This article appears in print in the March 2018 issue. Click here to subscribe.

Among the utilitarian 8-by-12-foot homes in Nickelsville Georgetown Tiny House Village—one of several city-sanctioned homeless encampments—are two angled structures that face each other like two halves of a whole. It’s an appropriate way to look at these buildings, which were designed by Barron Peper, an architect with Seattle-based Mithun, to house a family.

“Two houses act as one,” explains Sarah Smith, executive director of Sawhorse Revolution, the nonprofit building program that helped construct the houses, which are called the Parabay Homes. Peper is a volunteer with Sawhorse Revolution; the organization pairs high-school-age kids in underserved areas with mentors to teach them carpentry and building skills as they work together on community projects.

Each two-unit Parabay Home totals 224 square feet and is designed to house children and adults, each with their own unit. The occupants can easily see each other through facing glass windows, separated by 4 feet of yard space.

Peper came up with the idea of a yard as a way to make use of the mandatory 3 feet of separation between homes required by fire codes. “This space is significant for Seattle’s model for tiny house villages in that it offers a semipublic space for residents to expand the perceived zone of their home without being fully exposed to the village,” says Peper. Being forced to give up privacy is an extension of homelessness, especially in relationship to outdoor spaces, which is why even a small, simple yard can have a huge impact on the residents of tiny homes.

Photographs by Alex Crook. From left to right: Build-ins help maximize use of the interior space for residents who are unlikely to have their own furniture. Each unit is 112 square feet. A space heater helps warm the unheated units. A future iteration of the design might include more storage by the door for muddy and wet items; dealing with them is a reality of living in the Northwest

For the project, Smith and Peper consulted with the community members of another homeless encampment, Nickelsville Othello Village, where the two previously had worked together on another tiny home, to learn what issues they could address with design.