After her tiny homes survived the Ojai wild fires in 2017, Vina has shifted her focus to designing fire resistant tiny homes.

Vina Lustado is both a tiny house dweller and a professional designer. Her designs incorporate lots of light and open space, with a focus on how the space is used by the inhabitants.

She is the founder of Sol Haus Design, a boutique firm with a focus on sustainable design and building in Ojai, California. After receiving an architecture degree and more than 20 years experience with high-end corporate clients, Vina decided to focus her career on smaller-scale projects that could make a positive difference. Staying true to her values, Vina lives full-time in her Tiny House, which she designed and built with the help of friends. Vina's home has been featured in media publications, books and television. Lustado is also a proud recipient of FWN Global 100 Most Influential Women and has been a featured speaker at Yale University on social entrepreneurship.

In This Episode:

  • How Vina came to design her first tiny house and why she’s continued designing tiny houses for others
  • Why Vina was inspired to put the entry to her tiny house on the side, rather than the gable end
  • Why Light is one of the most important design elements for Sol Haus Design.
  • How have the California wild fires affected Vina’s design work?
  • What are the materials and design elements required for a fire-resistant tiny house?
  • Are there benefits to being ‘tiny’ when it comes to building a fire-resistant home?
  • Does the future for tiny houses in fire-prone areas include moveable tiny homes?
  • About Vina’s fire-resistant steel-beam foundation tiny house
  • Is it practical to move a tiny house on wheels in advance of a natural emergency like a fire?
  • Why did Vina decide to give up searching for land in Ojai?
  • Vina’s vision for a tiny house community near Yosemite
  • Vina’s March 17th 2019 tiny house tour in Ojai

This Week's Sponsor:

yestermorrow design build

The Tiny House Lifestyle Podcast is sponsored this week by the Tiny House Design Build Certificate at Yestermorrow in Waitsfield, Vermont. The Tiny House Design/Build Certificate is for everyone from professionals entering the tiny house market to DIY’ers who want to design and build their own tiny home. This is THE most comprehensive Tiny House course available, the curriculum covers all the must-knows for tiny house design/build and offers students hands-on experience designing and drafting their own tiny house and building a tiny house on wheels for a real client.

To learn more, visit yestermorrow.org/tiny. Use the coupon code podcast to waive the $25 application fee. Thank you to Yestermorrow for sponsoring the show show!

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