In response to skyrocketing costs of living and a mounting housing crisis, architecture designer Harrison Marshall made the decision to pack his things and move into a dumpster.
Yes, really.
Marshall converted a dumpster (or a “skip,” per his British vocabulary) into a 25-square-foot tiny house that ultimately cost him about $5,000 in materials and $62 per month in rental fees.
Marshall is a co-founder of CAUKIN Studios, an architecture, construction, and design firm that works on building projects that support the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.
The Skip House — what Marshall affectionately named his tiny home — is part of an effort to “make a statement about the prohibitive cost of rent in London and other cities across the U.K.”
“The average cost of a one-bedroom in Southwark, a borough in South London, is around $1,850 a month,” Marshall wrote for CNBC in 2023. “That’s more than 75% of my income as an architectural designer.”
A dumpster, on the other hand, would serve as an affordable housing option and a performance art piece.
The project uses a standard 8-yard skip, with an insulated timber frame sitting within. It has a barrel roof that provides enough space to raise the bed above head-height while still maintaining the lower space for the living area.
Skip House is part of Skip Gallery, a public art initiative that encourages emerging artists to convert a skip into a piece of artwork.
“Part art installation, part social commentary, the Skip House aims to start a conversation about the U.K.’s housing crisis and explore alternative solutions,” a brief for the project states.
“The brief was to convert a skip into a liveable space — fit for sleeping, cooking, washing, and even hosting a friend or two.”
Marshall rose to the challenge.
The home is certainly a tight squeeze, with a sink and single hob stove making up a kitchen, storage space relegated to just two small walls, and a rented port-a-potty that sits on-site outside the home’s structure. There is no shower, however, so Marshall said he bathes at the gym or at work.
He was also given land to keep the Skip House on, thanks to a charity called Antepavilion that supports independent art, craft, and architecture. The home’s electricity bill is so small that it is also included in the land sponsorship, and the water supply to the home comes from a hose pipe from a neighbor’s property.
Ultimately, Marshall only lived in the space for a short period of time, though he certainly made it work and reported that he didn’t have to give away any of his possessions to do so.
“With its ups and downs, I’ve turned my living situation into an art piece. It shines light on the absurdity of London’s housing crisis in a way that makes people smile and think,” he wrote for CNBC.
After a year and a half in the home, Marshall posted on Instagram that he was still living in the Skip House, though he teased that he is onto his next home-building project.
While the tiny house might have become home for him, Marshall is still rooted in reality.
“People across the country are changing the way they live to compensate for the rising cost of basic necessities,” he wrote at the start of the project.
“Living in a skip isn’t a solution, but rather an exploration and a statement. This project sits somewhere between installation art and performance art. As a designer, I’m a firm believer that creativity can be a powerful tool to break out of life’s rules.”
Header image by Katie Edwards for CAUKIN Studios
