A brief history of Tiny Houses in the Netherlands
You might have heard of the Tiny House Movement, a movement that originated in the United States during the economic crisis of 2007–2009, that caused people to lose their home and people found it increasingly difficult to obtain a house. As a result, the need for affordable and flexible housing grew. Read more about the social movement here .
As with many other trends originated in the US, the movement reached the Netherlands by 2015 and is steadily gaining popularity. Many local and national initiatives have emerged in the past 5 years, resulting in some amazing projects realised. Tiny House Nederland keeps an updated map of all current and in progress projects, visualised on a practical map.
The movement of Tiny Houses in the Netherlands is underrepresented in Dutch media, but bloggers like Marjolein in Het Klein and Youtubers like Koen Brouwer have paved the way and sparked inspiration for others to explore the concept. Marjolein even created the website TinyFindy, a marketplace for all tiny-house related products and services, from complete, ready to move in houses to construction materials and tools.
However, tiny houses as permanent living locations are not yet well established in Dutch culture. Tiny houses are mainly used as vacation rentals in national parks, for people to escape their urban lives and experience life in a tiny house in nature. If this interests you, rental websites such as natuurhuisje and Droomparken are a great resource.
There is still a long road ahead for the movement and its followers. Municipalities and policy makers in the Netherlands are carefully considering tiny house initiatives. At Tiny House Kickstart, we believe tiny houses are the future.
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