The LBCC architecture program is working on a project at TTC called the “Mobile Tiny House,” which will offer housing for students in need for $1 per year.
According to Professor Lilliana Castro, the project’s lead, the purpose is to help students who are housing insecurity while providing hands-on experience for students in design and construction courses.
Architecture Professor Lilliana Castro looks at the door of the Tiny House 1 at TTC Building MM on Oct. 30. The LBCC architecture program is working on the Tiny House project to provide low-cost housing for students. (Tien Nguyen)
The Strong Workforce and Perkins grants fund the project; therefore, it belongs to LBCC. The rental cost is only $1 per year for each student, with a lease term likely as long as they study at the school.
To apply, students must be enrolled at LBCC, write a statement of the program they study, the classes they take and why they should be considered as a candidate for the house.
“The project started off with just designing it. So, thinking of it was more focused on fire resistance. We were designing with that in mind, making sure materials were fire-resistant, the building techniques, all of that, like what type of framing, what type of exterior cladding. So we started off with designing, and then, probably a month into designing is when we got the trailer, like just a trailer by itself. And so that’s when we started actually building,” Architecture student Sydney Melendrez Campos said.
Conceived in 2023, Castro’s idea was a solution in response to expensive ADUs in Los Angeles. She wanted “housing for students by students,” which is powered by education instead of profit.
“A lot of students that we get here are already under a lot of stress. They’re already facing these economical marginal differences of ‘I have to go to community college because I can’t get into a university, and I don’t even know where I’m going to live, and rent is going up, and I have to work full time.’ All of these topics really started to educate me on how we solve some of the barriers that we’re facing already,” Castro said.
Castro stated that the houses are custom-designed, custom-built, have passed through inspection by the state of California and can be anchored to land or remain mobile.
They feature cross-ventilation, transom windows, a mini-split system and optional green walls. Residents will have access to manuals and tutorial videos for self-repair and maintenance of the home.
“While Tiny House 1 is very manual in the sense that the windows operate manually, the doors, everything, the skylight is manual, we still have an electric and a tank water heater in the back. Like all of these things are very standard, but a manual process. Tiny House 2 is embarking on a quest of how we combine electrical technology to basically shut out the house if it detects fires, if it detects smoke, almost like a sprinkler system in a building,” Castro said.
The door of the Tiny House 1 opens to a space dedicated to the kitchen and living room. Behind the white wall on the left is the bathroom. The LBCC architecture program is working on the Tiny House project to provide low-cost housing for students. (Tien Nguyen)
The Tiny House 2 in the early stages of building with wood frames and some other materials on the floor at TTC Building MM on Oct. 30. The LBCC architecture program is working on the Tiny House project to provide low-cost housing for students. (Tien Nguyen)
Castro oversees the entire project, from design to construction, and manages the inspectors for each phase and development.
Under her direction, students in ARCHT 71 Design/Build Studio, ARCHT 671 non-credit Design/Build Studio, DSGN 50 Design Materials and Tools and the Architecture and Design Justice Club come together to build the houses.
There are also collaborations with the Electrical Technology and Welding departments “to work on residential scale” and volunteers from USC who were attracted by the project’s uniqueness and wanted to gain more educational and practical experience.
“I learned about the interdisciplinary like nature of collaboration and the fact that we can’t just do it all as our teacher students alone. That’s valuable to build relationships and connections across disciplines that we are able to get involved with the electrical students, the welding students; that otherwise, everyone’s a little, like I said, solid to their own facilities, especially here on this campus, where students may be at LAC for general academic stuff and here for trades,” Architecture Instructional Assistant Kaferman Guan said.
A house typically takes one to two years to complete. Tiny House 1 was started in Spring 2024 and is still in progress, while Tiny House 2 was launched in 2025.
“It’s been very rewarding to kind of see underclassmen go through the same struggle as I have, but come out of it with a more positive experience and really see that there is growth in the struggle and appreciate everything that Castro has been doing for the students… Even though it is challenging at times, once they get through that challenging part, they can see the payoff and see that, oh, the stress is worth it,” Architecture student Silvestre Murillo said.
“Everything we’re designing can be made into reality. And they do see the value in that. And I just think that’s great because when I took the class, we didn’t have any real funding for our projects. A lot of it was coming out of Castro’s pocket. And that was money that she just wasn’t going to get back. And I think now we have, there’s a bit more of a budget, there’s more eyes on the class… My class was only like 8 people and the newer classes are at least 20 students,” Murillo said.
About the future of affordable student housing, Castro said that the solution lies within us “instead of relying on the systems… that have been employed by large organizations because it rarely benefits us at the end of it.”
At the community college level, the Tiny House project gives students real-world skills in sustainable construction and regulatory processes, promotes community building through interdisciplinary teamwork and redefines affordable housing as communal and educational, not profit-driven.
“I think one of the fun facts, personally, is that for me, Long Beach City College is one of the few city colleges that you get this type of education. You don’t, as a four-year. Like, if you go to a four-year university, you don’t get the opportunity to already be building something that someone’s going to live in. So that’s huge… As a senior in college, you might be able to do it, but Long Beach City College has the opportunity for you to do that within the first year, your first semester. And that’s exciting because you’re already getting the hands-on experience that a lot of students don’t even get to, maybe even after they’ve graduated college or university,” Architecture student Karla Barahona said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.