On my quest to discover alternative life styles I discovered a Man living in yurt. What is a yurt? And what is it good for? Read on…

A yurt is a wooden framed round tent used in places in central Asia like Mongolia. It is cheap, has great insulation and can be moved from place to place quite easily which makes it perfect for some people.  B is one of those people.

The Yurt

B built his yurt on top of tires for better insulation. On top of the tires beams are placed and then a wooden floor. A solar panel provides electricity and water from the river is filtered and pumped to the house. The inside is basically a one room apartment containing a bed, sofa and small kitchen. The yurt itself is a commercial product you can simply buy and ‘install’.

B on his bed.

All in one

The laws in New Zealand state that a place of residency is a self-contained unit with a kitchen and a toilet inside. So by placing the toilet outside B didn’t even need to get permits for building it, although this loophole might not last long. It seems building a beautiful residency for around 12,000 NZ dollars might be too much of a danger for the whole ‘capitalistic’ slave market.

When comparing the Yurt to the converted shipping container I encountered one beautiful advantage comes to mind. The Yurt has a built in ‘skylight’ so one can lay in bed and gaze at the start, and the real ones are so much better than the stickers I tried to set up in the right constellations in my childhood bedroom. This skylight cools the Yurt in hot days and can be covered by pulling a string when it rains.

star gazing through the skyligh.

The obvious disadvantage is the outhouse. Although the shower water is heated by gas it still can’t be fun to walk out of the shower to the yurt in the cold winter, not to speak of night visits to the toilet. I found the round room warm (not only in temperature), convenient and comfortable and if that doesn’t sell you on it maybe the view from the window will. At high tide the ocean reaches almost to the doorstep.