Unique Living Structures Worldwide
Tree Houses - Tree Homes - Castles
- Straw Bail - Nomadic & More
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 Global
Nomadic Housing For Expatriates - Designing
A Shipping Container As Nomadic Housing - Global Nomadic
Housing for expats? Why not? Design your living space &
workshop and take it with you... Maverick designer Colin Reedy
tells us how. In this the second part of this innovative concept Colin
provides drawings of what a shipping container can be turned into.
The finished product is amazing! You can use this concept to turn
a shipping container into a portable dwelling that you can cheaply ship
anywhere in the world. It's sort of like global backpacking with
your own house. Colin provides details on how to build one yourself.
This series originally appeared almost two years ago in Escape From America
Magazine. It engendered thousands of letters to the editor, a couple
of spin-off articles by others who were living in Container Housing, and
some like articles in other magazines. It's one of our favorite articles.
Global
Nomadic Housing For Expatriates - Part One -
Global Nomadic Housing for expats? Why not? Design your living space &
workshop and take it with you... Maverick designer Colin Reedy tells us
how.
Global
Nomadic Housing For Expatriates - Update - An update on one
of the most popular articles we've ever run, along with some feedback from
others.
Living
In A Shipping Container on the New Zealand Coast -
We already owned a steel shipping container modified as a small but relocatable
living space and obtained another insulated aluminium one. The containers,
positioned at the core of the home, are set at right angles to each other
and 3m apart in an L shape. They are sitting on 0.5m x 0.5m x 1m plus,
concrete foundations at each corner with large bolts protruding up into
the twist-lock places.
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 Discussion
Group - The articles on Global Nomadic Housing by designer Colin Reedy
are the among the most popular articles we've published to date. The concept
of having your house and taking it with you globally is original to Colin.
However others have been thinking about it and the concept has already
spawned a discussion list for those interested in this topic.
Purpose
of the "Transportable Home Design" email list: is to share ideas on
small, transportable living modules, ideally aiming for environmentally
friendly structures that could be built and transported at low-cost anywhere
in the world.
Proposed
shorthand term for such a module: "pod"
To
view list archives on the Web : http://www.topica.com/lists/Dymaxion2000/read
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To
subscribe: Dymaxion2000-subscribe@topica.com
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 Down
To Earth Living - The Cave Houses Of Southern Spain - The
Cave Houses Of Southern Spain -
Old cave houses in the Granada countryside can still be found for a relatively
small investment. Last year, old cave houses in need of renovation were
on the market in Granada's pricey Albaycin district for 30,000 to 50,000
euros on small lots with no conventional buildings and no Alhambra views.
For finished cave houses, expect to pay eighty to two-hundred thousand
euros, depending on the adjoining land that goes with the cave, the views,
etc. There are currently cave houses with land advertised for as high as
900,000 euros, with Alhambra views, though we regard this price as extraordinary.
Given the real estate market in Spain, prices will continue to go up. You
can also explore areas such as Guadix and either buy existing cave homes
or buy land and build, with the latter option probably presenting the best
value if you discover a good site. by Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret
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 The
Writers Insider Guide To Paris - The
Writers Insider Guide To Paris - Perhaps you are fed up with your 9
to 5 regime; perhaps you are a writer needing a new perspective . . . perhaps,
like so many, you are intoxicated by the myth of writing in Paris (have
read A Moveable Feast, dreamt of Sartre in Les Deux Magots, been haunted
by the Beatniks' or Henry Miller's immortalized adventures) and are interested
in discovering what such a life is all about. For whatever reason, you
are ready to make Paris your home and haven for new words.This
guide will set you off on the right footing by bringing to your attention
all the international and French resources available to writers in Paris
which might otherwise take you many pains and hours of research to locate.
The guide also directs you toward the active community of writers currently
located in Paris: i.e. the journals, bookstores, cafes, and soirées
where you can seek support, listeners, and public outlets for your work.
Written by Paris-based American journalists and writers who know what information
you're looking for and know how to find it, from the inside. |
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 Building
a Straw Bale House in the Baja - Building
a Straw Bale House in the Baja - I got started with a foundation
and storage building three months on my 80x80 lot after flopping trying
to do the same project in the USA. The lot in Mexico cost $1800 with
septic in, the foundation was $1500, the storage building about $500.
There the project stood for three years while I tried to jump start my
life again. After I remarried I put $6000 together and that was enough
to hire a local Mexican contractor to raise walls, stucco the inside and
outside, and instlall window and door frames. I was less than $10,000 into
the project and was at roof level |
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Buying
A Castle ~ Castles For Sale - Buying A Mansion - Mansions For Sale
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 How
To Buy A Castle In The Former East German States - There are, however,
incentives to restore such castles and manor houses. The states have funds
which pay subsidies toward renovation. This can be as much as 30% to 40%
of the cost of renovation. Grants are allowed and agreed to before renovation
begins, but are paid after renovation is finished. Thus, an investor will
have to invest his own capital before receiving the subsidies. An investor
is also entitled to receive the 16% VAT tax (value-added tax) back he has
paid for building supplies. This too has to be applied for, and is paid
after renovation is finished.
How
To Buy A Castle In The Former East German States - As an
incentive to buyers to rebuilt and renovate these historic castles and
manor houses in their original form the governments of the various states
are offering grants which are available to investors, not as loans, but
as incentives which never have to be paid back. The average amount of such
a grant is about $250,000
Buying A Castle ~ Castles As
An Investment - Buying
A Castle ~ Castles As An Investment - A
unique investment is offered in a historic thatch roofed farm house in
the resort village of Krummin on the Ostsee (East Sea, the sea that connects
the North Sea with the Baltic Sea). Krummin is a popular holiday resort
with a yacht harbor, bathing beaches and a sea front promenade, about three
hours by car from Berlin. 8 units are available on a frac ownership ranging
in price from Euro 95,000 to Euro 175,000 By Helga van Horn
Note: EscapeArtist.com also has
listings for castles and mansions. Castles
for Sale - Castles
for Sale - Mansions For Sale - Mansions
For Sale Worldwide -
 All
You Ever Wanted To Know About Buying A Castle By Helga van Horn |
All
You Ever Wanted To Know About Buying A Castle By Helga van Horn
- I once said that most people will do almost anything to read about buying
a castle, because it's such a fascinating subject; but few of them will
ever really go out and buy a castle. Well I wrote that before the Berlin
wall fell and the sudden surprise appearance of numerous magnificent castles
in Eastern Europe. Suddenly we were seeing castles worth buying at
prices we could afford. Then came the expat revolution, (diaspora?) and
thousands of people starting moving overseas; and what better house could
we ask for beyond a castle? That's the top of the line in housing.
...and think of the business you could run out of a castle; Bed & Breakfast,
Resort Hotel, Restaurant, Spa, Condiminium Project, Joint Ownership, Time
Share . . . you can use your own imagination to figure out dozens of use
concepts, because the greatest part of buying a castle is the dreaming.
. . . and there's money to be made with castle ownership . . . |
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And Now for
Something Completely Different... Freedom Ship - The World’s Biggest
Ship—The World’s Newest Tax Haven? - And
Now for Something Completely Different... Freedom Ship - The World’s
Biggest Ship—The World’s Newest Tax Haven? -
Mark Nestmann analyzes Freedom Ship's potential as a tax haven. Freedom
Ship International, Inc. (FSI ) plans to offer the opportunity for an unprecedented
lifestyle by constructing a sea-based, mobile, full-spectrum residential,
commercial, and resort community on a mammoth, mobile, sea platform. The
community will travel the entire globe over a two-year cycle, never leaving
international waters. It will spend only 30% of its time in transit and
the other 70% standing offshore points of interest. A fleet of aircraft
and watercraft will ferry people from ship-to-shore, around-the-clock,
residents for touring and business, and as many as 30,000 onshore guests
and visitors daily. What is it's potential as a tax haven?
..
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Converted
Railway Stations
Unique
Real Estate - Converted Railway Stations ~ Unique
Real Estate - Converted Railway Stations When
Elizabeth and Colin Olford bought a disused station in 1984 it was being
used as a training centre for truck drivers but the couple immediately
saw its potential and outbid a crowded auction room to win the right to
convert it into a unique home. The job took almost two years but Old Droxford
Station House, complete with the station platform and canopy and two acres
of lovely wooded grounds is now a quirky and unusual family home. By
Michael O'Flynn |
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Permaculture:
Living Off The Land ~ by Jens Porup - Permaculture:
Living Off The Land ~ by Jens Porup - If
it's suitable for the climate you've chosen, a mud-brick house can be built
for practically nothing. This option is very popular with homesteaders
in Australia, not only because it is the cheapest option, but it gives
good insulation from the heat. The mud and dried grass cost absolutely
nothing. Pick a design from a book, make yourself some brick molds, and
you're off. (If mud-brick sounds like a totally foreign idea, remember
that the Mexican word for mud-brick is 'adobe'. Sound familiar now?)
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Real Estate In Japan
- Home Sweet Home...Sumo Style - Real
Estate In Japan -It Can Be Done -
...there DOES exist a crack in the Tokyo dome. It exists in the legal system.
I say this from first hand experience. The Japanese have locked themselves
by their culture and rigid inflexible interpretation of their legal system
into a situation that can be taken advantage of by anybody with the will
to do so. The rest of this is about why and how we did it and it can be
a guide (or you could call it a light at the end of the tunnel) to anyone
wishing to own real property in Japan without paying off a mortgage for
30 or more of the most productive years of your lives. The author,
David
Markle is a long-term permanent resident of Japan and lives with his
family in rural central Japan. He has previously contributed to Escape
From America Magazine with a unique article on homesteading in Japan. -
By
David Markle
Down on the Farm - Homesteading
In Japan - Down
on the Farm - Homesteading In Japan - Homesteading in Japan?
If not, why not? The author of of this article, David Markle
is a 17 year resident of Japan. He first came to Japan as a student and
has resided there pretty much ever since. In this article he covers homesteading
in Japan, what it takes, how it's done and where to look. "...some local
governments will actually pay you to live in their village. I am not kidding.
Granted it is not enough to get rich on, but, believe it or not many localities
are falling all over themselves to recruit families especially with younger
children, to move to their town. They are offering all sorts of incentives
and assistance to try to “revitalize” the countryside." -
By
David Markle |
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| Netherlands
Architects Of The Floating World - Architects
Of The Floating World ~ Forget the
little Dutch boy who held back the deluge by putting his finger in the
dike: architects in the Netherlands are busy designing new houses that
float serenely on the flood.You can hear the jokes already: too much hydroponic
skunk, a crate or three of Grolsch, and then a sudden architectural epiphany:
"Shtop! What are we doing? Let's build chilled out houses that can go with
the flow instead up uptight dikes and defences!" By
Michael
O'Flynn Sept./05 |
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A
Gentleman’s Farm In Panama -
In February I had the opportunity to visit Panama for the first time.
I’ve spent most of my life in the Pacific Northwest and had never been
to the tropics. Although I was warned about humidity, pests, lack
of services – I found none of these. Instead, the Panama I found
was pleasant, welcoming and abundant.
Real
Estate in General Alvear, West Argentina - A place to rest or invest?
-“If
you’re looking for a place to drop out of the rat race in to, then this
is it” As he spoke these words the American expatriate I was in the
company of, swept his hands in a broad open gesture suggesting I look around.
We ordered another beer. Work on the 30 acre farm he had bought 6 months
earlier could wait a little while longer. Sit and watch the world go by
in this town and you soon start to feel that everything can wait.
From the comfort of my café bar seat in the main street of General
Alvear that is exactly what I did.
Old Cities
- Casco Viejo - Casco
Viejo - Panama's Old Zona Colonial - The oldest city on the Pacific
Coast of the Americas comes under the pen and camera of EscapeArtist.com
- A 300 year old city filled with architectural treasures and picture-postcard
views. Care to remodel a 300 year old building filled with history?
The prices are affordable. ~
Shetland
Islands - Stone Cottage Living In The Shetland Islands: The Most
Northerly Part of the U.K. ~ Living
In The Shetland Islands
- Occasionally you can buy something for as little as GB£16,000,
though it will probably need some work. UK properties are probably physically
smaller that US ones I believe, but bigger ones occasionally come on the
market, consisting of an old stone-built Manse or Dwelling house of some
past Laird (landowner). The unusual occasionally becomes available, an
island or a lighthouse property, though these are rare nowadays.
by
Paul Kelly This article first appeared in Volume Two - Issue
Number Eight of the Escape From America Magazine.
Survival
- Offshore Real Estate And The Offshore Survival Retreat -
Advice
Without The Sugar Coating - Talks
About International Real Estate As Survival Retreat
- I have never been a dooms-day preacher and I don't intend to start now.
With that said, it would be prudent for the reader to take a calm and objective
look at some of the possible negative situations that may soon take
place inside the USA and see how those events may affect you and your loved
ones. I believe that you can avoid being in the pathway of those oncoming
disasters by having an offshore survival retreat. An offshore survival
retreat can be many things, it can be a summer home, a place where your
family lives and survives a social break-down that may be happening in
the USA, it can be an excellent investment, it can be an excellent place
to live, it can be a way of expatriating and diversifying some of your
assets offshore, it can be the beginning of a better way of life.
That is what this article is about in a nutshell. It can be all of
those things at the same time, or it can just be the one that is the most
important to you. I call it investing in offshore real estate.
Freedom
Ship Is Not About Freedom; or, How To Live On A Floating Police State -
Freedom
Ship! - A Criticism -
The name grabs you and makes you want to learn more, especially if you
dream of freedom, traveling and the high seas. The web site beckons
with promises of leaving it all behind and living in freedom, in your very
own condominium, on a ship so stable that you won’t even get seasick.
But is it really as free as they say? We are all used to media hype,
and in this short article I would like to dig beneath the decks a little
and see what the bulkheads look like. |
