Housing, housing, housing! Everyone is talking about housing right now.

It makes sense. Housing is a big need right now. “Need” is an interesting word to use as a place to start. What does a person “need” in a home?

Midcoast resident Heather D. Martin wants to know what’s on your mind; email her at heather@heatherdmartin.com.

I think it probably varies by the person. There is “shelter,” and then there is “home.”

Here again I am, as always, a walking contradiction. I once helped design LEED-rated prefabricated house models for a local builder. They were low cost, low waste, basic shaped, easy to heat. Go efficiency!

At the same time, every time Cheap Old Houses drops a new post on Instagram, I completely reimagine my entire life. “Sure!” I think, “I can move to this random town in Mississippi. For that porch? Anything.”

However, when I manage to wrest myself away from the pages of Dwell magazine or Atomic Ranch, I find myself genuinely fascinated by the possibilities for housing our population in an efficient and sustainable way.

Let’s start by talking about tiny houses. I admit, they are not for everyone or every situation. But they raise certain possibilities.

Their small size means they are quick to build, easy to heat and often portable as well. Because you need so much less, the building materials can often be of a higher quality – and you can experiment with new materials and technologies at lower risk. You don’t have as much storage, but in my own experience, that just means you learn to have less “stuff.” Which is actually kind of nice.

The downside, of course, is that the walls are awfully close. It’s one thing if you live by yourself and enjoy solitude, but even just two people, especially if they have different housekeeping habits, can run into trouble. Add a baby or dogs and “cozy” turns into “cramped” really quickly.

There are some really cool experiments happening around the country, and right here in Maine, too. I have seen communities where tiny houses (and some I would classify as “small” rather than “tiny”) share a common plot of land and make their own community. They might even share a community building for events when you need more room.

I’ve seen smaller homes set to take advantage of the landscape, and homes set inside of greenhouses, so the outdoors becomes living space year-round.

All of these are experiments I find genuinely exciting as we contemplate how to house our communities going forward. However, the thing I find most exciting about them is the conversation around creating them.

Unlike a traditional house (setting aside yurts, boats and the many other traditional structures of other cultures), tiny houses are not required to be built on-site. They can, instead, be built in a heated, well-lit area. They can, in fact, be built inside, say, a community center or school where students are learning carpentry skills.

Imagine, if you will, a scenario where community members, even those who work as doctors or lawyers, get to experience the hands-on learning that comes with building a frame, installing a sink, joining some trim.

Imagine the conversations that would spring up between neighbors – who might not have otherwise even met – as they problem-solve a wiring question together.

Imagine all those homes, lovingly crafted, providing shelter and comfort, whether for a season before being passed along to the next or kept for a lifetime.

Imagine a prospective homeowner working to pay for their home by building others for the community.

So much of the conversation in the news around housing feels so heavy, so bleak. But there are so many staggeringly great ideas out there as well. We have such a fantastic opportunity to rethink the norms and create communities that are engaged and responsive to the needs of the people who live there. Maine seems ideally suited for this, and I am excited to see what happens next.