Reclaimed Upside-Down Boat Houses
This idea is so obvious yet so ingenious: flip a local wooden fishing boat in a remote place like Holy Island and you have the perfect little hut, built to withstand the weather, heavy enough not to require as firm a foundation as a tent or yurt … and if you need to make it water-worthy again, well, it can be patched up taken out the next season by its resident fisherman. Well, not really, but you get the idea.
The stern of these reclaimed boats becomes the broad entry face, set with a door – the only necessary exterior modification. The interior then tapers in all directions, narrowing toward the bow but also port and aft on either side. The resulting recycled fishing boat houses may be small, dark and cozy, but since they’re also designed to weather storms on the water, they can surely take a few on land as well. The romanticism of it all might be enough to get you through life without windows, eh? But it might not be too difficult to insert a couple if you’re handy.
Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island, lies off the northwest coast of Great Britain and is home to but a handful of permanent residents year round. During low tide, you can actually walk right out to the island, though invariably a few people fail to follow the warnings and get into deep trouble as the tides rise each day. Fortunately, the residents of Holy Island leave way-finding posts and emergency mini-shelters along the path for such foolish misadventures. If you happened to lose track of time and get stuck on the other side, it might not be so bad, especially if you can stay in one of these unique recycled houses for a night.(Images via Ghisan, Guthlac, Kevin Wakelam & Fiona McPhie)
