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This Cozy Micro Home is Designed to Withstand the Desert

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Tucked away in the desert near Scottsdale, Arizona, sits a tiny, but very elegant home designed by Dave Frazee, a student at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, an academy founded by the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1932. This, like many other micro homes, uses its surroundings as part of the structure, in this case setting the base on an old miners shelter—hence its name, Miner's Shelter—and turning the dilapidated chimney and walls into part of the single-room building. (No exact square footage is detailed anywhere, but the place seems to be just about the size of a bed.) Frazee even rehabbed the chimney to provide heat during cold desert nights.

Crafted from steel and glass—yes, it's a good deal sturdier than certain other minuscule dwellings out there—Frazee's structure was clearly designed with desert climate in mind, with awning-style windows that, in the words of the official project writeup, "allow a resident on the warmest nights to receive a gentle breeze from the desert wash, from the toe of the bed, to the head."

Each year, students at the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture are challenged to create a temporary structures in the desert, but it was decided that Frazee's, which was erected a few years ago, would remain a permanent hangout. And hey, the fact that the shelter only fits a bed makes it the perfect nap spot—or romantic retreat—for bleary-eyed and overworked architecture students.

· Frank Lloyd Wright student builds tiny desert dwelling that fits only a bed [Inhabitat]
· Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture shelter [Archinect]
· Broken Arrow Workshop [official site]
· All micro homes coverage [Curbed National]