes can later print the codes generated. To obtain the best results, under current interface technologies, the methodology proposed by Jesse James Garrett based on the principles of web usability and accessibility was applied. A survey was conducted on 29 students who were fashion design graduates at the Technical University of Ambato to obtain accurate information on the needs and profiles of users. Based on this information, archetypes or models with the platform were defined. At first glance, it was observed that this platform could cause significant changes in current fashion since it was a didactic and innovative instrument for discerning how a garment will appear before the projection of a collection. The long-term goal is for this platform to be a reference tool for fashion design students and general designers worldwide.