I first discovered these small cardboard house sculptures by artist Lorenz Esterman on Handmade Charlotte awhile back, and I admit to thinking about them quite a lot since then. While most of us probably don’t have the architectural engineering prowess of Mr. Esterman, his tiny houses do provide a good design jumping-off-point for at-home projects with scrap materials. In the spirit of the school book report diorama from back in the old days, start with a shoe box, grab some popsicle sticks, wax paper, fabric scraps and whatnot and retro-fit that cardboard with all manner of tricked-out, Corbusier-inspired goodness. If you feel really daring, use some dowel rods to secure your architectural maquette to a piece of wood as a plinth. Then have the whole family sit down to grafitti the tiny house. It’ll be a mod-meets-street masterpiece — a bookshelf/tabletop treasure.
