Tiny-house movement

The tiny-house movement (also known as the small house movement) is an architectural and social movement promoting the reduction and simplification of living spaces. Tiny homes have been promoted as offering lower-cost and sometimes eco-friendly features within the housing market, and they have also been promoted as an option for homeless individuals. However, the lack of clearly defined features and legality in many cases can cause issues for ownership, including being more expensive for the amount of area, vulnerability to natural disaster, lack of storage, difficulty hosting, smaller or lacking traditional home appliances, and legal and or zoning issues. There is some variation in defining a tiny home, but there are examples and they are usually based on floorspace. The International Residential Code states that a tiny house's floorspace is no larger than 400 square feet (37 m2). Merriam-Webster says they can be up to 500 ft2. One architectural firm used a threshold of 600 ft2 to define a tiny home. What further complicates the definition is that tiny homes may or may not be mobile, and lack clearly defined features.