The charming $200 micro houses made from junk

By Daily Mail Reporter Published: 01:49 GMT, 5 April 2012 | Updated: 20:37 GMT, 5 April 2012 Made from scavenged materials, Derek Diedricksen's tiny houses cost just $200 to make. What the little wooden dwellings lack in space, is made up for in style thanks to plenty of decorative detail. The 33-year-old uses parts of discarded household items to ensure each home has basic functions, the glass from the front of a washing machine is converted in a porthole-like window while a sheet of metal becomes a flip down counter. Made from scavenged materials, Derek Diedricksen's tiny houses cost just $200 to make The largest of his structures is the Gypsy Junker at 24 square feet with a roof height of up to 5ft 10inches The Gypsy Junker is made out of shipping pallets, castoff storm windows and discarded kitchen cabinets Ultimate in eco-friendly: Derek Diedricksen's homes are made from household goods 'I’ve always been obsessed with tiny architecture. 'The Hickshaw was the first one I built.'

Slumtube: Affordable Housing Made From Shipping Pallets! Remember the efficient and affordable Pallet House from last spring? Well designers Andreas Claus Schnetzer and Pils Gregor have bested their original design with an even lower-cost shipping pallet home that was completed this year in South Africa. The 'Slumtube' utilizes discarded pallets along with other local materials like clay and straw to make an insulated and affordable home that can withstand the extremely hot and cold temperatures of Johannesburg. Schnetzer and Gregor built upon what they learned from constructing modular pallet houses, improving upon their original design to make it even more affordable. In previous designs, the pallets were used as floors, walls, ceilings and cladding, but they required sturdy wood beams, which were the most expensive part of the home. In Johannesburg, temperatures can fluctuate from 45 degrees C in the summer to -2 degrees in the winter, and many homes are not equipped to keep residents comfortable. + PalettenHaus Images © PalettenHaus

Bulletproof, fireproof, environmentally friendly homes are being made from plastic bottles The streets of downtown Toronto are vibrant and busy at all times of the day. During the day business women rapidly click their heels and talk a mile a minute into their cellphones. Students hustle off to school, their backpacks swaying from side to side and men with ties and briefcases flood the subway. It’s hard to notice anything besides the flashes of colour that blur together in your peripherals. At night the streets are calmer – people walk more slowly and everything is in focus. The sides of the road are piled with garbage bags, full of coffee cups and plastic water bottles, waiting to be picked up and taken to the landfill. Obviously, homelessness is an issue that occurs in every corner of the world. © Andreas Froese/ECOTEC The two-bedroom bottle houses are built by filling the bottles with sand and then holding them together using mud and cement. Plastic bottles take hundreds of years to biodegrade in landfills and Nigeria throws away three million bottles daily.