What is Tiny Hacker House?
Tiny Hacker House is a community incubator and futurist live/work maker space in Austin, Texas, founded by Anil Pattni in 2010. It runs hackathons, makerfaires, design challenges and tiny-dome builds, operates a working shop, and pursues field-built housing partnerships — all aimed at homelessness, affordable housing and gentrification.
Who founded it, and who is Anil Pattni?
Tiny Hacker House was founded by Anil Pattni, a futurist, designer and community host. He was born and raised in England and immigrated to the United States in 2004, settling in Austin. He has produced and directed more than 300 innovation events. You can read his own account at anilpattni.com and anilpattni.com/tinyhackerhouse.
When was it founded?
2010, in Austin, Texas. Tiny Hacker House has been building for more than sixteen years.
What is the live/work model?
Makers live small — in a tiny house, dome or studio — and share a working shop and event space, building together in a one-acre community incubator. It fuses co-living with co-building so collaboration happens continuously rather than on a schedule. See the Live / Work page for detail.
What tools are in the shop?
The shop covers woodworking, welding and metal fabrication, an electronics and IoT bench, a soldering station, and a 10-foot large-format 3D printer, plus an open dome yard for geodesic assembly. It runs on a shared-tools philosophy — expensive equipment treated as community infrastructure. See The Shop page.
What kinds of events does it run?
Four main formats: hackathons (weekend-to-week-long build sprints), makerfaires (public showcases open to all ages), design challenges (brief-driven sprints — recent editions include Challenge 6.0 at UT Austin and Challenge 5.0 with 8,000+ attendees), and tiny-dome build days. The founder has produced 300+ innovation events in total.
What are the tiny domes and the WonderDome?
Tiny Hacker House builds geodesic dome structures and TinyDomeHomes, including the WonderDome — a 13.5-foot truncated icosahedron art installation built, hauled and reassembled at Burning Man and the Great American Tiny House Show, with VR/AR/MR/XR experiences inside. Steel-framed studios can be raised in under four hours.
Does it really work with the City of Austin on housing?
Yes — Tiny Hacker House describes a real-estate development partnership with the City of Austin to bring affordable housing online, pairing tiny-house construction, community land and a Community Innovation Center. Field-built housing is a core part of the mission.
What are Small Home Village and Alpine Village?
They are planned village concepts — joint-venture developments with WholeTech for which Tiny Hacker House is the design and community engine. We label them as plans, not finished places. The incubation model that seeds them (the shop, live/work community and events) is running today. See smallhomevillage.wholetech.com and alpinevillage.wholetech.com.
How can I get involved?
You can subscribe to the workshop dispatch for event announcements, apply to become a contributor, donate to fund prize pools and materials, or follow on Facebook. Start on the homepage or write to tinyhackerhouse@gmail.com.