Tiny houses in the wilderness make the most of unused space

At a time when Airbnb is increasingly encroaching on tightly-held inner-city areas, a Sydney based start-up is unlocking remote, unused land for people wanting to escape the daily grind.

Looking for a way to disconnect on the weekend from the hustle and bustle of city life, brothers Chris and Cam Grant came up with Unyoked, a concept that allows property owners to monetise their unused land by hosting a stylish tiny home for people to rent.

While it's early days, Unyoked has already designed and built two sustainable off-grid tiny homes with the help of Fresh Prince and Archemy Modular, which they've placed in the Southern Highlands. Over the next year they hope to build four more in the region and start projects in Victoria.

"Chris and I both live in the city and work fast-paced jobs," said Cam. "So on the weekends we like to escape, get outdoors...the whole driving reason for this was to help people get balance in their lives, and cramming people into an apartment building on a weekend away isn't the way to do that.

"We love going hiking and camping, but not everyone has the time or can make the effort for a trip like that and we didn't want that to be a barrier for people looking to escape."

Cam said while Airbnb provides "a few pockets of interesting offerings" that could help people reconnect with the wilderness, the pair wanted to be able to unlock new areas for people to explore.

"There's so much unused land," he said. "We partner with local landowners, to unlock these locations that wouldn't be available otherwise.

"It's a way for them to monetise on their land, without the effect of having to build on it, or without having people in their house or around them because they're renting it out through something like Airbnb."

Putting unused spaces to better use, is a trend that's gaining momentum.

In Victoria, Melbourne based start-up Shacky is building tiny homes for rural properties to allow farmers and landowners to generate extra income, while in Sydney Big World Homes has created a flat-packed, off-grid tiny home which it hopes will enable pop up communities to make better use of development sites or vacant land in the city.

Unyoked's solar-powered tiny homes, which can sleep three people, are about 15 square metres and have a gas stove, bar fridge, hot shower and composting toilet, as well as a picnic table, fire pit and fan.

Cam said the size of the homes meant guests had to minimise and only take what they needed, encouraging them to take advantage of the "Attenborough-level nature" surrounding them.

"One of them is accessed via a 200-metre walk through a rainforest area...you go to sleep and wake up surrounded by nature, you can't hear or see anything besides the trees and the rainforest," he said.

After building up a network of tiny homes in the Southern Highlands, Unyoked plans to look towards areas such as the Central Coast, Byron Bay and the Mornington Peninsular, for land that offers the chance for a remote getaway within two hours drive of a city.

While Unyoked currently owns both tiny houses and the landowners take a cut of the profits, the plan is to franchise out the homes, which cost about $35,000 to build. This would give landowners the opportunity to buy a property, which Unyoked would help them run.

"We've got quite a backlog of interested landowners," Cam said. "We've had people contact us from everywhere from the Central Coast to the Daintree Rainforest.

"The people visiting are getting the benefits of getting back to nature, while for the landowners it helps them get much needed income, and it's a chance to show off their local area, they're often pretty proud of their land and want to share it but without impacting it."