Even houses are on diets these days

Lately I've had skinny houses on the brain. My wife's an architect and we're in the process of getting bids for a renovation of a house we're in the process of buying. The prices are just, er, through the roof, which got me thinking, maybe we should find a small plot of land and build our own house. You can see where this is going now, right? About the only land we could afford in L.A. is about the size of my uncle Irv's toupee. But hey, if we want to live slim, it might be do-able.
Helenita in Madre de Deus, Brazil has been inspiring with her 1-meter wide, 10-meter tall 3-story. (To be fair, it's actually 2 meters wide in the back"¦ look out!)