Yestermorrow Design/Build School, in partnership with Spark Makerspace in New London, CT, is preparing to host a course in which students will frame a tiny house. Yestermorrow has offered many tiny house design/build courses in the past, but this is the first time they will coordinate with Spark. Compared to Yestermorrow’s main campus in Waitsfield, VT, the New London location is more convenient to large populations from Boston and New York. This course is also unique because the house will ultimately be donated to a family of Syrian refugees.

You can read about the course and sign up here. It runs July 6 through July 18 in New London, with hands-on building during the day and design studios each evening. It’s not clear from the course description who will finish the house – two weeks is only enough time to complete the rough framing and possibly the roof. Following the course, on July 28-29, New London will host a festival called Tiny Town, illustrating the potential of building a tiny house village in the town center.

I’ll refrain from publishing an opinion on whether the US should welcome refugees and displaced citizens. But I will point out that the existing vetting process (before the travel ban took effect) takes an average of 18-24 months and requires each potential immigrant to pass a biographic review, a security screening, a medical exam, and an in-person interview. (Source: State Department) Is this process good enough? If you think it is, then you will probably enjoy this course.