Somewhere To Lay My Head

My beautiful wife & I have been researching many different types of housing for our future dream home. Our criteria revolves around Eco-friendly, sustainable and cost effective housing and this has given us a range of different designs that I think suits our quirky sense of style. From our sessions of brainstorming, we've incorporated a few different styles including recycling shipping containers, a traditional japanese style house, a converted double garage and the exciting new discovery of my wife (wonderful girl isn't she!!!), Yurts, which are based on the Mongolian Gurs, which is basically a circular tent reinforced with a wooden lattice frame. Now, this has a great design, which you can have a stove inside and has a history of standing up to the most horrendous weather and then you can pack it up and move on, not that I'm thinking of that but it's nice to have the option, especially when the kids get older.
OK, so why so many designs? Our design is based on pods, instead of having one main house with everything in it, we wanted to have purpose built structures connected by boardwalks. One of the main reasons we chose this way, is that it gives us a chance to start basic and let it grow. Now, at this point, i'd like to point out that we don't have anywhere to build yet, so we are saving and stockpiling resources but most importantly, educating up on everything we will need to design, build, power and sustain this lifestyle. So I guess there's quite a bit to do but I do think that's where the fun begins, because necessity is the mother of all invention and I'm really interested myself, on how we are going to make this happen.
Here's a basic overview of what structures we are looking at and there functions. Firstly, a double garage, which will be our main indoor living area and the place visitors will first enter. Instead of a concrete floor, I'd like a wooden floor so we can insulate from below and replacing the garage door with bi-fold doors, so you can open it right up to nature. There will be a ranch slider at the rear to be able to get to the other structures. At first, our family will be living in here until the other structures go up.
Our bedrooms will be the Yurts, the kitchen & dining room & storage will be a combination of 10ft, 20ft & 40ft shipping containers. The Bathroom, which will include washroom, shower & bath will possibly be adobe mud brick, as we still researching what will suit us best for a wet area. Our toilets will be a boys & girls dual structure, boys side will have a urinal and toilet and girls will have two toilets. These toilets will be housed in either adobe mud brick or recycled wood, all toilets will be compost toilets (great for compost for our organic garden).

We have also decided to have a traditional style japanese, one level house to serve as a sanctuary, for yoga, meditation etc, a workshop/ studio, which will be either another double garage or a barn style structure so we can have a mezzanine floor. Now what dream house would be complete without a sauna and last but not least, a rotunda, which is a great place to chill out or even double as an extra room, with some netting in the summer.

I know it sounds like a lot but we've got a lifetime to make it happen but I honestly believe that we'll be breaking ground by my 40th birthday, which is in 3 & half years. I hope to have a draft of the layout soon and look forward to any ideas or advice. Be back soon, Laz