Educational Farm Uses Tiny Houses for Interns

Morales Farm, located on Bainbridge Island, Washington, is one of several farms dedicated to educating local school students on how small-plot farming is effective and economical for everyone.

The food grown and harvested at the farm become part of the lunches served in the schools. One of the problems farms like Morales face is housing for the interns that come every year to teach the students. Like all other areas of the country, there are few, if any, affordable rooms to rent.

So the founders of decided to build their own tiny houses on the property. If there’s one thing that Bainbridge Islanders know how to do, it’s solving problems by reusing materials.

The islanders’ ethos of reducing, reusing, and recycling proved to be the catalyst that helped make architect Matthew Coates’ dream of diverting unwanted building materials from the landfill to build three tiny houses for farming interns on the Morales farm a reality.

Coates said the tiny houses are technically “satellite bedrooms,” but the 350-square-foot dwellings will be new homes for interns who live, train, and work on the farm.

All the materials used, the nails, screws, caulk, weather stripping, windows, brackets, and the roof, were unwanted and headed for the landfill, said Coates. “We were able to capture it all, reorganize it, and create a home out of it for people to be able to use it. It took a lot of faith, goodwill, and a lot of work. The amount of material that we throw away is large, and we can do things differently; this is a prime example of how to do that and a value of our community.”

Coates wants this project to be replicated around the country and will open source all of the tools, information, and lessons learned. “Go to every architect you know, and tell them to do this exact same thing because we have shown that there’s a different way to build.”

Tina Gilbert, board member of Housing Resources Bainbridge, which focuses on providing affordable housing on BI, said, “If somebody wanted one of these tiny houses on their property, we could facilitate that.”