Dogtrot Friggebod
One of my regular readers sent me his small house dream. David is a ex-Aussie living in Sweden and was inspired by a combination of my dogtrot tiny house concept and a friggebod. In Sweden you can generally build a friggebod (small habitable adjunct building) without permits if it is smaller than 15 square meters and no taller than 3 meters. Using Google SketchUp he was able to brainstorm different variations quickly. Pictured here is David’s most recent iteration.
As you can see David’s been exploring the interior layout by working without the walls. The structure itself is basically two friggebod buildings with a glassed in space between them. He’s still in the middle of researching the permit-free feasibility of this design but it seems to have some promise.
The other details David is working through center around the sustainable and cold weather features like how to create the best green roof and how to build a cold weather grey water system. David gave me so much to think about in his emails I’ll be spitting up some of his ideas and questions into multiple posts in the hope of surfacing some answers.
Nice design.
I hope he considers the fact that unlike Australia, Sweden can have significant snowfall. Build a strong roof.
The windows are very small in the bedroom & living room sections. Consider the latitude and how much sunshine there is in the winter in Sweden.
Other things I would incorporate into the design: storage for off season clothes and an entrance clothes hanger. Food storage so running to the store isn’t an every other day necessity.
In sweden you can build this house BUT only if their is a main house on the property. This an´t be the main house.
As the rules are in Sweden (afaik), not only do you have to have a main building WITH a building permit, you can only build 15 m2 TOTAL in your garden without further permits. (This is for city planned areas. Rural areas have other rules (larger side buildings allowed without permit).
The name “Friggebod” is a combination of the name of the minister in charge of allowing these small buildings in the first place (Mrs Birgit Friggebo) and the word for shed in Swedish: “bod”.
Well I like it, it has similar design elements to the Canadian Sustain mini-homes but as a DIY option would be a little easier on the wallet.
Am I missing something…. You can build up to 15 m2 without a permit but this looks more like 50 m2?
Similar rules exist here in France, but the maximum is 20m². You still have to notify the local authorities, but you’re not constrained by the normal planning procedure. I like the idea of the not-quite-so-tiny house. I work from home and find some of these houses somewhat restrictive, although I’m a big fan of the downsizing principle.