HOME WORK

Handbuilt Shelter
This unique book of homes, builders,
dwellers, dreamers, and doers is the result of
Lloyd Kahn's thirty-year odyssey shooting
photos and gathering information about
builders around the world. It is also the sequel
to Kahn's best-selling book Shelter, which was
published in 1973.
There are some 1100 photos and over 300
drawings,all illustrating buildings assembled

with human hands.

There's a Japanese-style stilt house

accessible only by going on a cable 500 feet

across a river, a stone house in South Africa
where baboons jump up and down on the roof
at night, multilevel treehouses on the South
China Sea, and a house built of bottles in the
Nevada desert. There are ten pages of photos
from Archilibre (countercultural builders in
the French Pyrenees), a number of off-the-
grid solar-powered houses in the Northern
California woods, and a section on natural
materials: straw bale, cob, bamboo, and
log structures.
One section is on photographers who have
documented handbuilt shelters of indigenous
people in Africa, Asia, and South America.
Another portion is devoted to "fantasy"
buildings, such as artist Michael Kahn's
semi-subterranean sculptural village of
ferro-cement and stained glass in the
Arizona desert, and the Flying Concrete
lightweight curvilinear buildings on the
outskirts of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.
There are photos from Kahn's trips over the
years: houses, barns, and small buildings in
Mississippi, Nova Scotia, Nevada, Costa Rica,
and Baja California.
"On the Road" documents life on the road:
housetrucks and housebuses, camper shells,
and tents, as well as John Stiles and his trip
across America with two covered wagons
pulled by 14 donkeys. "Living Lightly" covers
lightweight nomadic living in America in
yurts, tents, and tipis, as well as Native
American dwellings.
Home Work continues the journey that
started with Shelter, and is the first in Shelter
Publications' new series of books about
handmade buildings.

Shelter Publications

www.shelterpub.com
 ~~~1 —
' 7 J

''

£•

^
!
Copyright © 2004 by Lloyd Kahn
All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording,
computer scanning, or any information and retrieval system
without the written permission of the publisher.

Distributed in the United States by Publishers Group West

and in Canada by Publishers Group Canada.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kahn, Lloyd, 1935-

Home work handbuilt housing / by Lloyd Kahn.
:

p. cm.
Sequel to Shelter. 1973.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-936070-33-9 (trade paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-936070-33-1 (trade paperback)
1. — Pictorial works. House construction.
Dwellings 2.
3. — Design and construction — Amateurs'
Dwellings
manuals. Architects and builders — Interviews.
4.
5.Dwellings — Pictorial works. Architecture, Domestic.
6.
7.Vernacular architecture. I. Title.
TH4815 .K34 2004
690.837 — dc22
2003018478
9 8 7 6 — 11 10 09 08

(Lowest digits indicate number and year of latest printing.)

Printed in China

Shelter Publications, Inc.

P.O. Box 279
Bolinas, California 94924
415-868-0280
Email: homework@shelterpub.com
Orders, toll-free: 1-800-307-0131

Visit Our Website

Shelter Online
www.shelterpub.com
Shelter is more than a roof overhead.
 STENTS

Natural Materials 73
Bill & Athena Steen 74
Builders 1 Catherine Wanek 82
Mud Dancing 84
Louie Frazier 2 Family Homestead 86
Ian MacLeod 10 Kelly & Rosana Hart 88
Bill Castle 16 Bamboo — Oscar Hidalgo 90
John Silverio 22 Rand & Cookie Loftness 94
Paul Nonnast 23
John Welles 24
ie & Andrea Raddocia 26
Bill Coperthwaite 28

Photographers 97
Yoshio Komatsu 98

Homes 31
Kevin Kelly
Hans Joachim Kurtz
106
112
Jack Williams 32 W.E.Garrett 116
Kate Todd 34 Robert Barab 118
Susan Lewis 36 Clay Perry 119
John Fox 37 Dr. Mehmet Hengirmen 120
On the Beach 38
The New Settlers of New Mexico 40
Funky 42
Archilibre 44
House on the Rocks 52
Home Power Magazine 54
Cabana en Espana 56
Cabin in Tennessee 57
Joanne's House 58
The House that Renee Built 59
Color in the Carribean 60
Fantasy 121
San Francisco Bay Area Color 62 Michael Kahn 122
California Kitchens 64 Ma Page 130
Small Building Designs 66 Flying Concrete 134
Tiny Houses 70 Timolandia 136
Bobolink 72 Tropical Treehouses 141
 .

Trips 143 Barns 199

On the River 144 Barns of Washington 200
Nova Scotia 146 California Farm Buildings 202
Utah & Nevada 152 Round Barns 204
Costa Rica 158 Cowboy Cathedral 205
Deep in the Heart of Baja 162 Keeping the Trade Alive 208
Cowboy Poetry Festival 172 Gambrel Barn 212

On the Road 173 Old Buildings 213

Donkey Train Across America 174 Stone Structures of Northern Italy 214
On the Road 176 Nepal-Everest 1996 216
Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings 218
Hungarian Open-Air Museum 219
Open Timber Roofs 220
William Cooper, Ltd. 222
Buildings of the Old West 224

Moreover... 226

Books 233

Appendix 241
About the Author
Living Lightly 185
Credits
Perpetual Camping 186 And Finally . .

Mongolian Cloud Houses 188

Less Is More 190
Native American Shelter 194
Native American Builders 196
Tipis 198
INTRODUCTION

In THE SUMMER OF 1973, Bob Easton and I result, a summary of what I've found over three fascinating, and I've tried to keep this layman's
produced the book Shelter. Itwas an oversized decades, and is a sequel to Shelter. It's also a perspective in gathering information for other
compendium of buildings and builders around sequel in another sense. By a neat twist of karma, owner-builders.
the world and throughout history, containing it includes a number of people who were inspired Concurrently with learning to build, I started
over 1000 photographs and 250 drawings. It by Shelter to build homes, and whose lives were shooting photos of buildings. I took along
was about doing things for yourself, and doing changed accordingly. Over the years, a surprising cameras and a notebook wherever I travelled, and
so efficiently, ecologically, and artistically. It number of people have told us that it inspired documented small buildings. Invariably the places
featured people who had created handbuilt them to build something; it gave them the that appealed to me most turned out to be owner-
homes, and included buildings not seen anywhere courage to get started. built. What was I looking for, what caught my
else. The book had a feeling of home, hearth, and It may be obvious that a thread of the '60s eye? Handmade buildings that did one or more of
ingenuity that seemed to capture the spirit of the runs through Home Work. Many of these people the following:
times. It was picked up by the countercultural were motivated by what happened in the '60s. (I

underground, became a hit, and is still in print, • showed good craftsmanship

certainly was!) In the spirit of the times, they
some 250,000 copies later. went out and built homes, and they were success- • were practical, simple, economical, useful

ful —here was a part of the '60s that worked. I • used resources efficiently
started building in the '60s because needed a I
• were tuned into the landscape
been thirty years since Shelter, and although
It's place to live and could never find a charming old
our publishing company has gone on to other house to buy. I guess it was my fate; if wanted a I
• were aesthetically pleasing, radiated
projects and subjects since, I've stayed interested good-feeling home I'd have to create it myself.
good vibes
in building — shooting photos and interviewing Over the years, I homes, always
built four • showed integrity in design and execution
builders wherever I've travelled, and collecting learning on the job, found the process of
I
• (and/or) were wildly creative
books and data on building. Home Work is the building, and the way things were put together,
 Dry rock wall (no mortar),
Wales, 1987

Home Work is not comprehensive in geography — What if you home? Even if that's not
can't build a family of builders, a bunch of people around the
heavy on the West Coast, where we live. Nor
it's in the cards, you can use the ideas (and spirit) world withcommon interests. They're alike in
does it cover all builders, building techniques, or here to remodel (or decorate) an apartment, to many ways, and they're tuned into many of the
materials. It's country, not city. We haven't tried build a studio, barn, treehouse, workshop, same things. Getting them all together in this
to cover everything and everyone. It's rather what window box, sauna, furniture —
to create some- book allows me to share my discoveries, to show
I'verun across over the years, a diverse bunch of thing with your own hands, with your own body. you their work (and to take care of what's become
buildings, all assembled with human hands. a compulsion to communicate). Hey, Look at what
It's funny —
we live in a world powerfully these guys have done!
transformed by a number of factors, primarily the There was no master plan in assembling this
digital revolution, yet houses must still be created book. We had a ton of accumulated material —
by hand — your computer's not going to do it for photos, interviews, writing — but no idea what So, dear reader, come join us on another Shelter
you. We hope Home Work will motivate you, will the final result would be. So we just started. We journey, an odyssey (in retrospect) of the last
give you the confidence that you can build put it together a page at a time, a day at a time. As thirty years, in this scrapbook of builders, dreamers,
something if you work at it. A tip: If you're not we went book took on a life of its own.
along, the and doers — a celebration of the human spirit.

sure what to do, start! A bunch of this material came in while we were in
production, and the book continually changed Shelter is more than a roof overhead.
"You never know what's shakin' form. After about a year, Home Work seemed to
until you give it a shake." have shaped itself —
an organic process of sorts.
-Johnny Adams, Now that it's gone off to the printers, and as
I'm writing this, I realize that, along with
blues singer
whatever else Home Work is, there is within it a
BUILDERS

Master roofer
Stan Thomas
mu»);rea

Interior of shop (looking

through doors shown above).
Structure was inspired by
the painting of a Mandan
earth lodge in Shelter (at
right). This is a classic
framing structure, with
interior posts and beams
providing mid-way support
for rafters that span from
lower exterior walls.
Skylight has two layers of
fiberglass: corrugated on
outside, flat fiberglass on
inside so there's an airspace
and good insulation.

Crystal at top of mast catches morning i Mandan earth lodge, 1833, as painted by Karl Bodmer
 LOUIE FRAZIER

In the mid-'80s went up I to the northern

California coast to shoot pictures of a house
my ex-Bolinas neighbor Jack Williams had
built (see p. 32). Jack was a surfer/fisherman/
gardener who had had the foresight to get a
39-acre piece of land in Mendocino County
in the early '80s. He had built a house and
homestead on forested land.
After shot photographs in the morning,
I

Jack said he had a neighbor who wanted to

meet me, who had used our book Shelter in
we drove through hills,
building his place, so
then down a winding hillside road into a river-
bottom valley. At the end of the road was one
of the prettiest little buildings I'd ever seen.
Everything about it was right, the curves, the
white plastered walls with shingled roof, the
copper and crystal mast. We walked up to the
open doors of the shop, and a 60-year-old guy,
with a handmade hat and a twinkle in his eye
came out, a tattered copy of Shelter in his
hand. "Look," he said beckoning me to squat
down with him in the doorway to his shop. He
opened the book to the painting of a Mandan
earth lodge, and had me look up at the
framing of his shop . . . identical!
The quality of Louie's construction was
astounding. Everything was beautifully
designed, and immaculately carried out. It

was all tuned in, thought out, crafted finely.

This wasn't Fine Homebuilding. This wasn't
fussy craftsmanship for millionaires. It was a
rare combination of owner-builder-designer-
master craftsman, all to a human and livable
scale. There was no excess, no fat. This guy
made everything: house and shop, chairs and
stools, garden cart, cabinets, wood-fired water
heaters, hydroelectric system, photovoltaic
electricity; he was not only a master carpenter
but an arc welder and could figure out how to
construct just about anything. He was in the
midst of building a beautiful wind-powered
fishing boat with his buddy Pete.
Well, that was his shop. And his house? On
the other side of the river, and also inspired
by a drawing was a Japanese-style
in Shelter,
pole house. To get to ityou hadin the winter,
to ride a bosun's chair across the river on a
Interior of small circular studio (at right in picture above)
500-foot cable (see p. 8). Top: Louie holding a glass of his
attached to shop. Compression ring at peak is '39 Chevy
It was seeing Louie's shop that inspired this
homemade Cabernet
truck wheel rim, rafters nest in the groove of the rim.
book. If Shelter could inspire buildings like Middle: Desk in shop
Sheathing is two layers of 'A" plywood (Vi" couldn 't make
the curves). these, we had better do another book! On Bottom: Bedroom in shop before it was
converted to studio
these eight pages are some of Louie's creations.
UILDERS: Frazier

»'
fru

'4*i

*b*^i

V
BB^ P^H
^W
*
I •
" 1

\ 1* t^Jb
1
jt y J/
li M
"J/
#fl

ST

Framing shop roof. No floor yet. Walls are covered with foam insulation on outside. Dark
vertical and horizontal lines indicate structural gridof building, with four Vi" bars of steel.
(Insulation is flush with exterior of grid.) See drawings below for details.

"Clothespins" in place, holding

form to previously poured course.
Foam insulation was then placed
inside the form, on the outside of
the building before pouring. Each
course was 12" high, 8" wide, and
8' long, with two bars of 'A" steel.
Concrete mixed in gas mixer.

"Large clothespin," used Bond beam being poured. Note how plywood "large
to hold form in place clothespin" slips over previously poured layers.
 Roof covered with redwood shakes, Louie and Rufus framing the skylight
Louie's daughter Carrie putting
spacers in foundation forms

There's a continuous bond beam with four bars of 'A" steel on the top
of
the wall. Rafters were toenailed to treated 2-by-12's embedded in the
bond beam. Concrete was then poured between the rafters.

->%C SLE5P£°-
ebwDBfcCVA 4 BOSS,

yz'
a\b. -sp*c£
-
^S <bTuC£D~T\£b"tt>

opttW. -seCPcU - v.\/*j_J-

Shop shown from other side. Studio windows at left

 .

BUILDERS: Frazier

Interior of shop, showing work benches. Stove made from

50-gaIIon oil drum with cast-iron barrel stove kit.

SHOP TALK
Any builder would love Louie's shop. It's practical, but also
bright, cheerful,and aesthetic. Lots of workbench space,
an arc-welding setup, elegant old wooden-wheeled band
saw, small kitchen, round bedroom attached, CD player,
coffee, tequila . .

Stool legs made of a quartered

fir sapling, stool legs arranged
in thesame orientation as
when was split (see
sapling
drawing). Seat is piece of foam
rubber, covered by piece of old
Oriental carpet. Steel strap
holds legs together at bottom.

up at Pete at the other end and said, "Are we rolling, Bob?"

"The easy way is hard enough.'

-Sign in
Louie's shop
 The Roy Fox under construction

"My friend Pete and I lost our minds one day and

decided to build a boat." They got plans for $2 from the

Smithsonian Institute for a 'Crotch Island Pinky,' a sturdy
little sailing fishing boat from the East Coast, and embarked
on a five-year (unexpectedly long
and expensive)
odyssey. Framing white oak; planking (lapstrake) is
is

old-growth clear Douglas fir attached with copper rivets.

Deck is teak over marine plywood. Right now Louie is
building a cabin and plans to sell the boat. It's designed
to use stones for ballast, which can be jettisoned when
the boat is loaded with fish. It can get into waters as
shallow as two feet. (In case you wondered, Louie and
Pete are still good friends.)

www.royfox.com

s ^

The Roy Fox under sail in Sausalito, California

A model of Roy
Fox with new
cabin, under
construction

After losing two saunas to high river water, Louie built this one on a one-ton
Toyota truck
frame. A pickup truck plus a few people haul it back from the river in the winter, with
Donna steering the front wheels from inside the sauna. Woodstove built from 50-gallon
drum gets fed from outside (on other side). To cool off, you dive into cool, green water.
When I visitLouie, I usually arrive at night and sleep out by the river. Then he shows
up
at sunrise and we take a sauna. The last time we saw a family of river otters swim through
the pool and scuttle over the shallows— they didn't see us inside.
 — mm ^RB '

HE -. ' *(J»i"*
J ;
;K»*.li>r
-

BUILDERS: Frazier
wr s,

You COULD GET to

little
Louie's house across a
bridge in the summer. But in the winter %
!# tJgBU
when the river was high, you got there on a
-
~
-
;v
To demonstrate, we
cable over the river.
climbed up a steep flight of stairs to a
about 25 feet off the ground. Louie hooked up
platform
'

m- tllS'^irti^r

a chair, had me sit in it and said to let go.

After a first reaction of "no way!," I finally „ ;._
(shakingly) got rolling. It was fabulous. It felt

safeand I zinged 500 feet across the river and

iuJT
came into a landing platform. (To get back you
Pole house on 24 8"-by-8" redwood posts set in ground. Floor of house and decks are 2-hy-4's on edge.
unhook the chair, climb up to another tower Walls are redwood 2-by-10's that slide into slots cut by chainsaw in the 8"-by-8" posts. Rafters are
platform and go back on another cable.) curved and there's a wide overhang.

^mH
IHH^HHH^^^^^H
Wood is stacked on deck because
the house is in a flood plain.

SCHEMATIC CROSS-SECTION
(NO SCALE.)
portable cable chairs.
are carried up toyyerca)
or [b1 and secured to cable,
gravity supplies the.
energy to cross river.

Louie sitting at base Bosun's chair hung from snatch View looking down from platform
of tower for cable block, with wooden brake shoe. before you take off. Ulp!
crossing of river Snatch block locks in place on
(the only way to get cable with shackle pin. Louie coming across river
across in winter)
Louie's house is a success story of the
'60s, owner-designed and built. It's an
off-the-grid house, but with amenities.
Hot water comes from a coil in the
woodstove in winter, from solar heat in

summer. In the '80s Louie installed a

solar-powered electric system and in the
'90s, hydroelectric power (as well as a
DirectTV satellite dish).

All poles spaced 7' on center each way.

Shaded area: sleeping lofts with
catwalk connecting. Sleeping loft. Rafters are 2-by-12's cut to curved shape with chainsaw.

Kitchen is on left, with ladder to sleeping lofts at right.

Black and white photos: Janet Holden Ramos

:i.im.)a:Ki

BALLY HIGH
Ian MacLeod and His
House of Stone in South Africa

/would like to think that

Frank Lloyd Wright would
have approved. I tried to
In 1987 I GOT a blue aerogram from South Africa. It was from make my house
Ian MacLeod, a South African of Scottish descent who had sympathetic to its
singlehandedly built a stone house on a rocky hillside near surroundings — blending
in with the hillside, both in
Warm Baths, S. A. Ian said he'd been inspired by Shelter (as color and shape.
well as Frank Lloyd Wright and Simon Rodia) and did I want to
see pictures of his house?
In the following years, Ian sent us photos and the story of
his building project, wanting to share his adventures with
other like-minded people. It was a beautiful house, of local
materials, and designed with respect for the earth. It was
obvious from his letters that Ian was full of energy, had a sense
of humor, and a zest for life (as well as a strong back!). The
house was on land owned by a naturist resort, so Ian worked
in the nude; the house was so much part of the landscape that
inquisitive baboons from across the valley frequently came
and jumped up and down on his roof; visitors dropped by to
see his creation, and magazines wrote stories about Ian and
"The Clan of the Caveman."
Ian and I have been corresponding for almost 15 years now,
via letters and the occasional phone call. We share an interest
in the art of putting a roof over one's own head. Ian, like Louie
Frazier (see pp. 2-9), one of the great inspirations for this
is

book. His spirit, strength, and creativity shine through in his

work. Through the years he's kept after me to do Home Work,
through all the delays and postponements. (I don't think he'll
believe this book ever got off the ground until he holds it in What a pleasure to labor with the warmth of the sun on one's back — to feel the
cool breeze coping with the good, honest sweat of physical effort, with no sweaty
his hands.) So here's Home Work, Ian; we got it done after all.
clothing to worry about — and then, at the end of the day, to stand back and enjoy
And here's Ian's great adventure, folks, told in his own words: and appreciate what has been accomplished.

10
 Stones for Africa! And they were all harvested from the surrounding
hillside, where they had been waiting for millions of years to be re-
assembled into providing some sort of shelter.

This is living! A man and his dog inside a home created from organic, "real" materials —
wood and stone, products of mother earth: not man-made plastics, artificial fibers, and
synthetics! (Yuk!) The large rock that I am sitting on in the doorway is the very first rock
levered into place when I commenced building in December 1980. 1 had no drawings or
plans to follow, no rules or inhibiting regulations to adhere to.

Keeping fit! I declined the offer to have a roadway bulldozed onto the site — Pausing to listen to the bark of a distant baboon on the other
preferring instead, to carry all building materials up the hill. This included water
(prior to the installation of a pump).
side of the valley —
(Note the 2-liter Coke bottles: four of
them, two in each hand, were carried up the hill for the
cement mix. Fortunately, I now pump the water up the hill to
a storage tank from where it "gravity feeds" back down to
the house.)
11 more..
 — —
5UILDERS: MacLeod

Excerpts from lan's Letters

I BUILT MYSELF a simple stone house here on the side of a
steep hill overlooking the naturist resort of Beau Valley . . .

Thank You! complimentary remarks about my stone

for your
house. It would be great if it was featured in a future edition
of Shelter, possibly bringing me into contact with other
builders of unconventional houses throughout the world . . .

Not having been restricted by any plans or drawings on

paper, I have had a free rein to "feel it" as I went along
which is the best way, of course, for the expression of ideas as
they come along. The end result is far more rewarding than I
had hoped for.

Visitors who climbed the hill to see what was going on used
to say they thought was mad to be building in such an
I

inaccessible place. "You're crazy!" they said. "Yeah, I guess so,"

I replied — "Stone crazy!"
Work on my stone house continues . . . the latest addition
being a fully insulated, cantilevered bathroom with the bath
set into the floor alongside a large picture window with a
great view out over the valley below.

. the studio which I intend to build will be behind the house,

. .

in amongst the trees. More importantly perhaps, it will provide

me with an on-going project for the next few years don't — I

really want to come to the end of this to-date, 14-year

project! ( I am in awe of Simon Rodia's 33 years of involve-
ment with his Watts Towers which he singlehandedly
created.) . . .

Incidentally, fly-screen gauze, and not

glass, was used to
cover the window spaces. End
an economical result,
solution —
which also allowed the house to "breathe." Kitchen viewed from passageway, as shown in bottom photograph, i.e., reverse angle.
Furthermore, baboons leaning against the wire gauze merely (Note: View of distant hills through kitchen windows unfortunately "burnt out" in photo.)
caused it to bulge here and there, without causing any real
damage. (Glass would have broken.)

The great master builder, Frank Lloyd Wright, once said that
it seemed to him that no one who had any love for landscape

could ever impose a rectilinear, geometric pattern upon the

face of the earth, as such a pattern was fundamentally alien I (finally) . . . conceded that having
to nature. Bearing this in mind, the shapes, sizes, and colors electricity"made sense" and laid —
a long length of heavy cable
that I incorporated as I went along with the creation of my
(concealed) down the hillside. This
simple stone dwelling were influenced by the thoughts of this enabled me to listen to some good
organic architect. music whilst relaxing in the
bathtub. Also, my guests got a
(Ian commenting on one of the many magazine articles written chunk of ice in their sun-downer
about him): As you can see, they too, liked the idea of my drinks out on the front deck. (They
living alone with the baboons (and leopards!) "searching — then forgave me for the electricity!)

for a
—
mate " they said. Okay, that's true enough, for I wish I

had found the right gal to share my life, and my cave, with . . .

but I don't go around searching she'll come along one day(?).

. . .

Or will she?! This was the heaviest object carried

up thehill —
a hollowed-out chunk of
Re-reading Shelter for the umpteenth time is a constant granite, once used by Zulus when they
source of inspiration and pleasure "jam-packed with ideas," — ground their maize (corn) by hand,
using a rounded stone in the laborious
as they say great stuff.
process. It had been given to me as

<£ ORIGINAL SHAPE. wm wrm®UL -j a gift years before, and found its
final resting place high on the hill
alongside a shrub near the top of the
stairway leading to "Bally High!"

»**

Wear and tear on 8" trowel Overyears, reduced to less

than half its original size.

12
 A pause while I ponder my
next move: Big game hunters
do the leg-up hit with their
prized trophy, rifle alongside
— this "big-un" was a meaty
challenge for a 60-year-old
equipped with shovel, a lever-
bar, and lots of
determination. The rock now
rests usefully at the entrance
to my studio (as shown in
photo below, up 12 more
steps!).

Ican step out of my newly constructed studio and onto the roof of the dwelling
below. This photo: taken early October — new leaves on the trees and shrubs. As
you can see, I'm usually bare-foot (and bare-bum) —
I enjoy the feel of mother

earth beneath my skin. Shoes or boots have been avoided ever since I started
building . oops, apart from a few stubbed toes, no injuries to date, thankfully.
. .

Above and below: My hill-hugging studio, dug into the rocky hillside behind the
house proper. The oval-shaped room commanded a splendid panoramic vista over
the Valley through the stepped windows, which were covered with fly-screen
When my baboon neighbors paid me a
netting, thus allowing the free flow of air.
not only did the troop test the strength of my roof, but they had a habit of
visit,

sittingon the window ledges, often leaning against the fine wire netting, which
withstood the pressure better than glass would have. The heavier-than-preferred
fascia-board was eventually textured and painted a sandstone color. I built a
rough stable door at the entrance.

Early view of my kitchen, but not of the splendid vista across

the valley below. Recessed into the rear stone wall, a small
electric fridge. The two-seater table alongside secured to the
wall, and supported by a single stout pole in the middle.
(Photo, Barry Comber)

This sketch illustrates the ail-too- familiar scene

. my
. .

neighbors making themselves at home, the old chap, alpha-

male, posting himself as lookout atop the chimney. Baboons
have one of the loudest "sound-boxes" in the animal
kingdom. Their "ba-hoo!" bark, as they effortlessly scramble
up and down the sheer rock faces, echoes across the valley,
and for me, epitomizes "Africa."

13
JUILDERS: MacLeod

As viewed through a telephoto lens from across the valley . . the result of hard labor: plenty-plenty Home Work! When I began putting the first few stones together,
.

visitors who climbed up the hill said, "Jeez, I think you are crazy! "Now when they visit, they say "Gee, aren't you lucky!" I explain to them that the difference between
being crazy and being lucky is 13 years of hard work — of sticking with it
. . and I tell them to ponder on that wonderful Japanese proverb which says that a journey of
.

a thousand miles began with a single step.

In the bathroom,
shower has been simply
a
BALLY HIGH
constructed. At the bottom
of a series of perfectly shaped
stone steps lies an enclosure
where one can shower in
total privacy, with solid earthy
rocks enshrouding your
pleasurable experience. The
basin has a tap that runs water,
through gravity, into bowl-
shaped rocks. The bathroom
faces an immaculate scene
which has a touch of sensual-
ity about it. While bathing
you are able to watch wildlife
in its most natural form."
-Home and Garden

An additional feature of the

home is a rock paddling pool
set in and amongst the Up to roof height over the shower area — w
the dry winter months when no rain falls.
endless wilderness. On hot
summer nights you can slowly
unwind in the comfort of cool
The sunken shower that I built — steps leading down to it
at the side of the tree-stump towel "rack," flat rocks formed
water. The art studio over- the wash hand-basin — a suitably curved stone set in the
wall, my soap dish. Green ferns sprouted from in between the
whelms with inspiration with
chunky stonework. From above, two separate sprays
an immense view of the sur- delivered hot or cold water, depending on which length of
rounding mountains that can cord you pulled — (hot water came from coil of black plastic

be seen from the artist's seat.

piping on rooftop). A skylight allowed natural lighting —
diffused and softened by having painted the glass canopy
-Home and Garden white on the underside.

14
 Lloyd, have you ever heard heard ofSkara Brae on the Orkney Islands off the
top of Scotland? No? It's a Neolithic settlement in a good state of preservation
dating back some 3000 years B. C.l A cluster of stone dwellings revealing their
way of life all those years ago
. .I visited the site in 1984.
. . . .

1987, on the west coast of Scotland, at the entrance to a neolithic "Broch."

The low entrance was to ensure that anyone entering would be vulnerable
to "instant dispatch" should they be unwelcome. These fine examples of
stonework dating back thousands of years, have been an inspiration as —
well as being a humbling experience. Needless to say, I have often wondered
whether or not my own stone creation will still be standing in 2000 years'
time — or merely a pile of rubble!

<*i y\tr"

At a traditional "Black House" on the Isle

ofSkye, land of my ancestors. The Black
House gained its name due to the smoke-
dark interior, where a peat fire
filled
burned continuously. Note the stone
weights hanging from the thatch a —
precaution against gale-force winds.

This photograph taken at the Royal

rj
Scottish Gathering inJohannesburg
some years ago. The young pipeband
members wanted to pose with the replica
Claymore sword and targe I had made.

"Gathering of the clans" — well, clan shields, anyway. This is my collection of

targes —in Gaelic, a targaid. They were used by Highland clansmen in battle,
carried on the left arm by means of leather straps.

Epilog
The land on which Ian built was sold in 1998,
and he had to abandon the house. Since then
he's been living at a friend's house, and
looking for his next adventure.

BnLLi
pjgt(&'vW>»-*P

15
All materials for the building are from the land. The main logs are red pine;
purlins (on top of roof beams) are maple. Everything is pegged together with ash

dowels. The porch cantilevers out 10 feet. The wine cellar is underneath.

Rocking chair made by a friend

of Bill's, framed with willow;
seat, rockers, and back are oak.
 POLLYWOGG
HOLLER WORLD
HEADQUARTERS
Bill and Barb Castle

On a trip to Costa Rica in 1990, 1 am driving down a About six months later I go to the American Booksellers
dark road south of Puerto Viejo (on the Caribbean coast) Convention in NYC, and afterwards get on a plane to
one night, looking for a place to stay, and see a hand- Buffalo, where Bill picks me up at the airport.
lettered sign in a clearing saying "Bed & Breakfast." I go When we get to Bill's property, we park by a
down a dirt road to a fence, park and walk up to a building studio/workshop building that is hooked up to electric
where a bunch of people are sitting around a table by lines. It's Bill's office, workshop, and son Mick's photo lab.

lantern-light, talking and drinking beer. To get to the house we walk down a graceful path a half-
Hosts are Bill and Barb Castle, from the Alleghany mile through the leafy woods. Here and there are sculp-
Mountains in southeast New York State, and they had tures, a hand-hewn lovers' bench, finally a bridge going

rented ten acres of Caribbean beachfront land on the edge across a creek. There's a stunning log building on the side
of the jungle to run their B&B and to explore Costa Rica. of a hill, looking down on Next to the house is
a pond.
Bill and I hit it off from the start. He's an ex-general a perfect little sauna building, like something you might

I" contractor who had specialized in heavy construction — have seen 100 years ago in Norway or Russia, crafted by a
a genuine builder. He has energy, a sense of humor, and a man with an axe. Bill is one of the builders that I consider
sense of adventure. The room we are in that night turns at the heart of this book. They are guys that are doing such

out to be the kitchen, the bottom story, with a (packed) unique work that I have wanted, for a long time, to tell

dirt floor, of a two-story pole structure that Bill had put people about them.
up in two days, with help from Barb and his son Quentin. and Barb run a very together and very rural bed and
Bill

There are four corner poles, the ground level kitchen, and breakfastfacility. Barb makes healthy, tasty food on a

a sleeping loft you reach by a ladder. The loft is Bill and woodstove, Bill serves his own champagne (they make a
Barb's bedroom, with open walls to catch the ocean few hundred bottles a year). Guests use the wood-fired
breezes and a roof thatched with palm fronds from nearby sauna, then sleep in a cozy loft on the sauna building's
trees. The little building is competent, practical, made of second floor (with balcony deck outside). There's a 20'-

local materials, tuned into the climate, and it works. deep artesian well lined with bricks.
Naturally Bill and I talk about building. He shows me a I sleep on the deck of the house; it's like sleeping in the
picture of the log home he had built in the Alleghanies. woods, but better. The bed is comfortable, with homey
Wow! Now here is a log cabin. decide right there I'll visit
I blankets, the trees fragrant. I like this place!

the Castle compound (Pollywogg Holler) before long.

BUILDERS: Castle

The sauna is about 1 00 feet from the house. Upper level is the bedroom for weekend visitors.

JLhe next day Barb's friend Brandi comes over

and they do their own aerobics class out by the
pond to an exercise tape. Barb's a modern woman,
but with the skills and strength of a homesteader.
There are pictures of her shoveling concrete and
handling logs when the place was under construc-
tion. "She mixed 90% of the mortar," says Bill. This
is a dynamite duo. A couple arrive to stay for the

night, and we hang out, walk in the woods; I shoot

lots of photos. The camera loves it here! That
afternoon, Bill is bottling champagne in the open-
air cellar. Which is where we all gravitate to. We

sample . .and sample

. hey, this is the good
. . .

part of booze. Bacchus smiles on us that day.

On these pages is the story of the Castle family
and the charming, tuned-in retreat they have
created in the Alleghany woods.
Pollywogg Holler is now a fairly well-known
eco-resort. People hike to the house, enjoy Barb's
home-cooked meals and Bill's champagne, take
'I

saunas, relax, meditate, and wander around through

Entrance porch to building from the view shown above trails in the woods. Nearby are horse rentals, swim-

ming in the summer, and downhill and cross-country

skiing in the winter. For info, call 800-291-9668.

18
 Door to sauna, where
Bill has carved "Bathe
Often, Never Hurry"
— inspired by a
Grateful Dead poster

Interior of sauna, with weekend visitor looking down from bedroom. Door sh
goes into "Hot Room." Wood fireplace on left.

Rustic guest shed in the woods

1, 4ltiri^W**r^Mmr'

^^^^^^vSB3fc; '
^
Be
A%*
K «r JkI HI 7

Above and left: Details Bill has carved on log ends of sauna building

$|li> www.pollywoggholler.i
Outhouse

19
BUILDERS: Castle

r £".- '\ _ ~
a^p™~JH|
I
W%S| '#".
1
^iflH

mJJP^E
Sfn*' __i

Kitchen,
un
and Barb preparing the evening's
meal on wood cookstove

Bill and Barb Castle bought their land in 1976, 25 acres

in the Allegheny Mountains bordered by state land, with a
small stream running through it.
Bill: "It was the centennial year, and I liked that, the spirit

of independence. I was also reading stuff like the Mother Earth

News, about people building their own houses in the woods."
The Mickey (14),
Castle family, including their three kids,
Debbie (12 ), and Quentin (9), started work on the property
on weekends. The building site they chose was about a mile
from the nearest road. "We dedicated all our spare time to
the place for about two years."
Building in the '70s

Bill and Quentin hauling a purlin into

place with gin pole

Barb levering log onto wagon. Note the First log notched, ready to be
mud. "It seemed like it rained every rolled back over onto sill log
weekend that summer."

Quentin (9) turning crank on gin pole Bill leveling off top of purlin

Bill made a deal with the state to cut logs for the house
on adjacent forest land. "We'd go in and mark the trees;
they were red pine. 90 trees cost me about $45 total. I cut
'em, skidded them out to the edge and took the bark off.
The longest was 35'. I had a little old (1953) Allis Chalmers
model C 18-horse tractor."
They built the foundation out of large rocks, some
"'"' At work with adze
weighing a half-ton each. Bill's heavy construction experience A friend at work
came in handy. "I know how to move big things." Bill con-
^
structed a gin pole to move the logs into place; the heaviest
was about 1400 pounds. "I'd roll a log into place and mark *s fJPI
it; then I'd roll it back 180° and work on the surface. I cut 4 '-4/*i'fifc5i ^*^^"/T8 "The '60s happened
the notches by eye." Once they got the walls up, Bill wasn't IBM in the '70s . .
."
sure how to frame the roof. "I kept thinkin' about was it. I
ft*
goin' over two or three things in my mind and one Sunday
we went
and
to church. I was settin' there looking

here's this magnificent scissors truss. I

at the ceiling
couldn't wait to
^^ /
get outta there." He hurried home and got started on the
roof that Sunday. "I put a pole at either end of the building

and stretched a string across. Then I built a scaffold and

brought the peak of each truss up to that height."
Bill used a Homelite 150 chain saw (no electricity at the Bill shown at left, building his brick-
lined well. Note spiral of projecting
site, so no motor-driven tools) for the cuts. Also a little
bricks, which Bill set in place so as to
coopers adze he got at an auction ("my favorite tool"). No have a stairway going down the well.
nails were used in the log framing. Bill cut pieces of ash in
the woods and split out the dowels. (They're called
trunnels, a word derived from "tree nails.")
After the trusses were in place, Bill pegged the maple
purlins in place (see construction photos above). Then he
flattened the tops of each purlin with a chain saw and an
Below left and below: In later years, Bill
Alaskan mill attachment. 1" x 10" boards were nailed onto framed a roof over the well, which he
the purlins, then a layer of thick 10-mil black polyethylene and friends thatched with straw.

on top of then another layer of boards on top of the

that,
poly, nailed only at the peak and ends (so there were no
holes in the poly). Then pieces of rustic slab wood over
that, and they had a watertight roof.
For the cracks between the logs in the walls, Bill used
thin (2 Vi") strips of metal mesh (attached with galvanized
nails), plastered with mortar —
on the inside and outside —
with fiberglass insulation in between. Barb mixed all the
mortar in a wheelbarrow with a hoe.
For flooring they tore down an
old silo, and used the
clear cypress tongue-and-groove boards.
In 1980 they moved in, and have lived there ever since.
"I built the place as a hunting cabin. I never dreamed we'd
be livin' in it."

21
SEARCH FOR around it. Lacking the deadness of concrete or the
reflectiveness of metals, such architecture
actually breathes and merges with the whole
RADIANCE vibrance of life.

Forces Molding Form One of the keys to

John Silverio understanding how radiance manifests, either in
John Silverio is an architect who designed and lives in this lovely a person or in architecture, is to visualize the

radial-patterned house in Maine. He was influenced by Norwegian human body or the walls of buildings as hollow
shells. These shells become enlivened as the
stave churches and inspired by his concept of ".
. . designing radiant
forms according to spiritual principles." Shown at right is a quilt forces of life, within and without, move through

by Susan Silverio that shows square spiraling, as do the three floor plans them. When a great deal of spiritual energy
of the house above it. Below are excerpts from a paper by John titled: moves through a shell, it is not only alive but
A Search for Radiance: An Architect's Credo. radiant with life.

With architecture there are two primary

Ideas about how form takes on radiance lead All transforming processes such as aging, directions of forces, the outgoing/expanding and
us to ask how the materials used in construction heating, and shaping should be kept to a the incoming/contracting. The outgoing/expand-
affect the quality of radiance. To maximize the minimum. If transforming processes are complex, ing forces push out on the shell and produce
flow of energy through the shell of a building, as such as conversion of raw materials into plastics, bulges in the form. These outgoing/expanding
through a natural body, the shell should be made the end products no longer reveal their sources. forces are the occupants, their possessions, their
from natural materials which are harmonious What we see in nature does not prepare us to look actions or movements,
their thoughts and even
with the environment. The reds of bricks and at surfaces and comprehend materials which are These are expressions emitted
their prayers.
grays of stone and rough wood take on irides- man-made. No material on earth is entirely man- outwardly into the universe and they tend to
cence, the patina of weathering, as they age. The made; humans simply isolate and transform expand the spaces of living. The bay window is a
inner quality of a building constructed of whole substances from nature. We feel most comfort- manifestation of such outgoing/expanding forces.
natural materials shines through as it becomes a able when surrounded by natural materials. The incoming/contracting forces, conversely,
part of the surrounding environment. As for transporting materials, I favor the use push inon the shell producing recesses or
Nature, being the source of all building materials, of materials from the locale. Foreign materials, pockets. These incoming/contracting forces are
is also the reclaimer of all materials. I envision life out of context, are disorienting. Local materials nature, neighboring society, and universal forces
and death cycles of architecture. A building are time-tested to climate, adapted to use, and in a more spiritual form such as grace and intu-
should be a living part of these cycles rather than compatible together. If materials for building are ition. These are impressions focusing inwardly
a foreign object transplanted into nature. Archi- gathered from the vicinity, the energy involved is from the universe and they tend to contract the
tecture is thus seen as a materializing process or, more intensified than if lines of transportation spaces of living. The recessed entrance is an
in other words, a birth process. Nature offers the are stretched out. example of such incoming/contracting forces.
material and man provides the energy. Not only should materials be found nearby, Through these two force directions, which
Natural materials should be transformed as but I favor using them as they exist in the land- produce convex and concave shapes, we are able
littleas possible. Wood and stone should be left scape. Stone, found close to the ground and only to distinguish elements in the world of form.
rough and unfinished since rough, porous, and be used in foundations.
slightly visible, could As an architect I seek to create a shell which
weathered surfaces seem to catch and hold Wood, found above ground and plentiful, could be resolves the forces acting upon it, a shape of
particles of sunlight, producing a warm and used for the upper structure. composure and balance, one which is centered.
radiant glow. The use of tools upon materials A building built with such considerations for The shell need not be a barrier but can actually
should leave their record so that any necessary materials should have a truly healthful, vibrant amplify the flow of forces when it balances
changes are revealed in the final product. and radiant quality. We might sense an aura concave and convex shapes.

22
 Exterior walls are built of'rastra block," an

HOUSE ON THE efficient building material consisting of

recycled polystyrene waste.
85%

EDGE OF TIME
Paul Nonnast
1 AUL NONNAST is an artist living in Jerome,
Arizona,who designs and builds houses. His
shop (below left) is built of stone, concrete,
steel and glass. His house, shown in the other
photos, is built of rastra block. He likes using
"non-precious" building materials which, he
says, "...
if used right, can be elegant." For

example poured-in-place concrete walls using

rough-textured wood forms, or the cornice
detail shown below where he used plain galva-
nized metal trim, but carefully mitered instead
of cut at right angles. He favors designs that
". . . don't require a lot of space to make a
spacious house."

For building materials, Paul says he uses ". . . any junk I can
find that has use."

Mitered cornice detail Rough-textured, poured-in-place concrete walls

23
BUILDERS: Welles

and tenon house from old barn beams. That's (left-to-right), Ian,
Inspired by John, Ian Ingersoll built this mortise
Caleb,and John. The house later burned down and Ian built another; he also went on to found a thriving Shaker
furniture-making company in West Cornwall, Connecticut.

JOHN WELLES
In 1970 I was building geodesic domes at a hippie high school in the Santa
Cruz (California) mountains. J. Baldwin, who had worked with Bucky Fuller,
and I had been hired as teachers and were helping the students build their own
living quarters while at the same time experimenting with different building
materials and techniques.
One day a chopped green VW
bug pulled up outside our workshop, and out
stepped a fast-talking, pipe-smoking big man, clad in overalls, with a twinkle
in his eye.John Welles, from Connecticut, was visiting "alternative" builders
and home energy producers on the West Coast. He was a competent jack-of-all-
trades, an inventor, builder, gardener, welder, and sailor with an inquiring
mind. He'd built his own house in the Connecticut woods out of old barn
timbers. He sprayed polyurethane foam for a while. He knew how to build
mortise-and-tenon barn frameworks. He had a backhoe, understood how to
move heavy objects around, made windmills and solar water heaters, and
redesigned and rebuilt a variety of motorized vehicles.
John and I have kept in touch for about 35 years now. Every year or two he
spends a few days with us in California, and I've been to visit him in Connecti-
cut several times over the years. Eventually we drive each other crazy with our
West Coast vs. East Coast sensibilities, but not before we have run through our
latest excitements in building and gardening and alternative energy.
The photo at left was taken in November in the '80s. My family and I were
visiting John for a few days. This day he fitted out our two boys, aged 10 and
12, with welding masks and they were applying John's welding torch to rocks
to see the sparks fly (boys will be boys!). He then showed us the little 4-wheel-
drive, 4-wheel-steering dump truck he had assembled for driving into the
woods to get firewood. The rear wheels were steered with a hydraulic valve. It
could literally turn on a dime. He built the dump body out of scrap steel and
used an old dump truck lifting mechanism. The frame is two front sections,
one facing forward, the other backward. It has heavy springs and can be loaded
with as much cargo as will fit into it.

24
Li^M H^^V
»
j^^^^^^^^^^^^JlM^uK
la i

^SPjl

Jo^jf? using the jack at an angle He had two sets of 4 x 8s, and
to push the building along would move one around to the

front when he got to the end of

House Moving Solo the other.

In THE EARLY John bought a small piece of land down the road from me
'80s,
in Bolinas. I had funky Japanese-inspired building that I wanted
built a small,
to get rid of. I think we agreed on $500. One day John said he was going to
move the building down to his land (about lA mile) the next day. "How?" I
asked. With a 48" bumper jack, he said, and he would roll it on logs. Not only
that, but he was going to do it solo. Sure, John.
I had to go to Berkeley the next day, and I didn't get home until the
afternoon. I went out to look at the building, and lo and behold, it was
halfway through my gate out in the road. I shot these photos of John and
his technique.

John, pipe puffing, pulling 4x8

f
ffilf

1
%\
t
E '"''OBI
HiiL bflk ,..--———
i
^=5--
r^
„

<^^"5=^ipi ^nfl
-
MB

m*££n / By the end of the day he was 500' down the road,
 .

•fe'

-« , -iilflBAi

HIGH DESERT HOMESTEAD

Here, on the banks of an arroyo, with Rennie's architec- o.c. cells are filled with concrete
arroyo in Arizona (near the old tural studio on the other side. and re-bar reinforcement.
mining town of Jerome) is a For the house they used local Rennie calls it an "owner-builder-
unique solar-powered home- rock for the lower walls, and friendly product"
stead, tuned into the land and studs for the upper stories; the (www. rastra com).

intelligent in design: a perfect buildings are insulated with both Their solar energy system
homestead, both beautiful and fiberglass and blown-in cellulose. consists of 36 100-watt Siemens
functional. They made all the furniture in solar panels on Zomework
Rennie Radoccia and Andrea the house and Andrea made the trackers, a 4 kw inverter,
McShane Radoccia met at Paolo kitchen tiles. In addition to 24-volt, 20-year lead/acid
Soleri's Arcosanti building being a potter, she runs a belly batteries,and a Kohler propane
project in 1974. They lived in dance troupe and is a certified backup generator. The system
tipis for years and in fact built massage practitioner. Rennie is a can run the washing machine,
their first house around a tipi, rarity among architects: one who kitchen stuff and a Skilsaw. If

then took it down when the can build with his own hands, you look closely at the right of
house was ready for a roof. Their and whose designs are practical the large photo above, the yellow
present homestead consists of as well as aesthetically pleasing. object is Rennie's miniature
Indoor greenhouse provides food as
their home and outbuildings Together they make a great Caterpillar bulldozer.
well as moist air.
built along one side of the team. Says Rennie, "Building is

our passion."
The "hoop greenhouses"
shown above use bent-over
Y2" PVC pipe on 2V2'-long re-bar
stakesand 6-mil, 4-year poly-
ethylene from Arizona Bag Co.
(602-272-1333). There is a
wire ridge beam and zippers
(www.charleysgreenhouse.com)
tokeep heat in at night. They
were full of vegetables in January
when we visited, when the nights
were freezing.
Rennie's 1500-sq.-ft. studio is

built of "rastra block," a highly

efficient and ecological building
material, 85% of which consists
of recycled polystyrene waste.
The blocks are 10' x 15" x 10",
weigh 135 lbs. each and are

epoxied together; then the 15"

ii
26
I:HH>.U:H

THE YURTS OF BILL COPERTHWAITE

Dill Coperthwaite doesn't have email, doesn't have a phone, and yurt both a rich potential for creative design and an opportunity for
lives in the Maine woods a few miles from the nearest roads. When I developing a simple dwelling that people could build themselves. Bill

visited him in the '70s I walked in a mile or so through the woods. designed the tapered-wall wooden yurt to enable people to play a
You can also get there by canoe down the coast. My son Peter was larger role in creating their own shelter, using a design that reduces
with me and we spent a few days there, taking canoe trips in the required building skills to a minimum while still producing a beauti-
inlets, and hanging out with Bill and his apprentices. Bill has a Ph.D. ful,inexpensive and permanent shelter.
in education from Harvard, worked for two years in Mexico with the These days Bill conducts workshops, sells yurt plans, designs
American Friends Service Committee, designed a traveling museum and consults on yurt projects, and continues his search for ways to
of Eskimo culture, and has lectured all over the world. simplify life in the 21st century. Chelsea Green has just published
In 1962, while reading a National Geographic Bill's A Handmade Life —
In Search of Simplicity. To
article, Bill recognized the folk genius in the design contact Bill, and for web information on his Yurt
of the traditional Mongolian yurt. He found in the Foundation, see the next page.

The yurt shown in the three photos on this page is Bill's home in the Maine 16' inner core as a room to move into. In the second stage, you can build the large
woods. It is 54' (eaves) in diameter and was designed so it could be built over a sheltering roof over a gravel pad, allowing the major cost, floor construction, to
period of several years and still provide shelter during the process. It is a tri- be delayed. In the meantime you have a spacious area under roof that can be used
centric, or three-ring yurt with 2700 sq. ft. of floor space. You can first build the for a workshop, greenhouse, garage, or for play.

28
The standard yurt can be built at 17' (eaves) diameter (and also at 12' xs» ; •*=
and ICO. This is the simplest to build, makes a great cabin for one, or
seminar space for 15 people, and can be used as a summer camp or
mountain retreat. A circular skylight spreads illumination evenly,
and a ring of soft peripheral light enters though the windows under
the eaves. People have used these as saunas, guest rooms, and as
offices with curving desks.

nm
V*
33' freespan yurt at The Mountain Institute, Cherry Grove, West Virginia, 1991

Guest yurt at The Yurt Foundation, Dickinsons Reach, Maine, 1966

Concentric yurt on Mother Earth News landin North Carolina, 1979

The concentric yurt is 38' (eaves) diameter and is really one yurt
inside another. The inner yurt supports the roof of the outer one
and reduces materials costs. This concentric way of dividing a circle
creates a unique free-flowing space in the outer ring and a secluded
feeling in the inner loft yurt. Since the inner yurt is raised a full
story, it provides a room underneath that can be used as a bathroom,
storage room, pantry, or living room. These yurts have been used all

over America as permanent homes, summer homes, and common

rooms in communities. It has 1000 sq. ft. of floor space.

First 54' tricentric yurt, at The Mountain Institute, Cherry Grove, W.V., 1976

******** ^^ Plans for the 3 basic yurts

shown on these pages
$25, $50, and $75.
are

CONTACT: The Yurt Foundation,

Dickinsons Reach,
Machiasport, ME 04655
WEB INFO on workshops,
yurt plans, yurt calendars:
www.yurtinfo.org/yurtplans.php
WEB: yurt photos (hundreds of them):
Go to: www.google.com,
click on "images,"
and type in "yurt."
ity School yurt in Franklin, N.H., 1968

29
BUILDERS: Coperthwaite

/
/ g -

Some comments by William Coperthwaite

on his philosophy, background, and work

It is reported that I in Maine in 1930. For the past 43

was born
years, have lived in the wilderness on the coast of Maine, seeking
I

to discover simpler and more elegant ways of living that can be of

use in building a saner society. This has been my base as I have
studied, traveled, and lectured around the world in search of ideas
as to how we might live fuller and less exploitative lives. We have a
tremendous potential to design a better society, could we but learn
to tap that potential. I've come to believe that we can blend the
best of age-old folk wisdom with the best of modern knowledge to
create a world of incredible beauty — a world of caring, creativity,
and joy.
A society that aims for the happiness and fulfillment of the 5«i
largest possible number of people, and which is concerned for the
ecological balance of the planet, will see the necessity, the beauty
and the wisdom of living simply. My adult life has been spent

a seeking out cultures and individuals who have something special to

contribute to simpler, saner, more healthful living —
be it in the
area of child care, gardening, community planning, handcrafts,
structures, or design.
My work in designing the modern yurt grew out of this research.
The design derives from the blending of the folk genius of inner
Asia with modern materials for a structure that is light and strong,
inexpensive and easy to build. Since 1964, 1 have designed and
guided the building of some 300 yurts from Alaska to Florida, from
Maine to California and in a number of other countries. They vary
ift
in size from small play yurts to four-story ones 60 feet in diameter.
They are in use as homes, classrooms, mountain retreats, summer
C ^# ;

homes, and saunas. Using the modern yurt as a symbol of cultural

blending, I set up the non-profit Yurt Foundation in 1971 to collect
knowledge of simple living around the world.
 ill
•

"A house is a home when it shelter

and comforts the soul." -Phillip Moffitt
HOMES: Off the Grid

\± ,::

JACK WILLIAMS
Jack Williams built a house in the Northern California woods; it's a dream
homestead, built with imagination, integrity, and sweat. The house faces
south, looking down on three miles of forested land to the blue Pacific Ocean.
He redwood saplings on his property (".
cut .more sapwood than heart-
.

wood") for poles. He poured piers 4' on center, connected by a grade beam,
and attached the poles to the piers with metal straps. From the ground up to
about 24" he built a ferro-cement wall, using about six layers of chicken wire
(on the outside of the poles), plastered with sand and concrete. He says if he
had it to do over, he'd use expanded metal lath instead of the chicken wire.
The poles have held up well, he
says, since they're protected
from the weather.
Jack was one of the Northern
California "off-the-grid"
pioneers. For some 20 years
now, had his electricity
he's
coming from 16 solar panels,
four of which are devoted to
pumping water from a well. He
uses a 2000-watt Trace inverter
and has three 500-amp-hour
forklift batteries (which he
bought 16 years ago). For backup
during winter months he has a
6500-watt propane generator. He
stays in touch with the rest of the
world with a cellular phone and a
TV satellite dish. Jack has fruit
trees and grows vegetables, and
these days he's working on a new
building with a ferro-cement roof.

32
HOMES: Off the Grid

'..y^^^^Bfc;''/.';': • '
'^^•W^^,

Kate built this couch out of local alder and

willow, using nails and grabbers.

KATE
TODD

34
Kate Todd built two off-the-grid by photovoltaic panels. Both systems
houses in the Northern California charge batteries and Kate runs lights,
woods in the early '70s. She and her a coffee grinder, radio, a tape deck
partner started the house (shown in and once a week, a vacuum cleaner,
the two photos at top of left page) in the sewing machine and/or a VCR.
Spring of 1972 and moved in that "The great thing about hydro is it's
winter (with one wall covered with 24-hours a day." A little electric
plastic sheeting). The foundation was heater goes on to take any overflow of
concrete piers. The pole frame was electricity from the hydro system and
spiked to the piers with a vertical avoid overcharging the batteries. Hot
piece of 1" galvanized pipe. For the water comes from a "Blazing
attached greenhouse she poured a Showers" woodstove coil in winter,
perimeter foundation. "I had help and a solar collector for the outdoor
from a lot of friends." shower in summer. Kate also has a
Three years later she built the productive garden and is a print-
second house (other photos on these maker. She teaches English as a
two pages) by herself. When her two Second Language and travels
kids got into their teens, she let them whenever she can —
Nepal, Bali,
have the second house to themselves. Italy, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala ....

Kate's place is a cozy little wooden In 1986 she took a hydroelectric

house with good vibes and although it generator to Nicaragua and helped
may be tiny, it's a real home. Both set it up to provide an electric light to
houses have electricity produced in each of nine houses in a small village
the winter by a Harris-Burkhardt cooperative. She drives a 1993 Nissan
hydroelectric generator, a small-scale pickup truck and she and her partner
pelton wheel powered by water from a just bought a Toyota Prius hybrid
1" pipe directed from an uphill creek. electric car, which gets 55 miles
In the summer, electricity is provided per gallon.

In the garden 1

^k
|

**..'

-^^,j^fe*^
'
.- .— :t r^H * Tl m.

^"
'
3
'**&
%tM gr*.
[A
^"
•?=
;rv -

'v

•
1

m
§'
!

35
HOMliS: Off the Grid

SUSAN In 1974, Susan Lewis and Rosemary Ward built a solar-

powered wooden frame house in the hills of Mendocino
LEWIS County, California, using no power tools. "Neither one of us
had built anything before but a wobbly bookcase," she says.
Home Builder Susan was inspired by another woman homebuilder, Kate
Todd (see p. 34-35). There's a solar panel on the roof that
Winemaker runs lights, a DC refrigerator, TV/VCR, hair dryer, and
washing machine. There's a Holly hot water heater unit in the
woodstove, an outdoor shower, and a composting toilet. The
120' well is pumped by a 12V DC pump and two solar panels.
There are five acres planted in chardonnay grapes; Susan
makes wine and champagne and sells surplus grapes to
wineries. She has a '92 John Deere 1070 tractor and an
immaculate 1953 Chevy pickup truck. She has 12 chickens,
five cats, and a Chesapeake Bay retriever.

^M W.
m
m$
iip-
.

^v::^:
•-

.!'¥•?
%..> :
'

I—--

U 1

^
JOHN FOX
John Fox bought 40 acres of forested, steep land in
m
Northern California in 1970 and built his hand-crafted
house bit by bit. It's remote: the road ends about 500 feet
HU
above the house, and John has a 470' 3/8 " cable and a
winch that he uses for hauling groceries and supplies to
the house. He has gravity-flow water from a creek that
powers a Water Watts microhydro turbine for electric
power during the wet season, and solar panels for the rest
of the year. There are four L-16 deep-cell batteries for
storage and a Trace Inverter that converts the DC to AC.
There's a Honda generator for backup. The house consists
of two seven-sided sections and is dug into the hill. It's
light, airy, and colorful, and has the feeling of a treehouse.
In the last four years, John's son Heron (shown on the
rope swing below, left) has been working with John on
construction and gardening.

*
fa

•*T;

vintage copy ofShelter

 .--.

ON THE BEACH
In the late '60s, Karen and Roger Knoebber and breezy (meaning no walls) house. Friends would
their three young children lived for about a year in come out and say, "What a way to live!"

a driftwood house on a deserted beach north of They left there after about six months, moved into
San Francisco. an abandoned farm house in Maryland for a while,

Lloyd: How did you end up doing this? then headed back to California. Once again they
Karen: We left Berkeley around 1967 and went on were broke, with no money to pay rent.

the road in a camper. We got as far as Key West and

ran out of money. There was a little island called
Boca Chita next to Key West that was an abandoned
Navy base. It was deserted, so we hauled lumber
across from Key West and built a beautiful little

Above right: Karen

Above: Karen with Shufina, Khamoor, and Cosmo
Left: Roger with Shufina, Khamoor, and Cosmo

Looking back, it's hard to believe you could ever do

something like this, just an hour away front San
Francisco. A home that costs practically nothing.
No taxes, building inspectors, electricity, cars, roads.
Or look at the photos of '60s New Mexico communes
on the next two pages. Are there things like this going
on in America now? Could this be the same planet?

38
"We heard about this little driftwood commu- The sauna
nity on the beach, and we went out there. There
were about eight houses, and they let us live in
a tiny little place while we ran up and down the
beach collecting driftwood for our house."

How old were the kids?

Five, four and two. They were all born in San
Francisco.

How old were you at the time?

28.

What were your days like at the beach?

We'd walk a quarter-mile to get drinking water
and we'd walk along the beach picking up
firewood. The kids would play on the beach.
How did you cook?
On a Coleman stove.
How about food?
We ate a lot of mussels, Roger caught fish, there was New Zealand
spinach growing nearby. We'd walk into town (about two miles)
every two weeks for supplies.

Why did you leave?

We got a little money, and our daughters were of school age. Also,
All these photos
the house was perched on shaky cliffs and we worried that it might
are from Karen's
collapse. And the authorities started showing up and telling people album, which
they'd have to leave. They said the place was too notorious. (naturally) has a
^ driftwood cover.
Isn't it amazing that you could do something like that?
Yeah, nowadays you'd get arrested right away. You know, the times Footnote: By the time the family left, their house was the only one
were just so different. left. All the others had been destroyed either by their owners or the

Where did you go? authorities.

We moved to Mendocino. It seems we were constantly building. We Update: Karen now lives in Mendocino County in a house she built
lived without electricity or a refrigerator for about ten years. herself. Roger has been living in Paris for 20 years. Karen's three kids all

live in California and she has six grandchildren. Karen's kids sometimes
tell her they would have liked "a little more structure" in their lives.

39
Cabin in Mora woods

THE NEW SETTLERS

OF NEW MEXICO
Irwin Klein

During the cultural revolution of the '60s, many Though some photographs were shot on
young people with inquiring minds and adventurous communes, most of them are of people living
spirit set out to create new lives in rural areas of alone, in couples, families, or small groups in
America. New Mexico, with its open spaces, cheap the Spanish-American towns in the back
little

land, and sparse population, drew thousands of country. sometimes hard to distinguish
It is

new settlers. Placitas, Morning Star, New Buffalo, between a group of friends who share certain
Reality Construction Company, the Lama Founda- resources and spend a lot of time together and
tion, they seem almost unreal looking back 35 years. a commune, but I think that a commune has
It was a time of optimism, faith, and yes drugs — to have a sense of consciously shared responsi-
— but also a lot of hard work building and repairing bilities and probably, a certain formal struc-

adobe houses, raising children, tending animals, ture. Most of my subjects live in what I would
and living communally in the psychedelic years. call settlements rather than communes.

Irwin Klein was a photographer from New Many of these people are children of the
York who shot black and white photos with a urban middle class who have abandoned the
Leica during five visits of about three months drug ghettoes of large cities, though some
each to New Mexico from 1966-71. He was come from rural backgrounds. There are
working on a book he called TheNew Settlers of dropouts from the universities and relatively
New Mexico. Irwin died a tragic death in 1974, "straight" walks of life and a few old beatniks.
not coincidentally at a time when the innocence As I explored the evolving situations, certain
and freedom of the earlier hippie years seemed to patterns and themes unfolded. There seemed
have dissipated, and big-city hard drugs and to be a rite of passage from innocence to
criminal elements had moved in. In the fall of experience, and a development away from the
2002, we were contacted by his brother Alan, who image of the hippie toward older American
had all Irwin's photos and was (is) looking for a archetypes like the pioneer and the independ-
publisher, but more importantly, wanted to share ent yeoman farmer.
his brother's photographic vision with others. Here Some might look upon this as just a photo
are excerpts from the introduction to Irwin's book, collection of hippies. While it's true that the
along with his beautiful photos. This will bring tears pictures reflect the style and decor of a partic-
to the eyes of many who were there in those years, ular moment which is already passing, what
a time before the harsh realities of life intruded interested me more was that the adventure I
on youthful idealism and gentle optimism. depict is part of a timeless movement, the
djSk http://homepage.mac.com/pardass/ perennial attempt of human beings to renew

IRWINKLEIN/INDEX.html the pattern of their lives. My subjects are

Five Star Commune trying, with varying degrees of seriousness, to
(all one line; capitalize as above.)
develop a viable way of life outside our urban
technological complex, drawing whatever
resources they can muster from our common
past and disintegrating culture.
My own role was as much that of a partici-
pant as an observer. I came to New Mexico
with much the same motives as the people I

photographed. In almost every case a certain

bond was estab-
of friendship or intimacy
lished before began working. The New
I

Settlers is part family album, part document,

and part myth. I consider it as much a collec-
Five Star Commune Alan, Fly and Mickey in Vallecitos tive expression as my own work.
40
Rufus in front of church at Vallecitos Sandy in her kitchen in El Rito

yj| V«iun!
 ••-- •*3j«i'V •-.- . •a... ,<e

" -

. $«£ * "
> .
... v

v ';;
^>.-
v
;.
.-'?
?*?

France
FUNKY

IflBEJdSiftfil 1 nil
li ||c^ Bit, -,

California
 MKJ

"Eve^MtKinq. I do q.on' be Funky From novJ on..."

-D*-. John

^
*&

-=**

>*

?? •.<>.-,.

Northern California
 5. \i^';:

i H

A small house in the woods in the Pyrenees

ARCHILIBRE
Countercultural
Builders
in France

A FEW YEARS AGO we ran

across a great website full of
owner-built homes in the
French Pyrenees. It looks as if
the French have picked up on
the spirit of American counter-
cultural builders of the '60s
and '70s, and the results are
intriguing, especially in their
work on zomes. Vive la France!
On these ten pages are photos
taken by webmeister jean soum.

www.archilibre.org
Arnold's hut in the forest with walls of earth and lime and windows from junked cars

44
 w
I
li

Hli Kill
Witt
¥» J I'd'! \ 111
,1
T Li
A ill

ili 1 li iiii 1

Jeanne-Marie built this pretty little house in the Pyrenees. She based the design on the old stone barns of the region, but used
wood rather than stone.

-3^" ^Zr^tg.

Jean-Claude built his hut with recycled wood and windows.

45
HOMES: Archilibre/ France

Owner-built houses in the hills wit

view of snowy Pyrenees
The elves and all the
elementary beings have
always known that curves
and circular shapes reflect
the harmony of all things.
I built a round house in
the heart of the forest, on
a base of pink marble,
surrounded by twisted
and hunchbacked trees —
such was my contract
with the spirits to protect
the harmony of this place.
-Roland
HOMES: Archilibre / Zomes

A small double zome used for meditation Zome in mountains is roofed with 100-year-old slate
shingles obtained from abandoned buildings in the area.

In the mid-'60s, Steve Baer, a mathematician and

inventor living in Albuquerque, NM, designed a
series of buildings he called "zomes." Early ones
were built at Drop City, the hippie commune in
Farasita, Colorado, and Placitas, New Mexico. Baer
published The Dome Cookbook in 1967, outlining
the mathematics and construction of zomes. It

was a wonderful, spontaneous publication that

sold for $1 and inspired both Stewart Brand and
his Whole Earth Catalog, as well as my own venture
into the publishing world with Domehook One and
Domebook2.
Flash forward 35 years to Europe and you
discover a bunch of zomes in the Pyrenees with a
French twist. Zomes were introduced in France
some 20 years ago by jean soum, who lives and
works in a zome, and who sent us these photos.
soum and the zome builders added their own
interpretations, and formed "Groupe Zomes" to
share and exchange information. Hundreds of
zomes have been built in the French countryside.
They are being used for homes, meditation
temples, and meeting halls.
Zome inhabitants report they are seduced by
the harmony
of these structures and the serenity Zome with diamond motif in meadow
and energy produced by the shapes. They report
using "... small models in glass or rock crystal to
increase the energetic potential of the spaces and
to harmonize the vibrations of man with cosmos."

Interior shows use of different materials: adobe, wood, cordwood, cob; North main rhombitriacontahedron clustered
face; is i ith offshoots of the san
it's insulated with sheep wool, straw, and clay. geometry, producing wave-like effect.

48
Jean-Michel putting on the last
slate shingles

m
http://zan.zoom.free.fr/zome_planet/z8_en.html
www.zomeworks.com
www.zometool.com

Looking up at interior structure ofzome Zome built on ruins of a barn

shown in background photo

Robinson's workshop; he's a carpenter and the large zome gives him space for assi

49
HOMES: Archilibre/Circles

^Sf'/KU^ '«Sf> l—> v

IB

mu
^ V. >i

m
w Wa
mi
S**te»*=—

Miguel's cabin with used glass and windows

Hand-made solar-heated house

on south- facing slope of mountain
Small yurt in meadow After plastering walls of above yurt with earth and installing windows, let the music begin!

HRSSSS3S
B BLfll Mil BbB
A IF

1 W- ^^^1

Two different views of yurt with central fireplace

B^B '<
 —

HOUSE ON THE ROCKS

Peter Marchand Photos by Jay Dusard

I NEVER EXPECTED anyone to take months my vision of a house on the plank, and pillar. I pulled up rocks and sifted through
my house seriously. It was just a rocks slowly sharpened. Finally, on a Slowly the house came together, old boards, I uncovered a new level
quick fix at a transitional time in my chillNovember morning, put my I its and gently sloped roof
walls of contentment with myself and my
life, a maverick dwelling that I put coffee down and started building materializing from the remnants of place in the world. Living here, I

together with reworked materials upon a foundation that was set in razed buildings, much as new trees take pleasure in the water I have
and an overworked imagination. But place 250 million years earlier. sprout from old stumps. I gathered because I harvest and filter it
soon after I started building I knew I odd construction materials wher- myself. My roof has become my
had something different, something That the sandstone was not level ever I could, rejecting nothing that watershed, and in the scant rainfall
abiding. The project drew inquisi- was of little concern to me, for I had might keep weather out or let light of the high desert I find ample
tive, contemplative looks from visi- seenmany an old farmhouse with as in. I watched the classified ads, supply. I by
store solar electricity
tors; people with far more house much pitch to the floor. Nor was I scoured flea markets, followed dem- day, eat dinner by candlelight, and
than mine were asking questions. In concerned about the cracks in the olition crews around. And found a I have sufficient power in the evening
700 square feet of shelter built on rock. I could use the larger fissures use for all manner of discards: The for my computer, music, and lights.
the rocks, I rediscovered simple, to anchor the walls and then employ framework of a vintage utility trailer I cook and refrigerate with propane,

long-forgotten truths. the natural step along the north braced the corners of my new house; and nothing in my house hums or
My house is located in a remote edge of the outcrop as a stove glass from the display counter of an whirs. I compost organic waste and
corner of Navajo County, Arizona. hearth. And behind the hearth the old Navajo trading post made a grow flowers. heat my shower with
I

This canyon country, a land of

is artfully sculpted and deeply under- floor-to-ceiling window; weathered the sun, bathe in a warm sauna, and
jagged contours and soft, muted cut ledge could jut into the room to board siding torn off the Arizona drain wash water to the outside
colors, where layer upon layer of become the centerpiece of my Bible Mission graced the walls inside plants. In winter I burn an armload
eroded rock creates a labyrinth of house — or
at least something to sit as well as outside. Plywood shipping of wood before the sun is up, and
ravines and jumbled boulders. It is a on. All had to do was fashion my
I crates, aused skylight, doors from another after the sun goes down.
wild and fanciful landscape, with walls around what nature had an old bathhouse: The materials list Year after year I have found
weathered pines and junipers grow- already given me. reads like a collector's guide to junk- comfort and inspiration on that
ing out of the shallow soil like for- So I gathered stone from the land yard treasures. rock, participating fully in the
gotten bonsai in groping, and started work. details of living, always aware of
conciliatory shapes,toughened by One by one I selected rocks, brown Like the ontogeny of a tree, though, what is going on in the world around
two centuries of wind and little rain. on red, red on gray, and scrambled the end result bore little resem- me. I know, simply from my daily
Before I began building, spent I 250 million years of geologic history. blance to the seed. The rough boards routine, how much rain falls from
many days walking the land, getting I fit them and cemented them, and fit into the native rock and the passing storms, what phase the
to know the trees, the cliff rose, the closed the gaps around the sandstone house began to grow into something moon is in, how the constellations
yucca, all the subtleties of that outcrop. Once I had leveled out the coherent, something extraordinarily change with the seasons, when the
dwarfed and windblown pinion- natural footing and anchored planks pleasing, something that struck a cicadas emerge and the claret cups
juniper woodland clinging to the to the top of the stonework I finished chord with everyone who visited. bloom, what day the nighthawks
bare bones of the high desert. But it the walls in conventional wood fram- The natural feel of the interior was arrive in spring, and when the pinon
was the rock that was so alluring ing — six of them, in an asymmetrical both inviting and coddling, the nuts are ripe in the fall. It is a
so smoothly weathered, so imper- hexagon that fit the slab naturally. I wraparound windows protective but modern, Thoreauvian existence,
turbable, so quieting. I kept worked alone, with hand tools and not isolating. The woodwork seemed and it is entirely satisfying.
returning to a magnificent sand- native instinct, drawing upon expe- to radiate warmth from other lives
stone outcrop bordered on one side rience had accumulated from
I in other places, yet the whole Peter Marchand is a field biologist and
by sculpted rock that would have left watching other builders and tinker- appeared as if it had always stood on writer presently studying natural
Frank Lloyd Wright tear-eyed, won- ing with my previous homes. It was that rock. People began to take it ecosystems at the Catamount Institute
dering all the while how I could creative carpentry, to be sure, but seriously. on the north slope of Pike's Peak,
incorporate that splendid sandstone out of it emerged an inherent vital- With the raising of the house Colorado. He returns to his home in
into my dwelling. Over the next few ity, a soul, expressed in every rock, something else began to emerge. As Arizona whenever he can.

52
One summer morning, I woke to find a canyon between the rafters, the wren found enough space feather on the bureau, a little splash of white on the
wren inside my house, perched on a ledge near the under the insulation to work its way to an unfin- rock — but until now it had remained more mythical
stove. Canyon wrens please me to no end with their ished corner of my ceiling. There it dropped into the than after a few minutes of explo-
real. Satisfied

energetic spirit and unrestrained exuberance for room and made itself at home. ration, the wren darted back to its point of entry,
exploration. I have seen them squeeze through the From plant to rock to windowsills and mantle, it scooted under the insulation, and, outside a moment
narrowest of rock crevices and disappear into dark- flitted about, probing and exploring as if my house later, dropped past my window with its exultant
ness, only to pop out again somewhere nearby with were part of its regularterritory. The bird was trademark call. That tacit declaration made it clear
a bold, triumphant chirp. This one had entered my familiarand comfortable inside, and there was little that as deeply and inextricably personal as this
house through a roof overhang, where a board had doubt that it had been here before. I had seen traces house is, it is not entirely mine, and never will be.
warped to create a narrow opening. Once it was of it occasionally in the past — a tiny chestnut
HOMES: Solar Powered

Above, our main house and offices with the solar hydronic collectors, and
bidirectional Internet satellite dish on its roof. Right, our straw hale
greenhouse/bathhouse with solar collectors for hot showers and washing.
In the front right, some of the motley collection of 72 PV modules that
energize Home Power.
Above right: Master bedroom, which opens to the inset, second story,
outside deck seen in the photo above.

HOME POWER saw Home Power magazine in the

I first

was a funky looking yet technically

'80s. It
Currently we are entering our 15 th
year of publishing. Including folks

MAGAZINE haded and serious journal of (mainly) solar,

wind, and water-generated electricity.
who download our
free
current issue for
from our web site, we have over

HEADQUARTERS Not only has

increasingly better.
it survived, but
It's
it's gotten
now a four-color
100,000 people reading each issue.
We print 38,000 copies in our paper
GETS A REBUILD compendium of the latest in home power.
Richard and Karen Perez are the heart and
edition and about % of these are sold
on newsstands worldwide.
Richard Perez soul of Home Power, and after some For many years, we lived and worked
years of living in funky sheds in the woods, in a 560-square-foot "plywood palace."
they built their own home-powered home/ This uninsulated building was chock-a-
office/hangout in the Oregon woods. I find block with the necessities of life and
it justamazing to look at a place like this, computers. Our site is six miles off-grid,
off-the-grid, its heat and power provided by and we've been powering all our electrical
sun and wind (and firewood). And they are stuff using solar and wind electricity
running the computers and network that for decades now. In summer of 2000,
produces their magazine from the same we did a total rebuild — the original
clean electricity. These guys are walkin cabin disappeared into the center of a
the walk! new 2,300-square-foot building.
The new building has two stories.
Here is Richard's brief history of the
The ground floor is split-level, with a
magazine and an article on their home:
four-foot drop along its east/west axis.
We started Home Power in 1987 and Thus the building follows the contour
to date have published 90 issues. Prior of the south-facing hillside on which it
do doing Home Power, I spent ten years rests. The building was designed and
as an installing dealer of PV systems. I constructed by the Home Power crew.
solarized our predominately off-grid Energy efficiency was our major
neighborhood by installing over 200 design criteria. We employed both
systems. I realized that folks had no passive and active solar heating tech-
idea of what current solar energy niques. On the passive side, we insulated
technologies could do for them they — the hell out of the building — R-30 in
were still running generators to power the walls and R-60 in the roof. We
their off-grid homes and businesses. I installed many south-facing, double-
Our woodstove, which uses a secondary catalytic also saw an emerging renewable energy glazed windows, a few east-facing
converter to increase fuel efficiency and reduce industry which had no way to contact windows for an "early morning wake-
pollution. Last year we burned less than Vi cord of their potential customers. Hence Home up," and very few windows on the west
wood, thanks to the solar heating systems. Power was born. and north sides of the house.

54
 Left: A view of the living room from the west. The red tile on the floor covers the solar-heated, concrete slab.
Above: The wide open spaces are the reason we live in the mountains. Our nearest full-time neighbor is more
than six miles away.

Computer-designed overhangs prevent

allthese windows from overheating
the building during the summer.
On the active side, we installed four,
4-by-8-foot solar hot water collectors
on the roof. These collectors directly
heat a six-inch-thick, concrete, thermal
slab on the ground floor. The combina-
tion of passiveand active solar heating,
and super insulation have reduced the
amount of wood we burn in our backup
heater from five cords per winter to
less than one-half cord per winter. We
increased the size of our home/office
by a factor of four and reduced our
wood consumption by a factor of ten,
which overall increased performance
by forty times. Another smaller cabin that houses one of our friends View from the sunken living room up into the dining area
Besides finally having enough space
to not be crowded, the new building is
very comfortable — warm in the winter
and cool in the summer. We are located
at 3,320 feet elevation in the Siskiyou
Mountains of southwestern Oregon. It
gets cold here in the winter. Nighttime
temperatures are often in the teens,
and it's not uncommon to have several
feet of snow on the ground. Inside the
building,
slab stores
it's always cozy. The thermal
enough heat
four days of continuously cloudy
for around M 3^ w
weather. Proof of wintertime perform-
ance is that all our dogs and cats prefer
to sleep on the solar thermal slab Kitchen with just about every appliance Karen Dining area with a table that will seat ten people
instead of any other place in the house. needs to do her gourmet cooking
During the summer months, when
the outside temperature is often in the
high 90s, the inside temperature never
1 M ||
rises
many
above 76 degrees. We open
operable windows after sunset
the
«
HUB W
and allow the cool mountain air to chill
down the house. In the mornings, we PTja
DaS^'flL.'l
1
°
inhfi.~ « H..jti]5
simply close the windows and allow the
super insulation to keep the house cool
during the day.
TIJIJiiiiii -
.3
£. f 4*
Efficiency
-.
isthe key to
^fc\\\\\ Richard Perez, Home Power,
*5? 'I'll
P.O.Box 520, Ashland, OR Power room, which houses our batteries,
unlocking
One of the three offices at our home. In all, the power
97520, 541-941-9716 inverters, and other renewable energy equipment these offices house five of the computers we
richard.perez@homepower.com of the sun!
use to make Home Power magazine.
www.homepower.com

55
HOMESr Cabins
CABANA
EN ESPANA
Dear Lloyd,
Here are photos of my cabin. I was inspired and
helped a lot by the books Shelter and Shelter,
Shacks and Shanties. Shelter is a marvel, I like the
spirit of the '60s and '70s, which is reflected in it.
It has always been my dream, since I was a

child, to build a cabin of wood with my own hands,

mi casa. Finally I was able to buy some land in
Miraflores, a town in the mountains near Madrid,
and build a small cabin. Now I've finished construc-
tion. The only thing lacking now is finishing parts
of the interior. . . .

During construction I felt like a naughty child,

or like an adolescent revolting against a mechanized
and absurd world, seeking a life in the country in
a small handmade cabin, with few fears and great
hopes, even though simple. I planted a small
garden, I sit and listen to the sounds of the
creek, or play the violin inside my little house —
nothing more.
Best wishes,
Enrique Sancho Aznal
Madrid, Spain
(Translated from the Spanish)

".. . I feltlike . . .an

adolescent revolting
against a mechanized
and absurd world,
seeking a life in the
country in a small
handmade cabin "
CABIN IN TENNESSEE

We print our book Shelter at the Quebecor Press in Kingsport, Tennessee.

On books like this, with a lot of photos, I always go to the printers to
watch the first run. One of the press men was Garry Crawford and when
he saw the photos in Shelter, he told me about a little cabin he had built
out in the woods, a "childhood dream." (Guys just wanna have fun!) Here
is his story of the cabin, built in Hawkins County, Tennessee, by Garry, his
brother Larry, and their buddy Leonard Lamb.

Here's how our cabin was built:

• Builders — two brothers, no experience; 1 ex-merchant marine,

no experience
• Time —
one year (weekends)
• Expenses —
$180.00 for two acres in the woods; approximately
$150.00 for materials: nails, mortar mix for chinking. All
lumber and metal for the roof was scrap material found all over
two counties.
• One chainsaw borrowed from a good friend
The cabin warmed by a wood-burning cookstove. Water is from
is

four springs. Lights are kerosene. Windows are from an abandoned

chicken-house. The front and rear eaves of the cabin are built with
wormy chestnut lumber from a collapsed barn.
This has been one of the most enjoyable projects I have ever under-
taken. Not only has it fulfilled three grown mens' childhood dreams,
but it has given me confidence to start a new addition —
coming soon.
- Garry Crawford

\i£: :-~

57
 JOANNE'S HOUSE
Joanne Kyger is my neighbor, a poet, and an elegant lady. Her
house, an old cottage she bought in 1970, reflects her travels to
various parts of the world and has a wonderful feeling inside. Every-
where you look are things of beauty: a Tibetan tanka, a Balinese
painted calendar, lots of paintings, dozens of baskets, healthy green
plants, Japanese vases and laquered plates. There's a mirror from
Guatemala, the smell of incense, and a bookshelf with hundreds of
books. The old water-stained shingles on the roof show through in
the living room, and there's a woodstove for heat.
To enter the property you walk through a tunnel in a massive
60-year-old cypress hedge sculpted by Joanne's partner Donald
Guravich. In the garden there are places to sit and watch families of
quail scurry through, and to look at the different plants and bushes
and trees that are all carefully tended. There are also multiple varieties
of apples growing, which Donald has grafted onto old trees, and they
ripen from August until October.
In a recent magazine article, Joanne was called a "poet's poet,"
and Penguin has just published her most recent book, a collection
titled As Ever.

Friday Night

%
In pale blue dusk sky Moo
is nice light gold. Oh where
are you going
my favorite friends in a flock Gold crown
song is going north
for the summer has different
seeds up there up there friend moon
Epjig larger.
26, 1991

Photos by Janet Holden Ramos

 Renee Doe built this house in a
Northern California valley in the
early '70s. She and five other
families had bought 50 acres on
which to build homes and grow
vegetables. For building materials
they bought two old buildings
from the county for
well as a flatbed truck; they tore
$25 each, as
m
down the buildings and ended
up with a bunch of good quality
redwood sheathing, as well as
oak flooring. Architect Steve
Matson designed the house to
Renee's specifications: "I wanted
a seven-gables-looking house
with steep roof angles, and told I

Steve I wanted the pieces of

lumber to be small enough for
women to lift."

THE HOUSE
THAT RENEE BUILT Renee lived in a tent with two
of her three kids while she and
friend Maggie Cooley worked on
the house. "We figured, if you

can sew, you can build a house."

They started building in July
and Renee and kids moved into
the house by November, using a
wood cookstove for heat and
cooking. Windows were salvaged
from a dumpster in nearby San
Francisco. "We carried water up
to the house in buckets, and we
dug an outhouse." The kids
bathed in the creek. "It was
awful; by fall it was freezing
cold." I remember seeing the
house under construction and
thinking how complex it looked,
but when it was finished, it all
worked out. The kids survived
and made it out into the world
and Renee and her partner
Brent Anderson now live in what
turned out to be a cozy home
with good vibes.
 COLOR IN THE CARRIBEAN
Renate Bonn

>

f
"
J*

.
1

1
1 #v
•

]
'
,;
V-
\

JY_

K/li ^ ^'J 1 L - ^ ^ ^

I^^JTTT^fT]

^>^:>r^:^^:<f^:^^:^:4:

.^
 x

\ • ^ *r V*^ra. . <». ,;',

k .
..- •-, TV-*.*...

v *

V -
'
5*

JE 1 . . . '•'•tj , .

i '»^<- .

."W

EX£&fe
Alameda Naval Base

#Q
vSm-.
jt - - — - - ..-4 _ —
I 1
^B
JM
I faffl
- —Si

OR
-
*

San Francisco San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO
BAY AREA COLOR

.__! J_ J[.

San Francisco Berkeley

 lot
HI KiwifsiiSSf^ii
-»-«&te
San Francisco San Francisco

"*

San Francisco San Quentin

"
JkJ
I^^Z^^^^^^^^^^^^^toi

HI 1
1
JH""
kk-JLl
III

B HB1

'
S
,1

if h»
•

fl^^BB
.

H ^^^| w^L^^B^^^St
San Francisco San Francisco San Quentin

,.
I & . -r

fits? >*
h
WM
Hfv
-*
San Francisco

J±

San Francisco San Frat

 f

T 1 v .-

Hit
ifl v^m^wwt «"* -A
>& 1
'
"fl
i

1 b . 1* I nt
WW
Kl &[ £jd
v

f?35

>'*»

"It aJn't vs^a-t you ea-t,

it's the vJBlw hovO you chevJ it."

-Little Richard

mm
 J "mihl

*y&' ^

Janet Baer in her Sonoma County kitchen

CALIFORNIA KITCHENS

Sam andNidia Birenhaum's kitchen in their

beachfront house in Malihu
HOMES: Small Building Designs

SHED ROOF Minimum 4:12 roof

pitch for installation

Frame walls full height for of asphalt shingles

Four Small maximum strength. Add
Building Designs beveled nailing plate to top
plate on high wall.
by Bob Easton
On the next four pages are designs
for four different small homes by
Bob Easton. Bob's unique drawings
show all the structural members
of each building, making it easy
to visualize how the buildings are
constructed. These four different
roof shapes can be utilized with Outriggers to
walls of any materials — not just support rake
stud frame as shown here. Bob is fascia board

now a practicing architect in

Fireblock
Santa Barbara, California.

Walls framed
higher than 8'0"
must be
ftreblocked
horizontally at
8'0"high

Framing
Scale %2 = l'-O" Seat rafters with birdsmouths
on low wall plate

Studs and rafters at 24"

on center. Rafters must
align directly over studs.

Sign in San Marin (San Rafael,

California) Lumber Yard:

"If you didn't have the time to do it

right in the first place, how come

you have time to do it over?"

Add room and 2-story

trellis to main room addition
e structure. with high wall for
clerestory windows

A. SHED ROOF is a simple shape to build, sheds water and snow

better than a flat roof, and is a good shape for later additions or
extensions. It is also a good shape for adding to an existing building.
Clerestory (high) windows are often installed on the high side of a
shed roof building, allowing high light to enter without the
waterproofing problems of skylights. (See drawing above right.)

Shown above is a small shed building with a six-foot-wide loft.

The smaller drawings show additions to the shed shape. When
building overhang on shed, nail rafters securely to top plate with
4-16d nails.

66
 .

HIGH GABLE Better one's house be too

one day than too big all the
little

Two basic ways to frame a gable roof:

1 With ridge beam as shown here, 12: 12 roof pitch year after. -Thomas Fuller
which allows for open ceiling, and with
ceiling joists dropped below plate level
Studs 16" on center:
(also shown here). Ridge beam should
rafters 24" on center,
be sized by engineer or checked by
cross ties 4'0" on center
building inspector. With ridge beam
system, end walls must be rigidly
braced — plywood is best. Carpentry
must be accurate, joints tight,
nailing adequate.

2. With ridge beam and ceiling joists at

plate level. With loft floor, ceiling joists
must be sized as floor joists.

Frame plate level all

round — locate fireplace
at end wall or near
center to avoid tall

unsupported chimney.

Framing
Scale 5/3 2= V-0"

A steep gable roof is often used in areas with

moderate- to-heavy rainfall or heavy snowfall. The
steepness helps to shed water and snow and allows
enough space for storage or a loft above the plate level.

Although the framing drawing here shows an open

ceiling and loft (framed with ridge beam), the more

traditional high gable is framed with a ridge board and

joists at plate level.

loft

down 4-U 1

rail

open to

T5 w LT~
Plan and section of bungalow in Pennsylvania Main floor plan Cross-section
Scale %<" = l'-O" Loft plan
HOMES: Small Building Designs

SALTBOX 9:12 roof pitch

Studs at 16" on center;

rafters at 24" on center
Ihe saltbox shape is generally associated
Note: In snow country,
with theNew England states and severe check with engineer or
winters. Saltbax structures are often oriented building inspector.
with the high side to the south, the low side to
the north. This allows winter sun to hit the
high side, and snow (a good insulator) to
accumulate on the lower, shallower roof to the
north. Snow or bales of hay are often banked
against the north side in winter for insulation.

iodi
» ;

bath

F
L_ Main floor plan
Scale %4"=l'-0"
D

™TT 1 1
- down

open to loft Framing

below Scale %/ = V-Q"
'

Pour foundations under Frame living room

loft-hearing wall between side walls full height

kitchen and bath. and tilt up; frame

Loft floor plan walls of loft in two

stages. Install
flooring on loft before
framing upper walls.
Alternate framing
method: Run rafters
same direction as loft
floor joists; double
rafters at ridge.

Sheath with plywood

for maximum
strength.

Addition of smaller Saltbox shape was sometimes

saltbox shape to original derived by adding shed to gable.

ilP11
68
GAMBREL
CjAMBREL ROOFS are most often found in the

eastern part of the United States and Canada.

The word derives from the hock (bent part) of
a horse's leg, also called a gambrel. The lower
part of the roof is a steep slope, the upper part
shallower. The break in roof line allows head
room in the loft space, and is useful in barns
for hay storage (see page 212 for gambrel barn
plans), as well as in homes for rooms above
plate level.

Minimum 4:12 pitch for asphalt

shingles

Cross ties at4'0" on center

Frame main floor walls, install loft

floor joists and flooring, then frame
loft walls and roof.

Studs and rafters at 16" on center

Framing
Scale %2" = l'-0"

The best way to realize the

pleasure of feeling rich is to live

in a smaller house than your

means would enable you to have.
-Edward Clarke

down -

loft

2-T

Addition of shed offside Main floor plan Loft plan

Scale %/= l'-O"
lit.mn

TINY
HOUSES
by Lester Walker
The six little house plans shown
here are from Tiny, Tiny Houses
by Lester Walker. Lester is a rarity
— an architect who not only has
designed these little houses, but
has drawn clear and useful plans
that he shares with others. There
are 40 designs in this unique book.

The first tiny house I

remember seeing and categoriz-
ing as a tiny, tiny house was a &UIlD DECK
fr.anie and
complete surprise. In the corner, posts
°N TOP OF
summer of 1963, 1 discovered &o&on frame HEATING
one while hiking along what SINGL-E Beds

seemed to me to be a very Build bottom FRAME CAHtPSR

USING TREATED LUMBER kitchen
and buoyancy Bii.i-e.Ts flanks pock.
treacherous, untraveled animal
trail on a remote part of The raft house is a tiny houseboat built The house is designed to be an easy,
Maine's coastline, about an like the tarpaper house on a flat deck fast project for houseboat lovers who
supported by buoyancy billets. The can't afford a houseboat. The deck is
hour east of Cutler. I couldn't
house has two single beds and a tiny really a dock built with standard marine
imagine how anyone might wood heater. Under an awning outside floating-dock construction methods. The
have transported materials to on the deck is a camper kitchen, and house is built of painted, lightweight 54"
ACX plywood over a frame of 2 X 3's. It Floor plan
across from it is a bench that can be
this spot without having lugged Ct House
used for dining or fishing. is so small that it can be built by two Has s-6
them over windswept cliffs and 7 a weekend. 5QUAAE FBer
slippery rocks. But there it was,
a tiny little gable-roofed cabin Inside-Out House: SINCE WALLS ARE
TRANSPARENT,
9' x6' + outside kitchen and bath "NE&AT/VE " WHPOlUS,
no larger than 8' x 10' built
NIAPE FROM PICTURE
entirely of tarpaper and drift- FRAMED, WICKER
TRAYS, CLOTH AWO
wood, complete with an Adiron- WOOD ARE HUNG
,

From TREES ~°
pep! HE RoortS
dack-style built-in twig bed, a CLOTH WALLS —
perfect little kitchen that used
**e USBD TO
CREATE PRIVACY
water from a nearby spring, and AND To PEPiNE
OUTDOOR UVIHG
SPACES
a writing desk under a window
facing the sea. Set back about
one hundred feet from the
ocean on a rocky beach in a
Large door,
small cove, the house was telephone a hp
Bulletin board
surrounded by cliffs topped
with huge hemlock and pine windowles.s cabin
walls surround >
when
trees. Later,
town and learned that
I got back to
it was
Queen-sized bed
V
built by a little lady in her
eighties who loved nature and
solitude, I realized that the art
of building was not necessarily
reserved for architects and All this reprinted from
Tiny, Tiny Houses,
builders. All that was needed, it

seemed, was the will. Two years

© 1987 by Lester Walker.
The Overlook Press,
ago, I hiked back to this site
Woodstock, NY
with my camera, notepad, and
the hope that I could find this
little building to include in Tiny
Houses. No luck. A big storm
had apparently blown it away. One of the most clever houses in this book is this tiny windowless open for ventilation, occupies the fourth wall. An enormous dining
But this home will remain in my building, just as big as a double bed, built in 1967 by a young room, as large as all outdoors, is located adjacent to the big door.
couple in Sharon, Connecticut, for shelter while they built the log The living room, equally as large, is located adjacent to the kitchen.
mind as one of the most beauti-
cabin of their dreams nearby. It's called the Inside-Out House These rooms are defined primarily by trees but also by "negative
ful buildings I've ever seen. It because all the living functions, except sleeping, occur on the windows" such as wicker trays, picture frames, and pieces of cloth
may well have been the inspira- outside periphery of the building. hung from the trees. As David Bain, the owner/builder, expresses
A large overhanging roof protects L-shaped kitchen cabinets on it, "Since we could see through our walls, we didn need to see
't
tion for this book.
two exterior walls and a shower on a third wall. A big door, usually through our windows."
-Lester Walker

70
 Cape Cod
Honeymoon Cottage
18'xl6' + sleeping attic

CHILDREN'S
attic Sleeping

large stone
F/RERLAcE
osbp for ttbat
And cooking

*jood&urniNG
cast- ikon
PAR.LCP. HtATEJ*. The quintessential in romantic
tiny houses is the original
honeymoon cottage version of
the well-known Cape Cod house.
During the eighteenth century,
when young settlers were
inhabiting the Cape Cod area,
FRONT POKCI-
they built half-sized or partially
builtCape Cod houses and added
to them as their families grew

and their wealth increased.

Tar Paper Shack Dune Shack

12'x8' ll'x8'6"

By far, the least expensive

method of siding a house is to use
tar-impregnated building felt-tar
paper. This type of cladding is

usually viewed as an interim

IS' POUND
technology, used to protect the 8UIL.DING F£LJ
(TAR-PAPEF) _
building until enough money is
9TAPLEP TO '/l. i

raised to install a more proper PC/I/JOOP tAJALL-

siding material over the tarpaper. SHEATHING

However, as shown here,
tarpaper can be an effective and
somewhat pleasing finish
material. Its life-span is about
six years.

71
BOBOLINK Better Shacks and Bivouacs
One warm summer afternoon "Did you draw any plans?"
I went out with Bill Castle (see "I just did these sketches, not

pp. 16-21) to meet his friend to scale, of different parts of

Bobolink. Bobolink had bought the room, then taped them

his piece of land (in northwest together and showed them to
New York state) the year before my girlfriend."
for $1000. "I gave the lady $300
"She doesn't hassle you to get it
and paid off the other $700 the
finished?"
rest of the year."
"No. In fact we just tied the knot
He showed us around the
last Thursday. We're a perfect
unfinished house, which was
team."
cozy and comfortable and then
we sat around drinking beer. "Well, it looks like you got the hard

"I figured Id just build a little part done."

shack, a place in the country to come "No, man, the hard part is doin'

back to after travelin' around — anything more. I sit down, kick

back and . . . well, it seems too
"What about the building codes?"
hot today . . . how about a
"When I started there was no
beer?" (laughter)
uniform code here, so they
never gave me any grief."

12
NATURAL MATERIALS
• >

/
*
.

In the early 70s, after building

' geodesicdomes and experimenting
V-^
with plastic building materials, I came
t0 t ^le conc l usion tnat the less
'-* ^F^aJ
molecular rearranging a particular
building material has, the better it feels
to be around. The key word is feels.
Wood, adobe, straw, earth, stone,
bamboo -these materials feel good. •

There's been a revolution in the use

of "natural building materials" in the
last 30 years. Builders are choosing
materials for sustainability, for less
drainage on the earth's resources, for
local availability. A number of people
have told us that Shelter, published in
1973, with its photo of a straw bale
barn in Nebraska, and pages on wood,
stone, adobe, thatch, and bamboo, had
a lot to do with sparking interest in
these materials.
By now a lot of construction tech-
niques have been worked out and there
isa large network of builders out there,
using (and communicating about)
natural materials. On the following 23
pages are some examples of people
building this way. Buen trabajo, amigos!
NATURAL MATERIALS

Ongoing and never-ending remodel of

early1900s adobe ranch/farm house

BILL& ATHENA STEEN

AND THEIR HOUSES
OF MUD & STRAW
On a hot day in late July, 2002, 1 drove south
Earth, who with his wife Eiko was visiting the
Steens at that time.
from Tucson, heading up into the high desert to
visit Bill and Athena Steen. Bill and Athena,
The Steens live on a 40-acre homestead 70
miles southeast of Tucson (15 miles by crow-flight
authors of the The Straw Bale House book, a
best-seller and precursor of the straw bale from Mexico) and at the end of a dirt road. They
building movement, had done an impressive
bought the land in 1985 and Bill converted a run-
Kitchen fireplace, handcrafted from
mud/straw /bamboo series of buildings
down shack into what is now a gracious and
molded clay, straw and pumice with
comfortable hacienda, with adobe walls and floors
villagers in Ciudad Obregon, Morelos, Mexico,
of Mexican tile. These days Bill and Athena use
and I wanted to do a story on it for Home Work.
Another reason for the visit was the chance their homestead to host a series of workshops on
to meet photographer extraordinaire Yoshio
straw bale building, natural wall finishes (main
Kitchen sitting area, corner seat of
ingredient mud), earthen floors, clay ovens, and
adobe, walls painted with homemade Komatsu, author of the stunning book Living on
casein paints harvesting and cooking agave and prickly pear.
What I expected was to work with the Steens on
theirMexico project, What didn't expect was
I

such an elegant house, set alongside a creek, in a

place with Feng Shui up the kazoo, with good
vibes, sights, colors, smells — the essence of
wonderful shelter — plus there was a series of
experimental earth buildings, each one a delight,
and with a variety of textures, colors, and
construction innovations.

1
Athena, Yoshio,
and Bill
 i •:,

'

Mk . - - *:
3
^Bfiaf^^^l

Shade screens made by laying water 7

reed mats over prefab livestock panels ^Mtr: , i

£f .

used for fencing

View of main guest and bed/breakfast building, looking across Turkey Creek

Clay baking ovens; one on left is hand-molded clay and straw,

Quebec style; one on the right is in traditional southwestern "homo style" and made of adobes.

Bill, Athena, and their three kids — Benito, 11;

Oso, 10; and Kalin (Bug), 2 — are way out there in
the desert. The older boys are home-schooled. Bill
and Athena work on their building techniques,
writing, photography, and teaching. Bug happily
wanders around all day, barefoot and bare-assed,
whacking a golf ball with a driving iron and
amusing himself in amusing ways. One day he came
up to me with a salad bowl on his head, a straight
face, and watched for my reaction.
I slept in an adobe-walled bedroom, with two
screened doors opening out into a bamboo grove
in the garden. The first morning I hiked up on the
hill to watch the sunrise, then came down and shot Tiles by the Mexican artist
Davalos, bought on one of their
pictures. The second night there a storm hit, and
tequila, blanket, papaya, and
thunder, lightning, and the good smells of the desert
taco runs to Nogales
came in through the screen doors next to my bed.

Multi-functional corner bed in living room. Remove mattress and it

Fish pond from becomes a desk. Bug (the two-year-old) has a playroom complete
galvanized metal stock with window underneath and little step often gets used as seat.
tank, effortless and
beautiful web: www.caneloproject.com
«5^^ email: absteen@dakotacom.net
Bug with salad bowl hat

75
NATURAL MATERIALS: Mud & Straw

Paint and plaster studio, also called the rain chain building, almost finished. Belled-out corner similar to detail used Arched window in straw bale walls, clay-
Straw bale walls with clay/straw plaster on exterior in mud construction in Africa wax
plastered wall finished with red
and pigment. Interior of window is
white clay plaster with micaceous sand.

Sponge being used to finish freshly

applied plaster

Gallo wine bottles set into straw

bale walls with clay plaster

Guest cottage, one of our favorites. Like everything else, still under construction.
A variety of clay plasters.
Exterior has straw/clay plaster in front and lavender
clay finish on wall around window. Bamboo, clay and straw shelves to rear were
molded into place. Interior has polished clay walls.
Clay and straw molding around window in straw bale walls. Arch over the window
was formed by making a lightweight frame out of split bamboo and covered with
mixture of clay and straw.

Structure ("bus stop ') used for seating during workshops.

Local juniper poles, straw bale walls, seat is from blocks made from sawdust and clay
during a workshop. As soon as they came out of mold, they were placed into seat wet to be able to form curves. Behind it is straw bale storage shed
for lime and clay putties so they don't freeze; other dry plaster materials are stored on the outside.

76
 Interior of guest cottage, by-product of first straw bale
workshop/happening in 1990. Adobe wall/seat divides
bathroom space from living area. Back side of the wall forms Future bath house being used as temporary storage
lime-plastered shower. and stuff that have no other place to go
for tools

Above: Bike shed, with

clay/straw plaster on
exterior, lime plaster on
inside and ceiling of
petates, or mats ofcarrizo
and cattails

Other "bus stop," used for workshop seating. Both bus stops are invaluable places for interns and the
and experiment without us having to pull our hair out. The souls of many a good
like to refine their skills

intern are embedded in multiple layers of paint and plaster.

Mixing our basic clay/straw plaster that we

evolved while working in Mexico. Screened local
clay soil is sprinkled into water until water is
covered, then allowed to sit for a few minutes so
clay soaks up water. Messing with it sooner
makes for lots of clumps. We then add enough
chopped straw to make a mix
that has body and
can be applied thickly on walls without cracking.
Our exterior plasters are applied up to 2 inches Bottom two photos show "harling," where the lime plaster
right Bill with intern Lori Wright standing
thick in one single application. slurry thrown on the wall using a "harling" trowel. Great durable
is on arch made of clay and straw
and weather-resistant finish

77
NATURAL MATERIALS: Mud & Straw

Patio of Save the Children Office

Building, palm-thatched porch on the
interior; the floor is a pattern carved
by spoon into fresh concrete.

CASAS QUE
CANTAN Reception room of Save the Children Office Building, frescoed lime plaster on walls. Blue
color comes from azul anil, a blue pigment commonly found in the Dulcerias or candy stores.

When we finished our first book, and back. What ensued was an eight-year "Houses that Sing," after the exquisite book
The Straw Bale House, we had used up love affair with the most unlikely of places by Mexican photographer La Casa que Cantd.
our available credit and knew that we and a big extended family with whom we More than anything else, the work was fun,
wouldn't see any royalties or the like for have formed a deep and lasting friendship/ lots of it. People often get the mistaken idea
some time. Things looked a little grim, but partnership. that we went there to help poor people. It
we were ready for anything that looked We joined together in what became an would be more correct to say that we were
interesting and exciting. The first offer that ongoing exploration of every type of local the ones who benefited the most, for the
came our way was from Save the Children building material imaginable, mostly local, emptiness of our modernized poverty got
Foundation in Ciudad Obregon, Mexico a — natural, and recycled. We combined and re- filled in in countless and unimaginable ways
modern agricultural town in the southern combined them into a series of experimental by people who were in many ways richer
part of the state of Sonora. We took the offer small homes and an office building for than us.
— a place to stay, gas, tacos, and any repairs Save the Children. They have all come to -Bill and Athena Steen
our aging Suburban needed to get us there be referred to as "Casas que Cantan," or

Athena with her plastering crew —

part-time daughters Elizabeth,
Juanita, and Maria Elizabeth

WEB: www.caneloproject.com/pages/
mexico/mexico.html
EMAIL: absteen@dakotacom.net
Library of Save the Children Office Building. Vault formed Arched entryway to Save the Children Office Building, built
by tensioning carrizo reeds and covering them with an using blocks of clay and straw
insulating mix of straw and clay, finished with a concrete
shell.Book shelves made by the women and kids out of
molded straw and clay. Walls are finished with beautiful red
clay from nearby colonial town named Alamos.

78
w~~ ^ -~~

W~ ^ "T *Mm&
Entrance, sunflower Truth window (straw to be cut away) Interior arches

One-room experi-
mental house of
straw bales, built
for a family using
donations put
together by folks
all over world

Clay/straw
plaster being
applied over straw
bale walls of Save
the Children office
Straw bale herbal apothecary, Sue Mullen, Gila, New Mexico Straw bale chicken house, Steve MacDonald,
Gila, New Mexico

Penny Livingstone and James Stark in front of their straw bale

vault in Northern California

Straw bale chapel on a Sedona, Arizona ranch, built in mid-90s Earthbag builder Kaki Hunter, Moab, Utah

80
NATURAL
BUILDING
Photos by Bill Steen

DILL STEEN started shooting photos in the

when he was in college, influenced by
late '60s
photographer Minor White. He continued in
the early '80s, shooting mostly landscapes; in
the mid-'80s, when he and his wife Athena
started building with straw bales, he started
documenting their work "out of necessity."
At times it got a little confusing: "One hand
would be covered in mud, and I'd have a
camera in the other." Two books featuring his
photos have been published: the best-selling
The Straw Bale House and The Beauty of Straw
Bale Houses.

Brick dome in Hesperia, California, by

Nader Khalili, Author of Ceramic Houses

Carol Anthony an Replica of mound builders' homes, Evansville, Indiana

Tlaxcala, Mexico
81
 NATURAL BUILDINGS
Photographs by Catherine Wanek
Since discovering straw bale construction in 1992, Catherine
Wanek has traveled widely to spread the straw bale gospel, and
documenting traditional and modern examples of natural building.
She co-edited The Art of Natural Building in 2002 and wrote and photo-
graphed The New Strawbale Home, published in 2003 by Gibbs Smith,
Publisher. Catherine and her husband Pete Fust live in Kingston, NM,
where they manage the Natural Building Colloquium -Southwest,
and run the historic Black Range Lodge (blackrange@zianet.com)

V '-

gU^
^> ^ ""^^1^.

-.-.^ts&m^

wmml ;
'

In Brittany, France, owner-builder Elsa LeGuern designed a straw bale home for
herself with wide overhangs to protect the bales from storms blowing in from the
Atlantic Ocean. The framework is a rectangle, with curved straw bale walls.

Welsh furniture maker David Hughes built this charming thatched timber-frame
workshop, choosing the organic shapes of oak trees that wouldn't suit more
rectilinear structures.

At the Lama Foundation, a spiritual community near Taos, NM, a forest fire destroyed most of the existing
structures in 1 996. In 1 999, an event called Build Here Now was organized to help their reconstruction
efforts. This passive solar straw bale residence has interior adobe and straw/clay walls for thermal mass,
and was finished with earthen floorsand plasters. The timber-frame structure, now known as, "The
Treehouse," was designed by Sun-Ray Kelly, and utilizes ponderosa pine trees killed in the fire.

82
 Thierry Dronet built this fairy-tale
hybrid of straw bales and cordwood
masonry, topped with a "living roof,"
as his workshop and stable for two
horses in eastern France. Bale walls
act to retain the hillside, with a plastic
sheet barrier and a "French drain" to

wick away moisture. Time will tell

whether this practice is advised.

The "honey house" by builders Kaki Hunter and Doni Kiffmeyer in Moab, Utah. This Chickens at the Black Range Lodge
dome/vaulted structure was constructed from earth- filled sandbags and plastered with in Kingston, NM enjoy sculpted cob
earth and lime plasters. nests in their straw bale chicken coop.

83
NATURAL MATERIALS W*s~i

>

fej4

mm
4

MUD DANCING cob building in North America. They run the North American School

Cob Construction with of Building (headquartered in Coquille, Oregon), which provides

workshops and apprenticeships in cob and natural building and the
Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley Cob Cottage Company, which publishes books on the same subjects.
Ianto and Linda live in the cob complex shown here, which forms a
M,~m:'M semi-circle around a large, beautiful, very productive vegetable
garden that looks down on a lake in the Oregon woods.
The Hand-Sculpted House, by Ianto, Linda, and Michael G. Smith,
j has recently been published by Chelsea Green, and is the definitive
0. work on building cob cottages. Construction of Heart House, as they
^ call their home, is covered thoroughly in the book. We won't go into

the building details here —

it's covered in their book —
but briefly,
the foundation is an 18" rubble trench with a 2" drainpipe, followed
by a knee-high rock wall that was dry-stacked, then mortared to
"•ft keep out rodents. The cob was placed on top of that. It was (and is
typically) mixed by laying a tarp on the ground, and using clay-rich
soil, coarse river sand, long-stemmed wheat straw, and water. The

mixture was then stomped upon with bare feet, often with music —
drums and flutes —in a ritual they call "mud dancing."
It's a charming house, built, as they say, "... by taking the ground
I

from under your feet and turning it into a building."

'ifeil#fci

www.cobcottage.com
Cob Cottage Company, P.O. Box 123, Cottage Grove, OR 97424
541-942-2005

V drum at left; heat flows through

Fires are built in the the cob
window seat and up chimney in wall at right.
 mwmamT

. - •)'
Y'

"

**&?'
5$
IMwsiwI 1*fe* 1 BHBSB
Ianto and Linda's complex, with the Heart House at the center looking down through garden to lake

'

-Jffrjb£*'m
:--K

-,
_

v-H
*
Tif>\ ianto if? the morning sun Beautiful garden!

r
Tiny but functional
kitchen. Width of
walls determined by
cook's ai mspan: 5'5".

The day I Linda was patching holes

visited, in the
coh walls made by bees.
"Mud Dauber," a 300 sq. ft. south-facing, earth-bermed passive solar cob structure. It has a "living roof " (plants growing
in soil) and an earthen floor. When the site was excavated, the topsoil was separated and put on the roof. The rest of the

soil —
was used to build the cob walls (which hold up the roof making the cycle complete).

FAMILY HOMESTEAD
IN TENNESSEE WOODS
In 1971, Johnny and Carol Kimmons and their family moved onto a
300-acre piece of forested land in the Sequatchie Valley in Tennessee.
Over the past 30 years they have built a number of structures and
have been living "... a sustainable lifestyle deeply integrated with
the forest ecosystem." In 1996 the family homestead became a
learning center and model for sustainable living and is known as the
Sequatchie Valley Institute.

^jjn) www.svionline.org

A huge list of books on natural building materials:

http://store.yahoo.com/dirtcheapbuilderbooks/ind.html

Greenhouse
kitchenette with
tub. Framing is

local chainsaw-
milled black locust
fir ^*^ ll
(rot-resistant).

l {
i

m \-A ^(^9EH"1 B Hffl HHfl

H •
i^ib
"contra-flow" thermal mass heater with 10-foot cob chimney

86
,^^"fctr -
 "Annoli Pajoli" post and beam structure was built from tree,

knocked down by an ice storm. Upstairs is a meeting and sleepin,

space; downstairs is a ceramics and glass studio

87
NATURAL MATERIALS
KELLY AND ROSANA HART'S
EARTHBAG-PAPERCRETE HOUSE Kelly Hart

Kelly and Rosana Hart live in Colorado in a home- soil, I have used crushed volcanic rock. This
built earthbag/papercrete house. The Hart's website creates a very well insulated wall (about as good
(www.greenhomebuilding.com) has a tremendous as straw bale) that will never rot or be damaged
range of information about sustainable architecture by moisture. As a covering for the earthbags I
and natural building materials: adobe, straw bale, used papercrete. This seems to be a very good
cob, cordwood, earthbags, papercrete, cast earth, and solution to the need to seal the bags from the sun
lightweight concrete. Here are Kelly's photos and a and the weather, without necessarily creating a
description of building their home. vapor barrier the walls remain breathable.
. . .

Also, I expect the papercrete finish to be fairly

Building with earthbags (sometimes called maintenance-free, unlike an adobe finish that
sandbags) is both old and new. Sandbags have would require regular maintenance.
long been used, particularly by the military for
creating strong, protective barriers, or for flood
control. The same reasons that make them useful This is the beginning of the large elliptical dome that became
our kitchen and living room. It measures approximately 30
for these applications carry over to creating
feet by 20 feet. Because we are building on sand with
housing: the walls are massive and substantial,
excellent drainage and no problem of frost upheaval, there is
they resist all kinds of severe weather (or even
no foundation other than a pad of 6 to 8 inches of the crushed
bulletsand bombs), and they can be erected volcanic rock (scoria). You can see the pile of scoria in the
simply and quickly with readily available compo- background, and a large wagon wheel in the foreground that
nents. Burlap bags were traditionally used for this will be used to support a circular window opening.
purpose, and they work fine until they eventually
rot. Newer polypropylene bags have superior
strength and durability, as long as they are kept
away from too much sunlight. For permanent
housing, the bags should be covered with some
kind of plaster for protection.
There has been a resurgence of interest in
earthbag building since architect Nadir Khalili, of
the Cal-Earth Institute, began experimenting
with bags of adobe soil as building blocks for
creating domes, vaults, and arches. Khalili was
familiar with Middle Eastern architecture and the This is our first experimental earthbag dome. The interior
use of adobe bricks in building these forms, so it diameter is 14 feet and the dome stands about 1 6 feet high.
was natural for him to imagine building in this At first we tried filling the bags with the fine sand that it is

way. The Cal-Earth Institute has been training built upon, but when we were partly done, the dome fell in Here is the same dome as above, with joists in place for the

people with his particular techniques, and now because the sand couldn 't hold the shape. Then we filled the loft and the arch form still supporting the entrance arch. The
the whole field has expanded considerably with bags with crushed volcanic rock (scoria) that provides better joists are simply resting on the bags and blocked up where

further experimentation by his students and insulation and holds its shape much better. The arch over necessary to maintain the level. Bags are then stacked between
the doorway was created with a wooden form that was later the joists and on top of them to lock them into place. Having
others.
removed. We kept the dome tarped most of the time until we the loft there made the structure much more sturdy as I
I have taken Khalili's ideas of building with
papercreted the exterior, in order to keep the sunlight off the continued to build. Two strands of four-point barbed wire
earthbags that are laid in courses with barbed bags because the UVwill eventually destroy them. were placed between each course of bags to help hold them
wire between them, and come up with some in place and to withstand any tendency for the dome to bulge
hybrid concepts that have proven to make viable outward with pressure from above. We also placed a piece of
housing. Instead of filling the bags with adobe i)))j) www.greenhomebuilding.com baling twine under each bag which would be tied around
three bags eventually. This provided more structural integrity
and created a positive grip for any final plaster material.

88
 elliptical shape, this dome required a rigid
Because of the
poleframework to help support the second story. I would not
recommend building anything but a circular dome after this
experience, because otherwise the forces are just not
balanced enough. You see the large arch form for the six-
foot-wide doorway. The house is a passive solar design, so
we needed large openings to let in the sunlight. After several
failures and much experimenting, we devised a double-bag
technique to create such a large arch. Double side-by-side
bags are used for columns at every doorway in the house.

This shows the main entrance onto a landing, with the option ofgoing up to the loft or down to the main level. Lots of
natural wood was used to finish the interior components. An old woodstove for back-up heat is visible in the foreground.

On the left is the 16-foot interior diameter bedroom dome,

and on the right is part of the large dome. Between them is

the connecting portion of the house under construction. The

back (north) bag wall is a section of a sphere that is braced
into place with the rafters for the southern roof/wall. Other Here I am applying a coating of papercrete to the outside of
braces within the attic space help hold the shape. the large dome. I did this as soon as I could to protect the
bags. Thermal pane glass was embedded in the papercrete
on the outside over all of the circular windows.

A This is the view from the landing

down into the living room. One of our
dogs is standing on the flagstone set
into the adobe floor. The rest of the
floor in the large dome is poured
adobe that was scored with a rocklike
pattern. This is a classic passive solar
arrangement, with lots ofsouth-
facingglass and dark-colored thermal
mass on the floor to absorb the heat.
A window seat can be seen behind the
dog, under the wagon wheel window.
This seat was formed during
construction with earthbags.

Vaulted main entry k Thisis the papercrete tow mixer that was used to mix

to our house. Bell most of the papercrete. An invention of Mike McCain, the
tower is on the left, tow mixer is an amazing machine. It is made from a car rear
and the bermed end, a metal stock tank, a lawnmower blade and a few other
north side of the parts. To make the papercrete, water is filled to within
house, with about six inches of the top, sand is added dry if desired,
completely covered paper of virtually any description is added, and one bag of
pantry mound, is portland cement thrown in. One slow trip driving around
on the right. the block produces a thick slurry that is total mush. This is

drained through a sieve to eliminate the excess water, and

then applied to the building. One mixer load yields between
three and four wheelbarrows full of papercrete.

Kelly and
Rosana Hart

89
NATURAL MATERIALS
EMPLEO DEL CARTABON
especiw los varillones o

COLOCACION DE LA TEJA DE BARRO SOBRE

VARILLONES OE BAMBU

DETALLE No. 4

BAMBOO:
GIFT OF THE GODS
Oscar Hidalgo-Lopez
Oscar Hidalgo-Lopez has had a love affair with
bamboo for over 50 years. An architect (Universidad
National de Colombia), he has travelled all over the
world giving lectures and conducting workshops
on bamboo construction.
He built his first bamboo building in 1965, a
kiosk at a country club in Bogota, Colombia, and
later was a UN adviser on bamboo construction in
Ecuador, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, and Costa Rica.
In 1982-85, he built 12 houses in Ecuador. In
Colombia he built three houses, was construction
consultant in the building of 100 bamboo-framed
houses, and had a small factory making bamboo
furniture.
His 1974 book Bambu (in Spanish) is a classic
on bamboo construction. In 2003, Oscar published
a 550-page encyclopedia on bamboo construction
(in English), Bamboo —
The Gift of the Gods. It's a
must for anyone interested in building with bamboo.
You can order the book from the website below
or by emailing Oscar direct.

www.bamboodirect.com
bamboscar@email.com
 PJ>

Lateral view

In Manizales and other towns and rural

areas ol Caldas state in Colombia, the people used to
build their houses beside roads or streets, even though
they had to build a substructure 15 meters high (4 to 6
floors) to support the house which generally had one or
two floors The construction of the substructure was very
common up to the sixties because bamboo had no value-

Traditional Campesino Structure — 12m diameter

Bamboo slats nailed on all around for tensile strength

91
NATURAL MATERIALS: Bamboo
Typical Bamboo Joinery

Bamboo Bridges
ARMADA DE LA UNIDAD

PUENTETIPO 2

Manufacture of Large Water Tanks with Bamboo

92
Ulloco's Bridge with Roof Cover, Colombia

Basic Wooden Bridge Types That Can Be Built with Bamboo

H. King-post truss I. Queen-post truss J. Extended king-post K Double extended queen-post

L Triple overlapped queen-post M. Polygon- reinforced frame N. Arch-reinforced frame

N. Arched truss (Palmer) P. Arch-reinforced trusses (left, simple Burr right, counterbraced Burr)

Bamboo Windmills

93
NATURAL MATERIALS

RAND AND COOKIE'S

LOG HOUSE
Rand Loftness and Cookie Brown
In 1977 my lady and I decided we about two stories? It has to have

were tired of paying rent and that an upstairs, don't you think? Well,
we needed a home of our own We of course, and a basement too.
had a copy of Shelter, and although And it has to be a log house,
we knew nothing about building doesn't it? Absolutely.
or designing, somehow the book We soon settled on the most
made us believe we could do it. We practical spot to build — at the
pored over it until it was just a pile top of the hill with a view to the Cookie in her rainsuit on the first truss
of unbound dog-eared pages; it north and sun from the south.
encouraged us to rely on instinct, Next we began looking for logs
imagination and native ability, and we bought a truckload of the footing for a twenty-eight- and staying up late reading
rather than money and phone turned poles for about $2000. foot square. So we went looking building books in the library. We
calls, to make our house. That was That was a third of the six foran old cement mixer. At the were getting an idea of how we
just as well, as we had little money thousand we had borrowed to time we had a '55 Cadillac and as were going to use the logs and
and no phone. Now after twelve build with. For another three soon as we got serious about what the house was going to look
years of making it up as we go hundred a man came out with a building we traded
it for a '67 Ford like, but it was still pretty much

along, we have a house that's not small Cat and dug a hole for the pickup whose duty was to go
first designed on the back of an
only paid for, but is the focus of basement. get the cement mixer and then envelope as we went along.
our lives. "You kids gonna build this haul water from town so we could With the logs that we had it
As it happened the first piece of house yourselves?" he asked us. mix concrete. appeared that there wouldn't be
land we looked on a
at fronted "Yep." We figured we needed eight-foot enough to overlap them in the
small inlet of Puget Sound and "Well, you know how a mouse walls in the basement so we corners in classic log-cabin style.
had a view of the Olympic Moun- eats an elephant, don't you?" counted up how many blocks that So we decided to use four of them
tains. Not only that, but we could "No, how's that?" would be and ordered them up, as corner posts and lay the logs in
just barely afford it. So we bought "A little bit at a time," he along with the cement, sand and between them. Milled flat on two
it. It was five acres of jungle with answered with a smile and a wink. lime needed to mix mortar. That sides with a chainsaw mill they
some nice trees, a large flat area Over the years it's been good to took another thousand. The provided a good enough surface
and a steep 200-foot drop to the keep that in mind, along with one money was half gone, but we were to nail to, with big foot-long nails
bay. We jumped right in, clearing other piece of advice from an older about to start really building. We in pre-drilled holes.As we laid the
brush with machetes and talking guy: keep it simple. had no idea how long things would logs on top of one another we
all the while about what our house When the hole was dug we take but we were wildly optimistic. ran the chainsaw between them
would be like: Would 40 x 60 be found that without too much All the while that we were laying until it cut both logs the whole
big enough? Oh probably. How extra hand digging we could fit in blocks we were working at our jobs length, and this made a pretty
good fit and kept us busy for a
few months.
We had already decided that for
the upstairs and the roof we would
use the logs to frame with, though
we didn't know how we would do
it. At the time I didn't know a
mortise from a tenon and thought
that timber framing was how they
made railroad bridges. But fortu-
nately, just in time, we found
some hints in a log building book
that got us started on timber
framing with round logs. We just
drew up some shapes that we liked
and used our high school
trigonometry and a calculator to
find the lengths of the pieces,
locate the mortises and find the
shapes of the mortises. Of course
all that was pretty abstract until
we set the first logs up in horses
and fired up the chainsaw. We'd
soon learned that it's not too easy
to make a square cut on a round
log, or to cut accurately with a
chainsaw. And it took a real leap of
faith in our numbers to cut the
first mortise. So it was both a

relief and a quiet sort of thrill to

fit the first tenon into its mortise

and call it a fit. After that it was
-Woodshed ready for winter. Built on 4"-thick edge-supported Solar greenhouse brightens and heats house.
structural slab with integral steps

several weeks of careful work Nonetheless it was a good old storage tank, we have all the water going to the ocean and dragging
before was time to round up our
it stove and it kept the house livable we can use. planks out of the surf when we
friends, buy some beer and have a untilit burned through and we Having a water system encour- couldn't afford to buy any at the
raisin' day. That was the first of had to make another ... of a aged us to think about making a lumber store. Even now when
many parties in our house, the slightly different design. septic tank which we laid up with things are pretty squared away
first time it really felt like it was We decided that we had to move four-inch concrete blocks plastered and we're no longer really broke,

going to be a house, and a hopeful in at the end of September no with mortar and coated with tar. we're still bubbling with subver-
sign of good times to come. matter what, so with a stove and a So now after ten years or so with sive glee at being able to build
But when was over there was
it funky water system we threw the composting toilet, which really what we want with little regard for
still a great deal to do before we some plastic over the roof and worked OK, we have a flush toilet the "normal practices" of the main
could move in and it had to be made a permanent camp. Our plan and a shower. consumer building industry.
done pretty quickly for we couldn't all along had been to make a big Since we found the downstairs a
keep paying rent and making box and then figure out how to little gloomy with the solid log

land payments for long before the live in it. So when we moved in we walls, and were perched on a good

money ran out. So over the had no walls to obstruct our solar site, we cut out most of the
summer we had to close off the thinking. We had no stairs either, south wall and built an attached
upstairs, make a front door, make not to the basement or the solar greenhouse with a concrete
some windows, get some electric- sleeping area on the upper floor. floor. Suddenly it was transformed

ity to the house, do something There was plastic in many of the into a bright and cheerful place
about water . . . the list seemed window holes, no way toreal that was much easier to heat. And
endless. bathe, no insulation, and none of of course there's plenty of room
For a water system we had some a host of other things, but we for plants, and that livens up the
plastic apple juice barrels, one of didn't care. It was our house and whole house. Cookie and Rand
which we put on some logs we were going to make it work.
protruding from the second story. We've been here for thirteen We little REALIZED when we Of course there's more to
The other we kept in the pickup years now, and a little bit at a time began here that we were setting making a place than just building.
and filled in town or at a local it's turning into a pretty civilized into motion a process that would By now we've beaten back enough
park. Then we could back the place. We
found a small spring on become our whole lives. Our of the jungle to have a garden and
truck under the first barrel and fill the below the house and
hill education, skills and thinking have fruit trees and a fenced area for

it from the truck with an electric corralled it by digging it out and evolved along with the place in a pigs and chickens, and are about
drill pump, and gravity feed it into placing a perforated bucket in it way that causes one thing to lead to start on some fish ponds for
the makeshift kitchen. That was surrounded by gravel. We led a to another and then another and carp and trout, using the overflow
fine until the weather got good pipe out of the bucket into a then another. We've discovered from our springs. We're turning
and cold, five below for days on settling tank and then to a 1000- that we can do about anything into regular peasants, which is

end; then it froze into a solid block gallon tank further down the hill. that we can think of, and anything what we always really wanted. It's

that didn't thaw till spring. We put a submersible pump in the we don't know is somewhere in not a vocation that commands
We also had to make a stove to big tank and that gave us a pres- the library. much and you don't hear
prestige,
heat the house, and for that we surized water system. So even It is somewhat of a paradox that a lot about from the career
it

relied on a stove-making book by though the spring is only a couple the intent of this consumer counselors, but once you learn to
Ole Wik, who appeared in Shelter. of gallons a minute, with the society is to make people more think for yourself and do for
It turned out to be an and more dependent on the yourself, it's a lot of fun.
upright 55-gallon drum services it provides, which one The Shelter book meant so
with a 30-gallon drum must submit to wage slavery to much to us that we're glad to
inside of it, a downdraft pay for, while at the same time the share our experiences. The world
stove with a real person- information that makes self- would be so much better if people
ality. We'd load it up with reliance possible is available for would learn to do things for

green wood, and it would free in the library. themselves instead of being
cook it till it was dry and From the beginning one of the intimidated by the "professionals,"
then burn hot and the most basic facts of our lives has government regulations and the
stove would gasp for air been that there isn't much money, prevailing mindset of our so-called
with an increasingly so we have constantly had to think culture into thinking that the
franticrhythm until it of how we could improve our lives only way to have a house is to be
would blow the top clear Spring- fed, hand-dug, solar-heated swimming without spending any. Naturally a wage slave until you can afford
across the room, usually in pool; greenhouse fiberglass over EMT conduit we soon became passionate to buy one— a vain hope at

the middle of the night. trusses provides heat. scroungers, to the point even of today's p

95
SCISSORS TRUSS FRAME
All ALONG the main question has always been, how can we
improve our lives without spending any money? When the
time came to make outbuildings, this question eventually
directed my attention to the plentiful supply of small fir

poles, commonly called "pecker poles" available in the local

forests. I figured that by joining these poles with mortise and

tenon joints, I could make a building for practically nothing.

So I started with a woodshed and succeeded well enough that
I began to see other possibilities.

The accompanying photos show the result of my most

recent effort, a 20 x 60 building we call the motor stables.
Though tricky to make, these scissors trusses that are the
crux of this building use less material than king post trusses
and they are quite rigid laterally, so they are easy to raise
without damage. This building cost about 100 dollars to get
as far as the space sheathing: forty dollars for the concrete in
the piers and sixty for most of the poles, from a local firewood
yard. The rest of the poles were collected on a permit from
Simpson Timber. Once you get to the roof, of course, you have
to spend some money. For small buildings like woodsheds
I've managed to scrounge enough cedar to do it for free, but

usually this isn't possible.

-Rand Loftness
PHOTOGRAPHE

I
.

11A 12
PHOTOGRAPHERS

Small barn in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan was designed by Shuhei Hasado, and is used for vegetable storage. The framing is
tree branches, which were then plastered, and embedded with old barn shingles, and capped with rice straw.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS Drawings by

OF YOSHIO KOMATSU Eiko Komatsu
1 love BOOKS on building. In bookstores, people's Since 1985, Yoshio has travelled all over the
homes, at book expos, I look for books on homes, world shooting photos of vernacular homes. Eiko
dwellings, family-sized structures as opposed to often goes with him. He shoots with two Canon
the monumental edifices or architectural homes for EOS cameras, mostly using two Canon "L" zoom
the wealthy. After 30+ years of pursuing this lenses, a 16-35 mm and a 28-70 mm. The buildings
passion,I came across a book that just stunned he finds are wonderful and unique. Moreover, the
me. was called Living on Earth, by Yoshio
It people in the photos look relaxed and happy —
Komatsu (Fukuinkan-Shoten Publishers, Tokyo, obviously comfortable with the photographer. The
1999) and it was a masterpiece. 1700 meticulous American version of this book —
Built by Hand —
color photos of people's dwellings all over the and edited by Athena and Bill Steen, has just been
world, built from natural materials. It was in published by Gibbs Smith (see p. 234). Here are
Japanese, but that didn't matter. The photos spoke eight pages of photographer-extraordinaire Yoshio
for themselves. Wow! Komatsu's work, with drawings by Eiko Komatsu:

98
INDIA This immaculate dwelling is in the village Ludia, in the Kutch region Gujarat near the
Pakistan border. The walls are built with earth, straw, and cow dung and decorated with
beautiful patterns. The interior walls are plastered and have small embedded mirrors.

Yl

P D
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Komatsu
W&VVjf'W.>#% KEsBHBM I '
-«..-. tfrfcssgsy;-? .'-^m
MONGOLIA Yurt ("ger") in a plain 150 miles south ofUlaan Baatar. TOGO The stunning house (shown at right) appears to grow out of the red soil.
Mongolian nomads move their yurts as they follow their grazing stock. Theyurts It is a series of towers connected by thick walls, an earthen castle. The rooms under
can be assembled in three hours. The wall is a wooden lattice work that expands the capped conical roofs are for storage of millet and sorghum; the other upper story
for erectionand contracts for travel; the roof is supported by poles that connect tower rooms are for sleeping and cooking. The ground floor is for animals. On the
at the center ring. The outer skin consists of thick wool felt mats. In the center is and peep holes for spying on potential
exterior walls are fetish animal skulls
a horse dung-fired cookstove. enemies. Note family of ducks at right heading for their hole in the wall.
«»-•*

**_ *'

1. Workshop & entrance

2. Bedrooms
3. Kitchen
4. Granary
5.

6.
Chicken's room
Peeping hole
1,
-£±

w
I
u
fcf
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Komatsu

INDONESIA Houses of
the Bajau people stand on
the ocean's edge in Manado,
northern Sulawesi Island.
They are fishermen and
grow and sell seaweed. The
simple house consists of a
mangrove floor, bamboo
walls,and a palm leaf roof.

SENEGAL Fadiout is 70 miles south of Dakar. The village is on a small shell-mound island and reached VIETNAM Floating homes on Langa Lake, 80 miles
by a wooden bridge. There are basket-like granaries on stilts outside the village; these were built over northeast of Ho Chi Minh City. These people live on the
the water after a big fire many years ago, to protect stored food. water and raise fish and alligators in water cages that they
sell in the marketnlace.

MALI Houseboat on
'

Niger River near Mopti. ;

Mopti is at the junction : L

of the Niger and Bani
rivers, an active trading
place in the Sahara
Desert zone for a great
variety of people. The
Bozo people shown here
live on and fish from this

boat; they also have

straw huts along the
river for drying the fish
they sell on the market.
 At, / i

MYANMAR (BURMA,)
Jn/e Lake

\ /

BENIN LakeNokwe

VENEZUELA Above and below: The Orinoco Delta is inhabited by

the Warao Indians. Their stilt houses, built along the river banks,
have no walls. The importance of the river in their lives is reflected
in their name. "Wa" in their language means "canoe," and "arao"

means "people."

.1

PAPUA, NEW GUINEA Spirit house

VENEZUELA A shabono, a circular structure about 100 feet in
diameter inhabited by the reclusive Yartomami Indians in a remote
part of the Amazon jungle, upstream of the Orinoco region, near
the Brazilian border. The shabono actually consists of a series of
individual dwellings side by side, each with its own hearth, '-

grouped together for defensive reasons. Between $.0-70

Yanomami, who subsist entirely from the forest, live in one of
these structures. Photo: Yoshio Komatsu ..
• '-.'"

--S-.

*- c
 '-#

35fa

*
x

&£»££ri
PHOTOGRAPHERS

j ;
- ; iijife ., ,

^Ip^ •
Ml •'
1
^ ^te»L '

y 1 wSB^S^fii^
£": ,
'

pp* ^os^y
Timber and mud-chinked farm house near the village ofNagar in the Himmalayan valley ofKulu. A brick caravansary in Herat, Afghanistan is now used as <

Animals live below, people above, with a balcony for the view. storage depot for a coppersmith.

KEVIN KELLY
;

?: ';^f!.«ii 3^fc*. wSi!&-"

kEViN Kelly travelled throughout Asia in the 70s and

oOs with a backpack and two cameras. He visited Japan,
Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, and India and shot some 40,000 pictures. In 2002
he selected 600 of these and published Asia Grace, a rich
and diverse mix of Kevin's experiences. The book is unique
in that there are no captions just wall-to-wall photos. —
Kevin is a man of many talents, probably best known
as executive editor of Wired magazine in its exciting
early years. Prior to that he was publisher and editor of
Above and below: Slate-roofed houses, Kulu Valley, Indian Himalayas the Whole Earth Review and oversaw publication of four
versions of the Whole Earth Catalog. In 1981 he started
Walking Journal, the first magazine on walking. He was a
founding member of The WELL, a pioneering online
newsgroup, the author of several books, a writer whose
work has appeared in The New York Times, The Econo-
mist, and Esquire and is currently, along with Stewart
Brand and Ryan Phelan, working on the All Species
Inventory, a plan to document all living organisms in the
span of one generation.
On these five pages are photos from Kevin's seven
wandering years in various parts of Asia. At the websites
listed below you can see the entire book online, as well
as Kevin's past and present interests.

My method of shooting was simple: shoot first and ask

^^ questions later
of time and no money
. .

rolls of film in my backpack

. I traveled solo

. . . I would leave the

The majority of the images
. . .
most of the time. I
U.S.
had lots
with 500

were shot using a pair ofNikkormat camera bodies and . . .

five very heavy, old-fashioned lenses . . .

www.asiagrace.com
www.kk.org
On the rugged peninsula of Mount Athos, Greece, monks have built anchorites
and hermitages along the coast.

:
'**
»
The Mogul influence is felt in this Rajastan Palace situated on an
island in a lake, and now run as a small hotel.

'&» **; the largest gathering

of humans on earth:
14 million pilgrims

!
'irZJilF^TrW'^Sr.'''
7
, y '
TT f
during the 1976
Mela '"
Khum
Alahabad, India.

'eaks have always been holy places. In the eastern mountains of South Korea a woman devotee
vorships at an altar built into rock cairns. She has lit candles and is waving a Korean
flag.

Floating homes fill Aberdeen Harbor on the backside

^^~ r .
of Hong Kong. Residents use water taxis to commute
to shore, while floating stores peddle goods to the
waterborne community, and floating restaurants
serve meals. Some of the houseboats can sail, but
most homes are fixed-up barges that need to be towed.

'

"K
- ,

y-*TS'-f* > -
SIKKIM Young monks Photo: Kevin Kelly
HIMALAYAS, NEPAL These narrow terraces in the hills of the Himalayas (only five feet wide in places) are for barley, oats,
and millet. They require tremendous upkeep against erosion and gravity. The hut at center is a day-use shelter, not a home.
Hii A
>HOTOGRAPHERS

HE HALLIG HOMES
OF NORTHERN GERMANY
Hans Joachim Kurtz

Houses on Hallig Langness. Today all the mounded building sites on the Halligs
("Warften") are protected by their own dikes, as shown here.

Hallig Houses, as shown in these three photos, have been built

though the centuries either singly, or in small groups on "Warften,"
artificial mounds built up above sea level.

Next two pages (114-115):

Hallig Habel during "Land unter," a local term
describing the flooding of the Halligs during
storms when just the houses stick out of the water.
Twenty years ago, when this picture was taken,
the house was inhabited by a farmer. His sheep
and cattle spent their nights in the lower story. In
extreme storms, when the lower story was flooded,
the farmer would bring his animals upstairs.

112
 Hallig Suderoog during "Land unter," looking much like a ship at sea. Like Hallig Habel, Suderoog is one
of the smallest inhabited Halligen, with just one house. The circular white fence at left surrounds the
"Fething," a pool lined with straw and clay that collects drinking water. (Today most of the Halligs have
a water connection by pipes to the mainland.)

One of the farmhouses

of Hallig Hooge ("Land
unter"). During storm
floods, the North Sea
separates neighbors
from each other, as
shown here.

IN the NORTHERNMOST part of Germany, just mounds known as "Warften."

below the border with Denmark (about 60 About 30 times a year, high tides completely
miles northwest of Hamburg), is an area on surround the Warften, isolating them from
the North Sea known as North Frisia. It is an other Warften on the same Hallig, so that
area of low flatlands and mudflats, with tidal from the air, the archipelago appears to
changes of up to nine feet, so that at low tide, consist of some 50, rather than14 islands.
North Frisia's surface area is one-third larger. In times past, the North Sea (nicknamed
Just off the coast is an archipelago of 14 "Mordsee," or Killer Sea), would batter the
small islands (the largest four being Sylt, Fohr, area. In 1362 and 1634, huge winter storms
Amrun, and Pellworm). The other ten islands caused the "Grote Mandranken," or "Great
are "Halligs," small, low areas that are a cross Drownings." After heavy storm floods in
between an island and a sandbank, and are 1962, dikes about 20 feet high were
unique in the world. Several hundred people built around the houses on the Halligen, so
live in houses standing on built-up they are no longer flooded.

Hamburger Hallig

The Hallig postman of Langness. He delivers

mail via a motor-powered lorry on a tiny railway
linefrom one Hallig to another. The tracks are
dry during low tides, underwater at flood tides.

113
• ' I

*
Like a giant Mandala, the island village of Mexcaltitdn seems to float on the
Rio San Pedro delta (between Mazatldn and San Bias). This photo was shot in

late summer 1968, when torrential rains turned streets into canals. At lower
right is a partially submerged basketball court; U-shaped building at lower left

is fishermen's cooperative. Photo: W. E. Garrett, National Geographic Society

1 *'' +** '

*
J*

'4*'-^-
.•" ->.

'
""^
 !$$?&

*#**
3f p
&*r
\. a
m

* -
s
:K Wf
— ;

•
'

' 4.

:'*
Houseboat on the Rh
Damnoen Sudak, Thai
Photo: Robert Barab
Monastery in Meteora, Greece
hoto: Clay Perry
Waterside restaurant in Kekova, a Turkish island in the Mediterranean Sea
Photo: Dr. Mehmet Hengirmen
ELIPHANTE
Michael Kahn's
Sculptural Village in
the Arizona Desert

'When we started to build

living space, we decided
to make it an art form."

My cousin Mike started painting when Provincetown, Cape Cod. Since then
he was 12, and he's been an artist most of we've kept in touch over the years. So
his life. No compromises, no job that when I look at Mike's work, I have a 60+
would interfere with his art. We're a year year perspective, and am hardly unbiased.
apart, sons of two brothers, and we That being said, I think Mike has
played together as kids. We both went off created a major American work of art,
to college in the '50s, and I lost track of conceived, built, and lived in, and
him until the early '60s, when we lived unknown to the "art" world. Mike's a shy
next to each other for a year in Mill guy, and puts his efforts into his art

Valley, California. Then1965, on one

in rather than marketing. People don't know
of those "consciousness-expanding" road about him. He doesn't get grants from
trips of the times, I visited him in rich people or big corporations. This is

122
 ***3t i-.
* mM
why it's exciting to show you his work in moved to Crete, living in an old farmhouse inner vision." They drove the truck to
these pages. with a Mediterranean view and worked on Sedona in 1977 and met a man who told
Mike graduated from the University a series of oil paintings. His wife Leda them they could set up camp on three
of California at Santa Barbara in 1958. him there and they eventually
joined acres of land along the banks of a river
He intended to go to graduate school to moved to Paris, then back to Provincetown. near Cornville. They started out with a
become a school psychologist, but met a They spent a year building a camper on leaky tent and the camper/truck. They
portrait painter in New Orleans who the back of a 1960 Ford flatbed. "It looked had shed filled with their books
a little
rekindled his interest in painting. He like a covered wagon." Mike felt the urge (the "Winter Palace"), and cooked at
moved to New York to study at the Art to do large paintings at the time and had an outdoor kitchen under the
Student's League and National Academy, read Max Ernst's description of the Cottonwood trees.
then eventually to Provincetown where he landscape around Sedona, Arizona, "When we started to build living space,
studied with Henry Hensche. He then "... the forms of red rocks the closest to we decided to make it an art form."

123
 * ^!

« •
••

»-5,

P il

I
tf* *
./I

I
f
\
-N

m
**
m
J**

'-:. J
\*^:

Greenhouse room built out of old auto

windshields siliconed together. Stained
glass is siliconed onto inside ofglass.
FANTASY: Eliphante
i
&

m
iiS- V-'.. ~
,,&

Eliphante, the first major building, was constructed in three

years. It was built out of " adobe, wood, stone, ferro-cement
. . .

and glass." To enter, you wind through a sculptural painted

tunnel into a room with stone floors, steps, terraces, and a
multi-colored profusion of stained glass. The center of the large
glass wall ended up looking (unintentionally) like an elephant. A
friend came by one day, looked at it, and said "Eliphante," and so
Kiva. Ladder with rock door goes down 8 feet to cool and quiet
carpet-covered meditation space.
the building was named. There is a large pond outside Eliphante,
a solar-heated shower building,
an underground kiva, and
sculptures of rock, mirrors,
and found objects throughout
the grounds.

Looking in from the entrance tunnel

126
 North wall with piano and wood collage of carved 2x4s
door in collage opens into secret back room.
Mike and Leda in their outdoor (summertime) kitchen
wrs^^mm
\NTASY: Eliphante

'-&>
'

;
'1
i
l"~77;f

~v;.

PIPE DREAMS
Pipe Dreams is Mike's most recent building, and
it's an art gallery of his paintings, a labyrinth of a
building with dozens of rooms, tableaus, displays
of paintings, fabrics, tilework, stonework, stained-
glass-colored beams of light reflecting on walls and
David O'Keefe and Michael
floors. Mike's friends
Glastonbury collaborated with him in the sponta-
neous creation and construction process.
As you can see from these eight pages, Mike
ended up building a sculptural village. He says he
was inspired mostly by sculptor Conrad Malicoat
of Provincetown, and by the book Shelter, "... not
only ideas and techniques, but an undercurrent of
creative inspiration, a trust that things will work
out."
 MA PAGE'S
BOTTLE HOUSE
John and Maxine (Ma and Pa) Page moved away from the
city (San Francisco Peninsula) in the '70s to a remote valley
in the high desert country of Nevada. John took up mining,
resurrecting a small placer mine, and Maxine set about to
build a house out of bottles where she could store her paint-
ings and art projects.
I ran across the bottle house early one morning while out

looking for hot springs in the Nevada desert. The rising sun
was shining through the bottles, it was this glowing multi-
lam* a f colored apparition in a remote desert valley. Wow! In ensuing
years went back to visit and photograph the Pages and their
I

projects, taking my kids along. Here are some photos, parts of a

newspaper article, and an excerpt from one of Maxine's letters.

In the early 70s Maxine Page worked at Hewlett Packard

in what has since become Silicon Valley. Mother of six, Maxine
had been divorced several years earlier, and was living in the
suburbs with her kids. One night she came home, ". and
. .

there was this young guy — John — sitting around with the
kids. I thought he was a friend of my sons."
It turned out that John, a year younger than her oldest

son, was interested in her. "He had been

to Vietnam, was 25, and looked 35 and
I was 45 and he told me I looked 35." *

John and Maxine hit it off, despite

the 19 years' difference in age. "We
honky-tonked together." On August 5,
1974, John's 25th birthday, they were
married in San Jose. Maxine was 44.
"You can imagine, I took a lot of t

ribbing at work. 'How's your young man?'

They started going to Nevada and
exploring ghost towns. In 1975 they found a ghost town —
Fitting, Nevada, about 17 miles from Unionville — with nine
buildings left. John met the county sheriff, who ended up
telling the Pages they could live in one of the old buildings if
they would be caretakers. They moved into a two-bedroom
house that had been inhabited by Chinese working in the
nearby Bonanza King Mine. There was an old orchard, with
apple, cherry, apricot and pear trees, and John ran a PVC pipe
to it from a creek and started watering the trees. In summer,
locals would come out and pick the fruit. It was a good life.
John and Maxine lived for years with very few amenities,
much like 19th-century miners. After about two years the
mining company that owned mineral rights to the land demol-
ished the town, and the Pages had to move on. Maxine and
John then moved to Spring Valley, near Lovelock, where they
leased 280 acres from the BLM. On the abandoned homestead
they built a 12' X 12' cabin to live in, and started mining. "First
we panned; we might get $20 worth of gold a day." Back then
gold got to be about $800 an ounce. "You could put $20 worth
of gold in a thimble."
Next they got a dry washer. "We got enough money from
that to build afull operation." John got an antique (1910)
bulldozer and then a 1949 Ford dump truck ("the same year
John was born"). They got an Allis Chalmers loader and a used
t'rummel, the device that breaks up the rock. The rock is
loaded into a hopper and a belt moves it to the trummel. Any
 e#

"4^k

gold then falls out in the bottom of Then they'd come back and bring
the catcher and washed down in
is me bottles."
the riffles (grooves). On a good day John and Maxine would get
they would get $100 worth of gold. snowed in periodically in winter.
John had been a welder in the "Times do get tough in the west
Navy and had to constantly repair and winters, especially. There were
and fix the equipment. times in the canyon when John
There was a creek running had to walk out through three feet
through their land, fed by five of snow to the top of the pass.
artesian springs. "I had a garden. Sometimes he could get a ride into
Carrots, squash, beans, potatoes, town (20 miles) and a coupla times
broccoli, lettuce onions all . . .
he walked all the way."
around the outer edge straw- . . . John had some pretty wild
berries. There were wild blackber- mining friends. "The Duffy boys,
and rosehips on the hill."
ries they lived in a cave, an old mine.
While John worked the mine, One day they were digging and
Maxine decided to build an art they broke through into a tunnel
studio, for her painting and sewing that led to another mine. They
and writing. "I had seen a bottle found out that it had been lived in
house in Rhyolite (near Death by a man named Herman Napstein,
Valley, California) and that was my known to locals as Herman the
inspiration." Hermit. He had gone back east with
"I laid 2 x
on the ground, and
6's baby food jars full of gold dust, and
4X 4's at Then 2 X 4's
the corners. was picked up by police in New
in between and I braced it, then Jersey as a vagrant. The entrance
started laying the bottles with to the mine was all barricaded with
mortar. Once I started building, rocks, and the only way they got in
people would stop by to see it. there was from another tunnel."

ft

I
ft
la.** P
!
5 . .• ... ......
'I
1

i
P33*S5&*'<
1 i

¥
T- •
.§*-..••
•«••*•, •
• • If 1
1
>' !

Bottle-Laying Tip from Ma

"10 Michelobs and 10 Millers do not a row make."
(A row of Michelobs = 8 %", of Millers = 7 'A".)
FANTASY: Ma and Pa Page

A Letter from Maxine

"... EverythingJohn builds works so far. His
Dad was out here first week of August, and
shook his head sadly at all of John's good
welding, "He could be making $75 an hour in the
Bay Area welding." He didn't even remember his
son was certified in the Navy for welder and
pipefitter, and jungle fighter, also killer, thanks
to Vietnam and U.S. Navy. I guess there are a lot
of thingswe learn in a lifetime that our folks
don't know. But we weren't happy living in the
Bay Area, so now we live here. We cut wood all
winter to keep warm, and I cook on the wood-
stove, to save propane for JP's cutting torch. So
what if we are different?? Pioneers never had it
half as easy as we do. As I like to tell people "I've
got my 30 years in with the PG&E." So I retired
to a life of hauling water and chopping wood. I

sometimes wonder if it would have been easier

on John, if I let him put in his 30 years. His
carpentry skills have got better the past 12 years
out here, but nothing would pass a city inspector,
I guess, but we are happy with what we make

ourselves. Our plumbing didn't freeze and have

to be dug up like most folks in town had. Our
water runs year-round, freely. You could almost
write a whole book on the things John's built
from Fitting to our 23 x 14 cabin in South Fork,
the bar and stereo cabin, to my book-house and
the shop and front porch, to our bedroom, (best
yet), to the present mill. Still building. Even

better since we got your Shelter book ..."

This old newspaper article

was posted on the wall.

132
 The bathtub in the creek was a great place Bottle fence crowned with little cars
to cool off on hot afternoons.

"I stay home and let the I took my two boys up to visit the

world come to me. Life's so Pages one weekend. Evan, then about
good out here most times, 8, followed John around wherever he

I'm afraid to leavehome went. (Evan always liked a "man's

in case I new
miss some man.") Late one afternoon, they were
friend I haven't met yet." down near the pond and the dog
started barking. Turned out there was
a rattlesnake in the bushes. John
pulled out his pistol and shot it, and
then that evening Ma skinned it and
gave the skin to Evan.

Epilog: In the summer of '92, John Page their lease, and Maxine wrote: "I'm lonely another bottle house, this time in her
died in a tragic accident. Maxine wrote, and wondering how I can go on without
still daughter's back yard, an "eight-sided
"He'll never be free to walk my valley again. John. We had a hard life, but a good one and gazebo." you have any questions about
If

He'll miss that and shooting rabbits and most of all, we had love ..." Maxine moved bottle houses, or maverick mining in Nevada.
coyotes. But not as much as we will all miss '
to Henderson, a suburb outside Las Vegas. '
you can contact her at: 171 W. Vanwaggnen,
JP." Upon John's death, the BLM cancelled She's now doing OK and is building yes-— Apt. #4B, Henderson, NV 89015.

Jack Fulton andI went to John's wake in August, 1992. About

I 20 people showed up and we had a barbecue and hung out. .

\J.

133
SSEES1

FLYING CONCRETE in Lightweight Concrete oy

S*.
St *-uctiiral and Sculptural
lPorm
form s bv ^
StleVe
^nher

Outside view, my house. What will some day be the front door is presently
bricked up forming a niche inside. Studio in background. Note the re-bar
sticking out to add on the second floor later.

I ran across Steve Kornher's work on the web. Steve has been building
View of the picnic table from the roof at Tim's (about
for 30 years, 15 of those in Mexico. He s worked with adobe and 3M diameter) This is ferro-cement, about 1 W thick
rammed earth as well as various types of concrete masonry construc- and uses hard concrete with added concrete colors.
tion. He is now "completely in love with lightweight volcanic
aggregate." Here is his account and photos of his latest work.

JVIy wife, Emilia, and I live on a two-acre ranchito about 25 ROOFS

minutes from San Miguel de Allende, in the mountains of I have worked with a lot of different forming systems for
central Mexico (6200 ft. elevation). Our home is a work in different roofs. The largest to date is approx. 6M x 6M. Small
progress; built Mexican style: pay as you go and leave the re-bar roofs can be supported from above during construction, but
sticking out for future additions. We built the house and large larger roofs need some center support. Designing a smart roof
warehouse over a period of two years, using two (sometimes shape is one key. Roofs in barrel vaults, modified domes, and
three) masons at a time. Building slowly is a lot more enjoyable especially seashell shapes (my favorites, and actually quite easy
and you can be more creative, since you can think things over to do) are all very strong in compression. Since the roofs are
and make changes. self-supporting in shape and poured slowly, very little reinforc-
The house presently has about 1200 square feet (110 square ing is necessary. Once a lower form mold is made-up (typically
meters) of interior space with plenty of terraces for outdoor pieces of V re-bar or welded wire), it can be easily moved in
living. Most of the first floor is of adobe construction. Later sections to form an identical roof.
additions and roofs are lightweight volcanic aggregate. South- Roofs are 3
all built with an initial /s" shell poured on plaster

facing windows and overhang provide passive solar heat in the lath on top of a metal framework (which is later removed and
wintertime. All roofs are masonry vaults with shell motifs. reused). This shell stiffens everything up for the pours of
Mexico has some great masons and I owe a lot to the knowl- lightweight aggregate which follow and lets you see what the
edgeable maestros who have helped me figure out how to do roof will look like. Changes are easy at this point. After the roof
this wild and crazy stuff. pour (4-6" thick) you can move the form again in five or six
I originally came to San Miguel for a two-week ceramics days for the next roof. I'm a big fan of reusable and movable
Studio door at our house. Iron,
workshop, got into potpourri and botanical exporting (all formwork, usually V
re-bar and/or #10 or #6 welded wire.
exposed lightweight concrete, fibers,
legal), then flower and seed production, and am now back at These days I'm very excited about quick, low-cost barrel vaults.
and concrete colors.
construction. I've been in the area 18 years and have lived at
the ranchito for eight. WALLS
We have almost one hectare (two acres) here. About half is in Walls are typically 6-8" thick, built
flower production for my wife's store in San Miguel and the other from the same volcanic aggregate. At
half is largely native plants. It's a jungle during the rainy season. first poured the aggregate into forms
I

Between the flowers and natives, I'm shooting for 400 species.
(8/1 aggregate/cement by volume for
walls, 5/1 for roofs) but now blocks are
being made locally and since they are
One of my main goals is low-cost building construction that quicker, use them for even roundie-
I

lasts 400 To accomplish that in this climate you need to

years. curvie walls.
build self-supporting structures and use masonry construction Books that have influenced my
— adobe, lightweight concrete block, reinforced concrete construction: The Owner- Built Home,
columns, etc. The roof is the key to long building life, so it Ken Kern: great alternative ideas about
needs to be self-supporting, roundie-curvie and not flat. Self- — using concrete. A Pattern Language,
supporting vertical walls by nature want to be roundie-curvie. Christopher Alexander. Any book on
You go on from there and pretty soon everything is roundie- Antoni Gaudi; Gaudi of Barcelona,
curvie. When you start to think about a long-lasting house, it's Rizzoli Int., N.Y. is a good one.
best to build so that remodeling is possible (probable). With The kitchen roof at my house. This was my first attempt at a
adobe and/or lightweight concrete construction, you can hack seashell-shaped concrete roof. It ended up too flat and therefore

out a doorway later on. With hard concrete this is an almost needed a lot of iron in the reinforced beams in the ribs. This roof
impossible project. is built to support a second floor above.

134
Clay model of the first stage of construction of my Lightweight concrete roof over the closet area — thre

house. 1 now use modeling clay. intersecting shell shapes. Note south-facing skylight.

Window arches at Las Cahas. We Living room ceiling. Stairway built of lightweight concrete at
nail up orange poly ducto to get an This was the first brick hoheda Bonnie and Haden Kayden s home in San
idea of desired shapes, then cut and roof my maestro or I had built. Miguel de Allende. We have since built a
fill with lightweight concrete. A challenging project. railing but it isn't absolutely necessary.

Lightweight Concrete
structural concrete mixes. It weighs only half as much gate here in San Miguel is a type of pumice/scoria
V^oncrete is strong in compression; the best way to (50-80 lbs./cubic foot). which we
(called espumilla or arenilla in local Spanish)

take advantage of this property by building struc-

is Not all concrete is ugly, hard, cold, and difficult to typically mix cement for walls, and
8:1 or 10:1 with
tures that are inherently self-supporting and don't work with. There exists a whole range of lightweight 5:1 for roofs.Most lightweight concrete has a good
need a lot of iron reinforcing. Since most building here concretes . "which have a density and compressive
. . R-value and is a good insulator of heat and sound. It is
in Mexico is with concrete, it is easier to let your strength very similar to wood. They are easy to work used as soundproofing in subway stations. It has
imagination go wild. Local builders have been working with, can be nailed with ordinary nails, cut with a saw, tremendous sculptural possibilities and is ideal for
with ferro-cement, wired styrofoam panels, plastered drilled with woodworking tools, and easily repaired. monolithic, wall-roof construction.
straw bales, and soil-crete. have had the most success
I We believe that ultra-light weight concrete is one of I feel that we need more intelligent building

with lightweight concrete. Lightweight concrete differs the most fundamental bulk building materials of the systems. I'm looking for a home that lasts several
from heavy concrete by its use of naturally lightweight future." (A Pattern Language.) hundred years, that you can maintain and remodel
materials (aggregates) such as pumice (volcanic stone) Some form of suitable aggregate is available most easily, and that uses mostly locally available, abundant

in place of the sand and gravel used in ordinary everywhere in the world. Our locally available aggre- materials. Lightweight concrete fits the bill.

Forming a modified
dome at Las Cahas.
Plaster lath on top of
lightweight metal
formwork (which is
later reused). The
initial %" -thick shell
has been applied at the
left of the photo.

The small kite/parachute roof for

the laundry at our house. The only
non-seashell roof so far.This is a
ferro roof and the concentic circles
3
of /s" re-bar stay in place.
Styrofoam panels were assembled on the ground, then In the foreground, the V," shell is in

raised into place and plastered. This structure encloses c place. In the background, 3 inches of
large, plastic water storage tank at Tim's. lightweight aggregate has been poured
with one layer of #6 Welded Wire, then
polished with a sand and cement mix.

135
 Timolandia i

,, ^-
View of the main house and privacy wall from the road. The neighbor's house in the right background is also built of lightweight concrete.

TIMOLANDIA
Photographs by Steve Kornher
L im Sullivan's homestead is on four acres,

20 minutes from San Miguel de Allende.

He is Steve Kornher's neighbor. Present
major constructions include the 70-square-
meter main house, detached composting
toilet, service room, carport, a small shop,
and privacy walls. Nearby is the large
shop with attached studio apartment.
Tim was interested in stretching the
possibilities of lightweight concrete. He
liked the curves of Steve's house and
concrete doors and decided to go for it at
hisown site. It was an evolutionary,
design-as-you-go-type project. Often
odels were made in the morning for
work to be done in the afternoon.
Steve Kornher did the wall and roof
shapes, working from Tim's "footprints."
Tim and another neighbor, Robbie
Friedman did the painting and a lot of
the finish work. From the start Tim
wanted bright, strong colors and where
he couldn't get them with colored
cement plaster he used various types of
paint. All roofs were built with light-
weight aggregate and the walls are either
lightweight concrete or local rock.
The locals call the project "Timolandia.'
Steve wrote us, "It's been a lot of fun plus
an incredible opportunity to experiment
with different wall and roof forming
systems here."

East side, main house Ferro-concrete door. Lath and hard concrete.

136
 Stairs up from the kitchen at
Tim's. These stairs are quite
steep but the exposed %"
re-bar makes a good grabber
without interfering with the
tread. It works well, even for
kids' feet.

Above: "Cabbage Roof." Right: "Cabbage Roof" under construction,

Tim's small shop. Lightweight aggregate made it easy to nail on
heavy wire and plaster lath to form leaves.

137
FANTASY: Timolandia

Stairway, main house.

This started life as a
'flying" stairway until it

was decided to use the

space underneath for a
small gas heater
enclosure, which is

seldom used.
" . .. • -
 Cable bridge to little treehouse bar, with sleeping loft above, of
"Big Treehouse in the Sky"

TROPICAL
TREEHOUSES
David Greenherg
In THE '60s, David Greenberg and his pal Roger Webster ran a company
calledEnvironmental Communications. They were set up in a loft in
Venice, California and had a series of architectural slide shows they
rented to schools and other groups. Included were slides from our book
Four levels of "Big Treehouse in the Sky," eco-resort on Shelter, as well as from Paolo Soleri, the Archigram group from England,
Hainan Island, China. Rear view.
the Ant Farm, and many others.
I lost touch with these guys for about 30 years until one day last
summer when came I across Roger travelling in a painted-up schoolbus
(see p. 181 for the L.A. Filmmakers' bus). This led me to getting back in
touch with David, who it turned out had built treehouses on his land in
Hawaii, and was designing treehouses for an eco-resort in China. David
has an architectural degree from Arizona State University, had practiced
architecture in L.A. for several years, and taught architecture at UCLA
for eight years. He gave up on all that seven years ago and moved to
Hawaii. (See the next page for the genesis of the treehouses shown here.)

Treetops Treehouse, Hana, Maui, Ha

Hale Bar and Hotel treehouse in Maui, built by master builder Francis Sinenci,
based on 2000-year-old Polynesian design
ove and below: Three interiors of Ha, Another view oftreehouse bar and loft shown in top middle photo
ehouse in Hana, Maui, Hawaii

141
ANTASY: Tropical Treehouses #»

K^" •

'
-eSS

i
In THE MID-'70s I was picking magic mushrooms remote and hard to get to. Commercially it's Anything was a potential building
free

in a cow pasture on the island of Kauai when it $2/ lin. ft. I needed a lot of it, but had little material. would spend time each week
I also
began raining. I ran to a thick grove of trees money. looking through dumpsters in the back alleys
for cover. I was soaking wet, but in the grove A few days later I got lucky. I had put the of the industrial part of Maui. I found 10
• were a couple of guys that had already picked word out on the "coconut wireless"(the main screen doors behind a screen shop, a major
j> their limit of 'shrooms. When I told them I was form of communication in Hawaii) that I was score, and the main sleeping loft became
in graduate school studying architecture at building a treehouse and needed bamboo. It almost all screened in.

UCLA, they insisted I come and see the house was winter and very windy that month. A I have a nice hanging hammock chair with a
they built; it wasn't far, they said, at the friend had a friend that had a lot of tall, thick great 200-degree ocean view below. At the
jungle's edge on a beautiful beach. Golden Bamboo (the kind with intermittent end of one grayish day, I was in the hammock,
turned out that the owner of the land had
It green stripes) that was threatening the phone rocking peacefully. It wasn't going to be a
given about 50 hippies permission to live in and power wires on his flower farm and he'd great sunset, but was stuck with it. It was
I

the trees at the beach's edge, and they had be happy if I carefully removed it. The next sound of a few birds and
quiet, except for the
built about 12 beautiful treehouses. I went day I was there bright and early with a chain the whisper of faraway waves. The bird songs
from one to another in disbelief. (I was inter- saw. The winds were gusting and blowing the gave me the idea to whistle. I started with
ested in "alternative architecture" at the time, bamboo against the wires. We had to tie ropes tunes from the musical South Pacific. When
but I hadn't seen anything like this.) They had high up, then saw and pull just as the wind I got to the tune "Bali Hai," I noticed a yellow-
used a lot of bamboo and clearish vinyl for the blew the bamboo in the right direction. We cut beaked mynah bird come fairly close to sit on
"roofs" to keep the rain out. ended up in We 50 stalks in two days, the average length 26'. a branch of a tree just a few feet away. I began
the nicest "house," theirs, climbing up a We built a special wood frame on my Jeep to whistle to that bird, really getting into it.

bamboo ladder to a "room" filled with throw Wrangler and hauled it back to my farm. The bird seemed to respond to the tones, and
pillows covered in Hawaiian patterned cloth I began working feverishly, like I was on a jumped from one branch to another, coming
and a grass mat floor with a pattern of leaf mission, like a madman, getting up at the ever closer. After a bit another bird joined in,

shadows made by the sun filtering through the crack of dawn and working until it got dark. jumping on the branch, then another. I
trees above. I lay back on some cushions as That next morning sunrise was oddly accom- ended up giving a concert of South Pacific
they began to play some musical instruments, panied by the ring of the fax machine receiving to about five birds and didn't come inside
mesmerized by the kinetic shadows of the a message. It was a poem about treehouses till dark.
leaves moving on the floor, seemingly synchro- from a friend, a lawyer lady in L.A. The poems
nized to the music. I'm sure the mushrooms kept coming every few days and were the basis In a sense dealing with the treehouse was
had something to do with my total enjoyment of a spiritual plan that made the treehouse feel almost all details. Everything was customized.
of the environment but I felt I had finally so great to be Though the tree didn't
in. I discovered the best details by accident, in real
found perfect architecture. After a while my become particularly more anthropomorphic, it time. There's a little "island" that protrudes

hosts all decided to jump into the ocean across did become more of an equal, a friend. Some- slightly above the main deck because a big
the little sand beach. I decided to stay a while times I would be up on the deck working and branch that the deck was resting on had a large
and rest. After they left I began to hear the thinking about the next move or detail when gnarly elbow didn't want to cut away, and so
I

wind blowing through the trees above. It got one of the lines of a poem spoke the move and the tree expressed itself beautifully in yet
louder as the shadows of leaves made moire it was perfect and I would jump up and down another dimension.
patterns on the walls and floor. The last with joy. The tree took the weight of the Some of my friend's poems that were faxed

thought I had before falling asleep was, what jumping. I felt like a kid jumping up and down during construction spoke of the parts of the
beauty. I woke to the sound of a big wave and on a bed for joy, and a little closer to heaven tree in such loving terms, I now deified the
went down to body surf in the warm water. with each jump. tree as I did all The nights I slept
of Nature.
there were perhaps the most memorable of my
rive years later I bought a 20-acre piece of livery morning I was up before sunrise so that life. As the moon filtered its way through the

I land in the jungle in Maui, and in 1996 I came I could spend every minute of daylight leaves and branches it seemed to light up the
across the picture I had taken of that tree- working on the treehouse. As the site was treehouse an old-fashioned candlelit
like

house. was amazed at how beautiful it was. I

I literally in the middle of the jungle, it would Christmas And I was the present. When
tree.
had to find some bamboo. Fortunately there's get dark fast and I was always sad to stop the sun would rise in the morning, it rose over
a lot on this side of Maui, but the forests are working. I went to the dump every day. the ocean and into the tree. -David Greenberg
 y
3- Cr

\M 5/
8

/l In this section are photos from trips I've taken over

TRIPS \o 3i
years. Wherever I go (usually in a four-wheel-drive Tcyi
truck), I search for buildings. I invariably seem to ru
wonderful people doing interesting things. So I shoot
photos, make notes, and do interviews. It's like hunting,
and the thrill is in finding something unique.
I used to make a book about each trip. Kind of scrapbook-
MONITOR
like; photos with hand-lettering. I'd make one copy (one of
WSTIN
!•» VALLEY these took months of night-time work — painstaking!),
then package it up and mail it off to friends, and they'd

return it few weeks. Not exactly a commercially viable

in a
69 enterprise, but I love doing it. Six of the following pages
(pp. 152-157) are from one of these books. The other pages

are from trips in general.

So come along with me on these 28 pages. Ride shotgun
and see buildings from:
• Along the Mississippi
• Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia
• Nevada, Arizona, and Utah
• Costa Rica
• Los Cabos, Baja California Sur

.NATL

Pine
11949 &' Cn*k
SOUTH P/C

Belmont
Courthouse
Hist Sr Hon.
BelmootA^i,

With A «» Ift

t
r
6349 Jj^^O^^^^-^ THt

www
These buildings have a broad roof that acts as an umbrella, sheltering walls and windows from rain, and as a parasol shading the house on a hot day. The
porches (galeries) were exterior hallways and cool places to sit on hot, humid evenings. Double French doors open in to each room; shutters open out.

ON THE RIVER
In the mid-'70s I went to New
Orleans to do a slide show on our
book Shelter at the Tulane School of
Architecture. The day after the event,
I rented a car and went out to explore

the countryside. I drove up to Baton

Rouge on the west side of the Missis-
sippi. It was an overcast, humid day.
Here, on the banks of this mighty
river, things were strangely silent.

There were very few people around.

Many of the houses, as you can see,
were deserted. These were obviously
homes of working people, and it was
obvious that a way of life had ended.
In the plantation house, there was a
map on the wall from the 1800s,
showing the division of land along the
Mississippi delta: roughly pie-shaped
pieces of land fanning back from the
river. You could look at the map and
picture the vitality of life along the
river in those days.
In the field behind this house was the head of an old rusty hoe —a full 8" across. (A normal hoe
is around 6".) It obviously took a very strong man to use a hoe like that.

How a slight bit of

ornament can
make a plain
building special:
here the circular
design and
rounded shingles
in the eave, the bit

of filigree
woodwork at the
top of the posts.

144
 This large, well-built hip roof
house was abandoned, and sat
out in a field. Notice that there
are no sags in all the horizontal
lines (edge of roof, porch deck,
railing). It was built way up off
the ground. Mary Mix Foley, in
her book The American House,
says that these raised houses date
back to a very ancient peasant
dwellings where the lower part of
the house was a stable for
animals and that in French I
America (as here), the lower area I
was often used for a laundry I
room, work rooms, or storage. I

Small, tuned-in house in the same neighborhood as the mansion shown below. Note similarities:
roof shape, dormer windows, columns, porch area —
and the symmetry.

Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana. Built 1836. A nice broad galerie, with i imental woodwork

145
NOVA SCOTIA

This was on the French section of the island. The main roof is a high gable shape, but with the spectacular expanded dormer window (tres elegant!),
and covered porches. Everything is perfectly symmetrical: chimneys, deck posts, windows, deck railings. The central porch roof is designed so it
appears to flow out from the bottom of the dormer. Rocks on the grass are painted white.

In summer OF 73 I worked with architect Bob Easton to My son Peter, then 12, and I took off for points east
produce the book Shelter. Then next summer I worked on the wonderful trans-Canadian train. We got off the
for Stewart Brand as an editor on the Whole Earth Epilog. train in a small town north of Toronto because the
Stewart had just bought some land in Nova Scotia, on train conductor told me about some great barns in the
the west side of Cape Breton Island, facing Prince Edward area. We spent a few days shooting barns, a few days
Island across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and I agreed to in Toronto, and then found a 45-foot-long school bus
meet him back there at the end of summer and help him that needed delivering to Nova Scotia, and off we
build the foundation for a (Bob Easton-designed) house. went. Stewart's land was on the west side of Cape

This stark huge building was

also in the French (northern)
part of the island.

Peter in driver's seat of our 45'-long, 50-

mph limo (a governor) across 1000 miles
of Canada

146
A much simpler version of the house on the preceding page. Again, dormer window is main element added to bask gable shape, and the dormer
window roofline curves out slightly at the bottom and gives it some flair. In all four designs shown on these two pages, the dormer is brought up
flush from the front wall. This is a nicely designed little home.

Breton Island. He had a rattletrap Ford van with holes still there. Photos of settlers around the turn of the
in the floor in storage and we fired it up and drove century show what looks like a different species of
around exploring the island. The quality of building — humans: giant, strapping men and tough, resilient
homes, barns, outbuildings —
was amazing. A tough women. They cleared forests, planted crops, built
climate, scary severe winters, fierce Gulf storms, short homes and barns, caught fish and lobsters, made just
growing seasons — no room for mistakes. about everything for themselves, survived the
and French people had migrated to
Scottish, Irish, winters. The architecture on the following pages is

the island long ago and many of their descendants are obviously a legacy of these strong people.

Three dormers and a lot more ornamentation, including black-painted The same basic design as the house on the opposite page, but simpler.
highlights and gingerbread woodwork. Lathe-turned pieces at dormer Stumbling across buildings like this is like finding a treasure chest.
roof ends carry through the scrollwork theme to give it a lace-like effect. (Dormer windows flush with exterior wall seem characteristic of the area.)

147
CRIPS: Nova Scotia

Stumbling upon an area with buildings like

this is like discovering a treasure chest. When I

A soulful Cape Breton barn, in tune with its surroundings, elegant in its simplicity.Almost a saltbox went Cape Breton Island, I had no idea that
to

shape, hut the roof breaks angle about 10' down from the ridge on the long side. Square window placed I'd run across such wonderful farmer/builder

point up at eave is fairly typical of region. architecture. These buildings not only look
good, but they're built well and are functional.
Moreover, they are instructive for home
builders. Many building shapes you see in the
countryside could be models — with adapta-
tions for solar heating, insulation, — for etc.

building a home in the same area.

Isn't it strange we never see buildings like
this inbooks or magazines? And also strange
that so few architects seem to know the
definition of architecture: the art and science
of building.

This beautifully proportioned and detailed barn would make a nice house shape. The gambrel shape A nice little gambrel-shaped outbuilding, with red-stained
(where the roof changes pitch), gives you more headroom for hay (or bedroom space) on the second walls and white The edges of the roof (and the barn at
trim.
story. The dormer is simple and straightforward: an extension of the upper roof line and the front wall left) are finished with fascia and soffit boards so there are no
line. Note slight upturn at roof's edge to shoot rainwater out from walls. exposed rafters or roof sheathing boards. This gives these
buildings a tight, clean look.
148
/ love this little building! The proportions, the simplicity, the way it stands in the field. Unselfconscious, perfect architecture.

Another tight gambrel shape. They call the slight upturn at roof's edge "flying
gutters." (Notice this detail also in the two buildings on bottom of the opposite
page.) The builders did this by nailing short two-by-fours at angles at the rafter
ends. It shoots (most) rainwater away from the walls and windows, and provides
a nice visual touch.
A lobster fisherman's storehouse, symmetrical hip roof

149
TRIPS: Nova Scotia

This guy had made his mailbox in the exact image of his house and
placed on a post symmetrically in front of the house. Here he s
it

standing on the front steps with his three kids.

A charming little symmetrical hip-roofed log cabin

150
George and Mom A silver-painted bus converted into a home

Next to the log cabin (at left) lived Frank, a retired machinist, who built his home out of local (spruce) 2x4's and pieces of sheet metal for $35. He used
a wood cookstove and had an abundant supply of firewood tucked under and around his silver house.

151
TRIPS | These six pages (152-157) are from a hand-lettered book
Imade of a trip to Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in 1989.

L,
"1
•L(rA\l€|.

JE^We 6tr^on is i stemc sixMyki-Urtd

Imt 1311* the fcea.^ ha.^5

of
aUVwVrt ,

bumweJ we out
tWc. p*>k. set-uicc

I «wv, do -e rea-lk ^ ? " "^V , ,

seWe For l«« spetlac^U*-

-tV\« to
«>««Ae«L<«.l(VJ
but also C1W &»<) k«

t*Wfe i* *-<|K*t WtUe Town UUk

ox \W \l belwfMv 6h\m » CAf'iTol R«f
P»fV..Xf5 r»ea.t-tk< tU>naFf to
M>tio*^l
the

"fte'a.dww ^ <*f d(*vt-o&.<J Mow Cottc»v^oo<HCt-*e\c

** Jod ftrtume. /I WrcM TTKr ca.- q fwr.cilU

JUW,
Y-
f°°J, ~*t«* te*t ««* T>
-«-*«# PI^O
,
spe-t erf
Dl»u*u * ? Gsw*v».* ia ice ckesf.
^
» J,hoofl»«(

ot
rJio, tif<
^ut af T9^ To caw(>

i^ScaAante I* one op tlnoV "team} ~tJna& ha_s it rf,, c»^«

ptopkltfc* Iter's h<ito»JP. R«iVof(« tkit IW« [iil3w3rTS£j

nyiirvlil

&«irt In lite I6oo'* ,

UCetttavA Id a iwkWOo*
ft Cirlif b^'Uvo*]- loot
Irtorf slr\»jr\f *-V\ Sfmctur*-!

152
 |a>-i <*>*.* u* "tUe i»th EscaAaKte ca.«\uo*\ was -tlr\is

oU H.oii5leSTe»J &W1 i*'\, oFf tV <i.t k>*J. moi-i"*! wa.lK.eJ \^fi "the logain*
*
Oon ^cw>^s tUc Fiittt < H-'0^<>e ^'1 ok. liHIe P^ rwtks To «ounta.,S
4.

oeet , Ttver <4wwe up «.r «U Io4%umj itoa<A »- mi\p »»Vtt- Kead^^'r* of a- Stvca^
ot io. S«^ "Y <^W -" Tlr >«*-1 F««U^ oP
-

F«*iot*- mo or< witfcir, n\H« ir. f*ct it looK-si ,

Ji>u> looore
l^*<i bee* b^ TW.s «ja^ fi>» <yat-s
tonn'iT a.Hmc-ni*>i M° Tivf tT«.Cfc1 ,
«o
fodTPv^TS. It PtlT l'«* tt-A 1-oa.d.X
didn't KyvouJ uJV\*.1 WAS aLtfound "Cke
l«u«« abou."t. uJk«.t a. s~eU I dooW

t\eVp F»o^ * stii- ^aiirvj boot, 6a-"J

~
, s
Uvsa. hMJot- (bi* di(>|>eir l fo*- l
T- "t""

I« Pact- a^
a-S a-OpvJe. TV\<S i* *J* ujrvuSuaUi;, |i><\e
ct^mUTenU WiP Koof. Dot-ix-a "© frfpeVt 1-00F
1

Stape fvtctUi. Nit« -poi-dc in FvonT, «d.a.He*-iV>

VtW v'r- >-&». r^ote lu^'ae piLUK FvonT* bick

153
TRIPS: Utah & Nevada

g^lert out in sl FieVt ofp ta© b«T>^«en

9owl<^ <y Torf«ft > Ut^ ^Sob 1

f=t , MeiX *i<^it

OP tt-iP-- a-fcout T>o*. (Sot i«.f 1'rv iwotru'pQ $ «<5f

(irto TotKii «.fou.>*i T%° A ••« i SLff- oa^W>rxM fawn
tb*o«^ «*Ae$ J»rtfc- ^reo- Fi*l«fe .<*« wiiewt). ,

tKr«<- Fo»~t->We A;tc.h»5 vnAfti'f^ aWoySioV

«.Kl<»*.fcLK.I ,
hW«A -Wr- <\t*.t, f-itx- ftoLii^vja-te-.
M^ norA, 1,0^^ f„ UJp« c„t<g W4C J
<j,lt
-fo -^U ,

uc. t*cis. 9-Wt " lAite*- rionrtna tV« Stv?«i" tan

qt T. s.l*-J»-V tl^o u^Wt <-We wia.n't «.('* »>a."W-

Avoe^*^ i^Jjieir ,
K»Vew? it i-iis a.Wtn <l*nT , &

gjf&uun 3-side steeet ""i* TfuS stop-^*-'*- ^0".*- tta^s bea.^ of a. Kom4« .

ftvii li ot\eoF TV*** buildups t *« sck>« eu&^ o*« i* » ~>k'-le li\ PhoTB TVawels -

rfLf place fin'vL-l «iU»Mti Dan it iko- iiv TVc Picp^< 7

.

"«^1 U* l»« **« tKe ^tC^-'- OOJS--.0

Motfktt bwWW-J.Wr^t
^ '"I
I

f Ciiuivt u^, tk lV^ loi

T4>
or ~»*0. t)o~<Lko^ ,

tkv)
TW froi^J morning,
^ ptCt

a-u. &« Vw" tWthki fiS«4 T*« (je*>< ir« little ffne,

Je*«, i* o»ve oF tWe u-fpe>. , duet- paj-ts Jf Ga.p<TM IkeF, ^jJls fVis be*vC\n .

Xt ^as des\q|\&i <<• bml/t so «jcU t^i-i it Icotei ("iiLc it &k«j tke«?
Mo^ ft°°<i I^owoh cpiftswAAsKif. live linens oPthe bu.l|dlM
3Lk-€ still sti-av^kt Sf-ti-uc. Mo &»-^(«>i foof, rvo crK^^V) |ir\a iajiUs

154
 t^e «-o«.i •"»> tKv4 Fi«W-c»*ft<i
little lo«\ cku>ck. .
Eyce-j Plvl oP iT be»»Tif«.lU

».ief«\ t*o-o« if«n«. Cu.b« 5>*Kttl|, r *.ii*d-b<I-

R*b^ SinteH ["*— :Us Jus-t ->*•"* tb ^«t a. UJ4J, £„,„. it all (

.»..A .
" D<s^, f^Aioj , dune SiA^tfte) ..."

Floits. aJooU e V\0ix4«-

5>\ie .A. \»\ fVescc^ VJMlfti ,

fVa*\a^

155
FRIPS: Utah & Nevada

l:'-:g: t. left is l£«uw.

rt\'c.\te*v , l«ko \l'o«S i-oiUk.

(Mocks
dK rtfi, c-aTtiW'

vjfcVK, -itfc <**<>• 0a:r

AHi>"T»>-S." tfe- hm\« "TlU.

koT sPm'«<jS
-*>"**- 1^^

He toll »e «.bo"T -io>«<

nuVun*] t-oids KMtheiif rft

bo^
"ex?*1t*
4 wv
W^h
^Mi-tV s.ca.Ui"°\
,

hot
*i*sT ov
1
^^;
&er\W

vw*-i:eir
iS

"TV?
t^e
1
>»tTle
T\riki

W«*!
Town of
left fit**
is
there iamTK h*")* 5l5ne
OKfoifit-w^Ti

o^ "Those
.
Bg.
Aion* "<0o one's beerv
mads
Wit
n»r -So
bu.rt Of W'^tv^e^KT t«F3- blocX t tei in fc>T
1«W-
bee/\ a. ban*. va)W>kI>oi<>« * butHet- Stop-
 .

SpK««s pond.b^ iTS off UWB to To*. n its rvo»».

(1 ^i^wn »*lsi.U

6 is hop- Tire Sv'e »•*.*

F«u iiu.e howe

157
 Kurt and Shirley Van Dyke sitting on the second-story porch of Kurt's Puerto Viejo Hotel, about 'A-mile from
and friends. When I first got into town, and
Salsa Brava, a world-class, red-hot surf spot. Inset: Kurt, Shirley,
was standing looking at the place, Kurt came out on the balcony and said, "Classic, eh ?"

Johnnie's Discotheque and Chinese seafood restaurant in Puerto and a pool hall. It was owned by Manuel Leon, Chinese, born in

Viejo. This great building right on the shores of the Caribbean also Puerto Viejo 50 years ago. You could buy a beer and sit on a bench
contained the town general store (groceries, hardware, clothing) on the porch looking out at the aquamarine Caribbean . . .
COSTA RICA
In spring 1991, took I a surfboard and backpack and flew to Costa

Rica. I intended to go to both the Pacific and Caribbean sides of the

country, but when I got out to the Caribbean, with its beautiful
waves, exotic jungle, and laid-back atmosphere, 1 ended up staying
there the entire three weeks.
A bar playing reggae music overlooking a black sand beach with
green waves breaking on the shore . . . going up a clear and
sparkling river between Costa Rica and Panama in hollowed-out log
canoes . . . walking for two days on a jungle trail into Panama . . .

eating meals in tin shack restaurants on the beach with cool breezes
blowing through the open walls . . .

I went out to the small town of Puerto Viejo to visit my friend

Kurt Van Dyke, who had opened a surfers' hotel. met Bill and Barb I

Castle (see pp. 16-21), who were running a tropical bed and break-

fast and taking impromptu groups of visitors on river canoe trips. I

hung out for several days in Puerto Limon, an old port town with
soul. I travelled around in a rental car and shot pictures of houses,
which were mainly up off the ground both to avoid termites and to
catch the ocean breezes.

9*H

"They went up this huge tree. The 'shooter' went up about 70 feet with a
10" slingshot and some ammo (rocks). One kid went up about halfway
and the third stayed on the ground.
"He fired all his ammo at the iguana and hit it once. Then he dropped a
~±%
handkerchief to the ground man, who filled it with ammo and then threw
to the middle man. He then ran it up to the guy at the top.

"They were so far up I couldn't see them, and it was getting dark. He
shot rocks and I heard 'thunk,' and then a crashing, and I thought 'Oh, \i3k-?..*.'
God, the kid fell,' but it was this huge iguana. We cooked them in the hotel

that night. They were great!"

-Kurt Van Dyke

\^ :
'*>
r v ^4
-*/ *

* «- ***:•»
THW* 3P~
'-as?-
HUPS: Costa Rica

Tranquilo
Sunny/rainy day, having a beer in a little open-air
bar in Punta Mona (near Panama) after a hike
through the jungle. A bare-chested working guy
carrying a machete comes in, sits down, looks at
me and says "Como estd?' "Bien," I reply, "y tit?"
"Tranquilo" he says.
What a wonderful reply. You ask a guy how he
is, and he replies, "I'm tranquil."

Bill Castle's "RollYour Own Jungle Tour": 13 of us went in one of these 35' long
canoes up river from Sixaola, on the Costa Rica-Panama border. Shown also are
Bill (with parasol) and Victor, our skipper. These graceful canoes are each made

out of one hollowed-out log and powered by a 25 hp. Evinrude. We sat on sticks
wedged between the sides. (See pp. 16-21 for Bill's log home in the U.S.)

160
 *v " ™^
v^"S
'•'
SlQII

MH^HH^^H
aH jungle between
1 1 4 Manzanillo and
the Panama

BL^g#4i^^^gij^ border

i\ 1 /\
gi!^^ ^^BJ
J

^|
.V c • -

j/^J 04^
^^B^^^^^^^33B5PP^y5?^^w^'
mal
:' =
:
Jfc
r
v ^n house
north of
San Jose

Escuela Metallica, San Jose. Pre-fab metal building designed in

France (by Gustav Eiffel, according to one account). Built in

Colombia in 1890 and parts shipped to San Jose where it was

erected. When you look in the windows, there are children in
each classroom and a sunny courtyard in the center. It's in

beautiful condition. A remarkable building.

Built to catch breeze'. under-supported.

 DEEP IN THE HEART OF BAJA
In 1988 I bought a Toyota four-wheel-drive
pickup truck, added a camper shell, and that
spring headed south for Mexico. My destination:
the southernmost tip of Baja California, called Los
Cabos. drove down Highway 15 on the mainland
I

and caught the ferry across the Gulf at Guaymas.

From the moment I got out on the blue waters of
the sea was hooked. I got off the ferry in La Paz
I

and headed south. Around Todos Santos, a

Spanish-style town of elegant old thick-walled
adobe buildings, you cross the Tropic of Cancer, and
the landscape becomes "tropical desert," with a
profusion of exotic plants, many of which burst
into vivid bloom with any rainfall.
I camped on the beaches and in desert arroyos,
went surfing and swimming in the warm water and
pretty much liked everything — the land, the
people, the water, the desert, the dazzling blue
daytime sky and the clear black night sky with The Posada Senor Mahana, a "five-coconut hotel," in San Jose del Cabo, a bohemian hotel frequented by

shimmering stars. Being a native coastal Californ- surfers, fishermen,and world-travelers. At right is Yuca (Rogelio Lopez Rodriguez),
proprietor/wheeler-dealer. At left is a cyclist who had flown from his home in Reno, Nevada with his
ian, it felt kind of like home turf, but warmer,
bike, and was doing a circumnambulation of the Los Cabos area. For six years, I rented an upstairs
drier, more exotic.
palapa room with palm frond roofing and open walls for $1000 a year.
One afternoon I went into a gift shop in San
Jose del Cabo and started talking to the proprietor.
Isidro (Chilon) Amora Aguilar, about 30, had come In 1983, Chilon got his own radio show, for
to Baja from his native Mexico City in the early young kids, on the main Los Cabos station. He
'80s, sold fruit on the streets, ran a restaurant, and assumed the persona of a parrot and called
now gift shop. We were both interested in what himself Periquin. He played good music for the
Chilon called "the real Baja," which is off the kids, who would call in and talk to the parrot;
tourist track. He was going out to rock art sites, the program ran for two hours each Sunday
knew about remote villages, water-filled arroyos, morning and was an instant hit; kids out on
working ranchos, fossil areas. I had found a isolated ranches loved it. Subsequently
soul mate. Periquin became a minor celebrity, everyone
Over the course of about 12 years, Chilon and I knew him, and he knew everyone and what was
criss-crossed Los Cabos. We found cave paintings, going on all over Los Cabos.
went up water-filled arroyos deep in the desert, Since I could fly down
in 2V2 hours from San
visited ranchers, covered thousands of miles of Francisco, the idea was to leave a vehicle down
remote dirt roads, camped out, got lost, had cars there. My first car was a "Baja bug," a VW bug
break down .... with fiberglass fenders and hood, big tires, and Yuca, left, with Chilon on the radio in 1993

Desert landscape sunrise on the road to Bajia de los Angeles, with boojum trees — somehow perfect this morning with empanadas (small fruit- filled pastries) and tequila
 .

The small town of San Antonio, off the beaten path near El Triunfo, a real Baja
town unchanged by tourism or outsiders. Church on left, gas pump, town plaza,
Spanish-style buildings typical of Los Cabos.

Primitive rock shrine just

north of Santa Rosalia on
barren hillside

Lady at her remote ranch on

the Naranjas road, which runs
from San Jose del Cabo across
the Sierra de Laguna
mountain range to the Pacific

coast near Todos Santos. The

ranch house and fence were
built mainly with palo de
arco branches, the house
roofed with palm fronds.
Almost all the ranch houses
in Baja were built with
materials that grow on the
land surrounding the houses.

huge shocks. I had a rocket box luggage leave either at Yuca's hotel or Chilon's place; restaurant in El Rosario, at the beautiful oasis
carrier on the roof wirh a marine photo- I'd fly in, unwrap and take off camping
it, town of San Ignacio to sit in the shady town
voltaic solar panel that charged two heavy- found myself getting drawn back to Baja
I square. I'd drive out remote roads at night to
duty batteries. It was a great little car but time and again. Whenever I'd get a week or sleep under the stars, go surfing, visit old
unfortunately ended up underwater in a two clear I'd be off. Usually I'd fly but about missions . . . until I finally hit my southern
huge unexpected rainfall/flood, so my next once a year I'd drive, stopping at hot springs destination, Los Cabos. On the following
vehicle was an '83 Toyota 4x4 that I would south of Ensenada, at Mama Espinosa's pages are some images from these travels.

»)))))
www.shelterpub.com/_baja/baja.html
HUPS: Baja

Peyton Carling standing outside the house he built in La

Purisima, a beautiful oasis town in a desert arroyo north of
Ciudad Constitucion. Peyton raises organic oranges and Nicely designed hip roof house with upstairs bedroom, thatched roof, north ofTodos Santos
avocados and runs eco-tours in the area.

Buildings
of Baja

Allan and Jeannie Maxey's palapa at Shipwreck Beach, east of San Jose del Cabo. Shelter in much of Baja
consists of a roof, with no walls. Rafters here are red palm, purlins are carrizo (bamboo) tied on with hemp
rope; palm fronds tied to carrizo with datillo leaf. This is traditional roofing technique for the area.

164
 Artist Alfredo Ruiz built this round palapa north of Todos Santos as
an art gallery. The rafters are palma albanico, the purlins are palo
Richard and Rae's palapa at Shipwreck Beach. Construction
de arco (sturdier than the usual bamboo).
is basically same as palapa at the bottom of the adjacent
page. This building is sited on the crest of a hill looking down
at the ocean (and a good surf break) and it gets a nice breeze
through the open walls on hot summer days.

Cobijos de Baja
Construction of the El Paraje restaurant in San Jose del Cabo in the late '90s. This is typical
southern Baja ranch construction, called chiname: palm post and beam framing, with palo
de arco branches interwoven as backing, then plastered with mud. The same basic
techniqueis called "wattle and daub" in England. Roof consists of palm rafters, carrizo

(bamboo) purlins, thatched with palm fronds. All materials are from the desert.

i in Bin as SSSBBM
aiiiinm QllUUl'ilE

Dl Ml" J!

Corner of building showing corner

post,woven branches before plastering

165
Los Ranchos
de los Cabos
Wherever there is water in the
Baja desert there is a rancho. You
run across the ranchos in very
remote spots, often unexpectedly.
They typically run cattle that graze
on desert vegetation, but ranchos
with adequate water and
in places
grow vegetables and fruit.
soil

Some of them have goat herds, and

make delicious cheese. The ranchos
are completely tuned into the
desert environment, the houses,
fences, and many implements built
out of local materials. It's a way of

life going back hundreds of years,

starting when the Spanish settled
in Baja in the 1600s, and not too
much has changed since then.

Rancho on the East Cape of Los Cabos. Notice how neat and tidy and integrated with its
surroundings After a while you begin to see the beauty of the Baja ranchos, even if it's
it is.

not the usual vision of European or American ranches with green fields. The buildings and
grounds and fences are in harmony with the desert and its plant life.

Sf^SwMC^
 Rancho Vinateria, a beautiful and prodi
ofCabo San Lucas. In th
peaceful and cool in the hot
i,

house and kitchen belov: are same

Goat corral north of San Luis Gonzaga

RIPS: Baja

En la Playa
On the Beach

One afternoon I started to set up a campsite at this beach A

at San Gregorio, south of San Juanico, but a hurricane (chubasco) was forming out at sea. When the
umbrella went airborne, it was time to leave, so Ipacked up and headed south. As the rain started to
fall, it unlocked fragrant smells in the desert. By the time I got to the safety of a hotel in Puerto San
Carlos, the wind was tearing palm fronds off trees and sending people running for shelter.

Steve Warren runs the Magbay

Tours (www.magbaytours.com)
surf camp on Isla Magdalena, an
island west of Puerto San Carlos.
There are usually perfect waves
breaking at this remote site and
Steve takes a maximum of 10 Pacific Boxfish has

surfers out for a week, supplying

bony exoskeleton.
food, shelter, and beer. There's
practically no other way to get to
the place, so surfers have the
It took me just a little over two hours to fly to
waves to themselves. Steve is a Baja from San Francisco. I would leave home on a
rare type of American, married cold and/or wet day and a few hours later step out
to a Mexican woman, fluent in into the hot sun and cobalt blue skies. Chilon
Spanish, well-liked by locals. would pick me up at the airport; I'd take the tarp
off my vehicle and head for a campsite on a remote
beach. I carried two surfboards and would set up a
flea market sun tarp and spend several days alone

on the beach, surfing, swimming, beachcombing,

enjoying the warm water and pristine beaches, the
desert solitude.
I found the west coast of the Baja peninsula
generally more interesting than the gentle waters
of the Gulf on the other side, and I roamed up and
down the coast over the years, often four- wheeling
it to get to otherwise-inaccessible camping spots.
Camping in style! This guy was a former Greyhound bus Sunrise on my beach
mechanic who had bought the bus for $40,000 and he and
his wife were camping throughout Baja. Greyhound busses

of this era have air suspension systems for a smooth ride,

and the bus was immaculately fitted out, neat as a pin inside.

Surfer's almost-invisible summertime semi-permanent camp setup in an arroyo next to a good surf spot, nicely tucked under shady trees
 A beautifully sited Mexican fishermen's
shelter, built out of driftwood, and on a
remote beach south ofPunta Conejo. If this
place weren't so hard to get to, it would be a
million-dollar gringo building site.

My second vehicle, this '83 Toyota 4-wheel-drive truck: the perfect

Baja conveyance. The tent on the roof was made in Italy (see p. 180)
and compacts neatly up off the
for travel; a great place to sleep
My first vehicle in Baja was this little white
Volkswagen "Baja bug." The rocket box on top
ground, catching breezes. The 12' x 14' flea market sunshade with
1" electical conduit poles and an aluminized tarp held on by ball held camping equipment and had a solar panel
that charged two heavy-duty batteries. It had
bungees (see p. 180) is a cheap portable camping shelter for hot
been built for scouting the Baja road races. It
climates. Each of the corner posts is held down by a hanging canvas
bag filled with sand. It all folds up and fits into the rocket box
had a 15-gallon gas tank behind the rear seat,
luggage carrier. Tent opening faces surf break.
and huge shocks that came up and tied into a
roll bar inside the cab. It was a great Baja

vehicle until it ended up underwater in a flood.

Fino and Cleo Green. Fino is a 5th-

Zelate tree sculpted by wind *v-^ generation local guy (descended from a
en la Costa de Los Cabos -il^my^ British whaler), a tuned-in-to-the-area
surfer, diver, fisherman, and owner of the
Killer Hook surf shop. We'd go on camping

^' -
;;.. -7^*S trips to little-known surf spots.
(For interview with Fino see:
www.shelterpub.com/_baja/fino_josefino.html).
'

rilA 1
"•
V
W^*£S&2! *«£**"«£

^*L-
ii—
^__W_[__

«1$vN- ^-*-
M '_
^^*?
 '<""' ';, 1

At left is rock reef and beach where fishermen launch their boats.

Paradise on
a Shoestring
When you DRIVE to Baja you generally enter at Tijuana and drive
down the coast to Ensenada. Much of the beachfront property is in
American hands and covered with unimaginative houses. However
for several years I had noticed a beautiful point with colorful
ramshackle buildings, looking totally different from any other coastal
structures. On my last trip I stopped by for a closer look. There were
houses, restaurants, little stores, a fish camp — all built out of scraps
of plywood and corrugated tin and painted with bright colors.

It turned out that a group of 50 Mexican families had formed a

company and bought the land in the early '80s and built their homes
there. was a beautiful little community, built with very little
It

money, and unusual in an area otherwise populated with condos,

time shares, and tourists.
I had a cup of coffee and talked to the owners shown in the photos

here about their unique community. They ran the place by monthly
meetings and each family was allowed one representative. Americans
\i Del PescaJor

Sandy beach on other side of point

were welcome to visit, they told me, and to eat at the restaurants, but
the owners were there to stay —
the land was not for sale, at any price. It is impossible to account for the charm of this country or
It's both unusual and heartening to see locals seizing a piece of its fascination, but those who are familiar with the land
their own land like this in Baja. Just about all the coast for miles of Baja California are either afraid of it or they love it,

north and south of them is owned by Americans, much of it fenced and if they love it, they are brought back by
to block anyone from using the beach. Here you have a little working an irresistible fascination time and time again.
community, with fishermen, cooks, mechanics, storekeepers occupy- -Earle Stanley Gardner
ing a site where Club Med would die to put a hotel. Si se puede!

Looking back at land from reef

 COWBOY POETRY
FESTIVAL
Jack Fulton and I have been taking occasional
photo-shooting trips since 1972, when we took a
ten-day trip to New Mexico to shoot photos for
Shelter. (See the last page of Shelter for the
wanderer-wiseman-hobo we met on the way home.)
buddha-
We
na_
have a great time on the road. Shooting photos gives
us a purpose and invariably leads us to meeting
people and seeing things we'd otherwise miss. Jack is

Jack's Mitsubishi pickup a fabulous photographer, painting pictures with his

Pentax, and it sharpens my eye to travel with him.
The last trip we took was in January, 2002, to the
Cowboy Poetry Festival in Elko, Nevada. We left just
after a huge snowstorm, and Nevada was spectacular
with its deep snow and blue skies (and -50° wind-
chill-factor temperatures). The poetry festival was
unique. Cowboy poetry, continuous country music,
the elegant cowboy style of dress of the Elko bucka-
roos, friendly locals. We shot barns in the snow and
little houses in the towns, signs and gas stations, and
cows in the bright morning sunlight. On this page are
a few pictures from the trip. (On the Road with Jack:
A PhotoJournal is due out around 2010!)

III admit to a Baghdad Cafe fantasy, running a restaurant/

bar/gas station/motel/store out in the middle of the desert. An oasis.
Here one is ready to buy and fix up, in Mesquite, Nevada.

172
ON THE ROAD

\-^_
Il

-.,/.

i*jpi\>>

~*--*&is-e-
3N THE ROAD
DONKEY
TRAIN
ACROSS
AMERICA

The Odyssey of John Stiles

Photos by Janet Holden Ramos

In the late '80s I heard about a guy travelling

across California in covered wagons pulled by
donkeys. This I had to see, so I drove up to Santa

Rosa and found him by the side of a country road.

John Styles, then 42, and a native of the Ozarks
(one of 16 children), had been on the road for
about 10 years, and had covered over 10,000 miles.
Stileshad 14 donkeys, 3 mules, 34 chickens, 3
goats,and 9 doves ("for music"). He built his steel-
wheeled covered wagons on restored turn-of-the-
century frames. He had spent time living with the
Amish people in Illinois, learning the arts of self-
sufficiency,and there was a definite Amish cast to
him, including the beard and the self-discipline.
When he finished his morning chores, we sat in
one of the wagons (it was cozy and had shelves
lined with books), and talked.

LLOYD: Do you always walk?

JOHN: Never rode a mile in the wagon. I walk behind
the mules when I've got the wagons rolling, both
to save the animals from the load and to get that
special perception you get when you move on foot.
You see I get up about the same time everybody
else does to go to work. Five o'clock and if it's still

dark, I light a candle, read from the good book and

prepare myself for the day's journey. Then when it

starts getting daylight I bring the animals in and

the first five I work here in the camp. Then I
hours
get out and walk on that pavement with this
entourage down the road four or five hours, two
miles an hour, eight or ten miles a day and then I
take another four or five hours, break it down, take
it apart, and put it to rest.

People don't believe live this way. It was a

I

matter of conscience, I wanted to be self-sufficient.

174
 "

I saw the world and how plastic it was and I

wanted to stay true to my convictions of being

close to the earth. I travel on the freeways and in
huge metropolitan areas with no driver's license,
no registration, no insurance, no taxes, no permits
— nothing. Just totally free, and that's in a world
where electronic mankind has begun living in a
global concentration camp.
The question is, how do we transcend that?
Maybe we need a return to some solid reference
points. Maybe that's what I'm doing now.

What were you doing in between 1965-70?

I was on Haight Street all through 1967. I met real
flower children, not hippies, but the ones who
wanted to find themselves, be creative and who
developed the "back to the land" movement.
When I left Haight-Ashbury, I went out into the
country and became totally self-sufficient and, to
me, self-sufficiency is not a four-wheel-drive truck
and a chainsaw and a Troy-built rototiller. To me I

had to use animal had to raise enough

traction, I

feed to not only feed the animals and myself all

through the winter but to have seed left over to
plant again and enough to eat until the harvest
came again. I wasn't being honest with myself — I

always liked playing around and this whole urban

generation that went out there in the mountains
and stuff, half-assed, no scams, no welfare, none of
that stuff . . .

What do you do about food?

I never ask for food, I never ask for clothing, I

never ask for anything in the world. People just

come —
like that guy this morning he — just
dropped off a bale of hay for the mules.
I haven't spent one single penny on animal or
people food all summer. I have eggs from the
chickens. I drink a half-gallon of goat milk a day. I

mean that is good. That's the key, that's the way

out. It's the most complete nutrition known to man.

You're not going to do this forever, are you, like for

another 10 years?
I'd like to settle down
if I can make enough to get a

little somewhere in New Mexico, put

piece of land
an adobe house on it, put a up windmill, build a
tower and have water gravity. Have my little alfalfa
patch, my goats, an orchard. Just a little tiny five
or seven acres, you know . . .

Epilog: Seven years later, John had farmed for two years, found it too tough, and was
back on the road. Here's part of an article about him that appeared in the La Jicarita (NM)
News in 1996:
".
. . he espouses his own particular brand of philosophy, backed up with extensive readings of
both European and American writers who have warned about the dangers of society's
increasing dependence upon technology. He has no use for computers, of course: He believes
that the 'global electronic concentration camp' that they are creating will make decisions
affecting all of mankind; about the economy, education, transportation, nuclear defense,

Last time I talked to John, he was working on a

medicine — without any moral or ethical criteria. 'Nobody is questioning if we should be
doing all this. The only question being asked is can we.' And without your 'bar-code microchip
book titled: Are You Just Travelling or Are You
Going Somewhere? laser-beam tattooed implant and your holy trinity of personal computer, cable TV, and
telephone, you won't be able to participate in the system at all'

175
'37 Chevy Gypsy Wagon
In 1972, Jack Fulton and I photographed this to let me use it as my bedroom. Luckily for me, texture of the wood, the hinges, and the little

beautiful converted flatbed truck for Shelter. Joaquin my parents were such free spirits that they could window above my bed. Everything about it was so
de la and he and his wife Gypsy and
Luz had built it really relate to my independence. The wagon warm. I think what made it so special was that it
and Serena) travelled
their three kids (Heather, Bear, became my room. have memories of kissing my
I was filled with good intentions. My parents set
and lived in it five years. Last year we heard
for about parents goodnight, leaving the house, and out in the Gypsy Wagon because they were
from Serena, now grown up, about her experiences walking to my own little Gypsy Wagon. had a I peaceful people. Their travels always had the
living in the wagon: huge doll that my mom had made for me, named purpose of happiness. The wagon was
"Howdy Doody." She made it out of vintage dress constructed almost entirely of other people's
My earliest memories of the Gypsy Wagon fabric, with old mother-of-pearl buttons for the discarded junk. My father's creativity soared as he
begin when was
three or four years old. At that
I eyes and mouth. Each night, I'd hoist Howdy built it, and my mother made it a home. To this
point, our familyhad settled down in a little house Doody over my shoulder (he was bigger than me) day, I really appreciate the warmth of simple
on the Klamath River, in Northern California. We and off we'd go. I loved the coziness I felt each things like old fabric and rusty metal. This is my
had all moved out of the Gypsy Wagon but 1 really night as I climbed into my bed. remember the
I history, as a child of free spirits with peace as
missed it. I remember begging my mom and dad beautiful hand construction of the wagon, the their purpose. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Rolling Homes
An out-of-print classic on handmade mobile living
in the U.S.A., Rolling Homes: Handmade Houses on
Wheels, by photographer Jane Lindz, was published in
1979. Here are four photos from the book.

The housetruckers build with materials they find at

garage sales, flea markets, estate auctions, secondhand
stores and demolition sites. Recycling materials decreases
the cost of remodeling and increases the variety and
character of their homes. Old and new objects, romantic
and practical approaches combine to create a patchwork
effect that recalls memories of the past and enriches
fantasies of future adventures on the road.

-Rolling Homes

176
 ~

Ned and Rose Huff's mobile lemonade stand. They travel to music Early SEER solar conference in Willits. Good vibes, good Ned squeezing lemons with homemade press
festivals (with their three kids), selling organic lemonade, sweetened music, good food in the days before Real Goods tanked
with eucalyptus honey. Their sign reads: "Don't Panic — Drink and SEER got corporatized.
Organic." Ned milled his own redwood for the stand at their home
near Albion, California, and is shown at right working the lever of
his homemade lemon squeezer.

Ananda's Gypsy Wagon K . . k -

Ananda Brady built this gypsy wagon in the BH, -"

early '80s on the chassis of a '55 Chevy V2-ton
*'S
ML
pickup. was built to be pulled by horses. He
It
mm'. m ,*M£
patterned it after gypsy wagons, but says it's
il
1

"... a simulation, not a replica." He and his

wife Cilia, and son Leon lived in it for two
years. At the time these photos were taken,
Flower Sierra was living in it.
»'- '' 1 Hi ^~*-><-*-W^
^tr. ^iUkHH ^BHJ

^ \
)N THE ROAD
1923 Model T Ford
Camper/Bluegrass Show
Rod Cathcart
Rod Cathcart and Bob Barkwill
tour the U.S. and Canada with this
Model T camper (Rod found it in a
Nebraska barn in the '70s), playing
bluegrass at RV festivals. They tow
it around on a flatbed trailer and

seem to be having the time of their

lives. "We live a dream," says Rod,
and they call the truck Dream
Camper. Sometimes they set up
near a fancy RV park, with towed
outhouse, put wash on the line, and
the park will pay them $50 to move.

^fflQk !

www.dreamcamper.com

Truck parked in Santa Cruz, California, at a t

festival. Owned by Peter Seydel Vincent, a wind-

sculpture artist from Sacramento, California.

*
in the Pyrenees region, France ( '.archilibre.com)

Log cabin on wheels

Jim Macey's Portable Cabin photographed by Peter Wiley

in Oakridge, Oregon in 2002

In 1980, Jim Macey built this portable 8' x 20' cabin. Under the floor joists there are two 8'
lengths of 4" steel pipe that Jim uses to jack the building up. He then slides a specially built
www. m rsharkey.com
tandem-axle trailer underneath to move it. A raised skylight runs the length of the building and
www.oldwoodies.com
gives it a "caboose" look. Note the "eyebrow" flashing over the end window.
www.rv-busconversions.com

178
 Bread Van Home
Howard's bread van, converted to a cozy,
compact bachelor's home, in the desert near Death
Valley, California. The aesthetics of simplicity
[_•

This heavy-duty camping trailer was parked Short school bus Canvas tent built on wooden frame by Ole and
at a beach northwest of La Paz, Baja Manya Wik, shown here on a barge m Glacier Bay
California, Mexico. The owner was not National Monument, Alaska
around that day. Variety on the Road

Complex camper shell spotted in San Francisco one day in Pic on the web that was too good to pass up. We don't know Nomadic cappuccino cafe, with solar-powered lights,

the Ws where it is, but it sure is a witty design. based in Gualala, California

179
ON THE ROAD

Air Camping

On A CAMPING TRIP to the Sierras in the early netting hanging in the entrance. I was fascinated. section and a built-in mattress. have a regular
I

'90s, I drove down a dirt road to Bowman Lake to This way you were up off the ground, no worry bed with sheets, blankets (if necessary), and my
take a swim. There, parked on a flat overlooking about snakes or scorpions in the desert, with cool own pillow. Comfortable!
the lake was a great-looking camping rig. It breezes and a great view. After a lot of research I These units are not cheap; expect to pay at
consisted of a tough little Toyota jeep equipped located the manufacturer, Air Camping, in Italy, least $800-$1000 with shipping, but for serious
with all sorts of rough country gear (such as the and bought one. campers, they can be worth the investment.
aluminum panels shown mounted on the side for I've used mine for over ten years now, most (They can also be put on top of passenger cars.)
getting out of sand or mud). On top of the jeep p. 169). It folds up
extensively in Baja California (see Here are websites for more info:
was a tent, with a ladder going up to what into a compact roof-top unit. When I stop at night
amounted to a second-story sleeping loft. The I take off the cover and pull open the folded-up
I
www.loftyshelters.com
owner was down swimming in the lake and the section, which automatically opens the tent. www.bimo.com/skydomel.htm
tent looked cool and inviting, with mosquito There's a ladder that holds up the cantilevered www.autocamp.de

...+m
\ 4t m
m
" ™ * ss

^^^^^^^^^^^H S^^^^^H
Surfer Tod's truck held together by decals Paolo's Pinzgauer all-terrain vehicle Shortboard/longboard beach vehicle

The unobtrusive Rental Car Camper (Tips from areas with no window curtains — you're out of sight.
John Welles): Most foreign cars (e.g., Honda, Toyota, Another essential: a trunk that cannot be opened
Datsun) have seats that fold down to 30° (American from inside the car with a latch (after say, smashing
cars do not) —
perfect for sleeping. It's important to a window), for leaving valuables while you're out
be inconspicuous. You can often sleep in residential exploring.

Shade from the Sun

m Liferaft for 4-25 people:

Switlik Parachute Co., Trenton, NJ
Hey desert rats! What you www.switlik.com 609-587-3300
need out there is shade. It makes
comfortable in hot weather,
life

and bearable when it's superhot.

This is an ingenious, lightweight,
and cheap shelter utilizing a 1" electrical conduit
frame connected with special fittings and
wingnuts, with a silver awning attached with "ba
bungees." had a 12' x 14' gable roof tarp for
I ^^^^B^M
years in Baja. It cost about $200, and folded up in
a Yakima Rocket Box on the truck's camper shell. It took me about Capitalist Pig a
an hour to set it up. You can also get side panels that cut strong Capitalist pig SUV (Slob Utility
winds down to a tolerable breeze. Three places to buy them ( Vehicle), gets about 8 mpg —
bought mine from Jenkins and they were great to deal with): flagrant waste of precious resources.

Jenkins Crafted Canopies, Costa Mesa, CA, www.jccshade.com Will probably never get off-road.
Parked in Mill Valley, California,
Thomas Tarps, 375 Helroy Way, Arroyo Grande, CA, 93420,
in 2003. Or check out the Cadillac Housetruck parked
805-489-1737
Escalade for another gross in Santa Cruz.
Tarps Plus: http://www.tarpsplus.com vehicle. Embarrassingly uncool! California

180
Homemade Armored Dodge
Curved Camper Powerwagon
fc,D O'CONNOR, a sheetmetal worker, built this curved camper Mr. & Mrs. H. L. Baggett's 1948 "Armored Field Headquarters," built on
curved roof gives more headroom and
shell in the '70s. Inside, the a 1948 Dodge Powerwagon chassis. It weighed 41,000 pounds, had a 3"-thick
a more spacious feeling than a flat roof. His son Brendan, shown mineshield under the chassis, a 700 cu. in. flathead six engine, had 4-wheel
here, now has the camper on his truck. (Surfers sometimes use a drive, three 50-gallon gas tanks (it got % miles per gallon), solid rubber tire:
4" pipe mounted like this and filled with water, for post-surf an 8-ton winch with its own 3-speed gearbox, and all instructions in it were
showers; or, it can be used to carry fishing rods.) in Spanish. It had a gas/wood cookstove. In 1993, Mr. Baggett wrote us:

Hi Folks! It has been 20 years since we bought your magazine, Shelter, and we
would like to know how the past 20years has treated ya! We have been through
many cars, buses, a couple of boats (one built in 1680!), a couple of tents, and a
bridge or two! Followed the grain harvests, been in the oil fieldsof Louisiana, and
worked with the Carnies and Circuses .... The missus and I have been married
26years, and still going strong. -H. L. Baggett

L.A. Filmmakers Alfonso Gordillo and Tao Ruspoli, Europeans doing 8-hour shifts whenever they get to an area
in their mid-20s, bought a 1985 Chevrolet Bluebird that has cell-phone connectivity. They typically
www.lafco.tv/Osite/latimes.html school bus on eBay for $3000, had it outfitted in willbe interpreting for two people, one speaking
contact@lafco.tv Los Angeles, and set off on a movie-making tour Spanish, the other English, on the line in a three-

310-574-4733 across America in September, 2001. way conversation.

This operation, and the bus, are called L.A. The bus has a wonderful library of both books
Filmmakers. Their mission is to ". . .travel and and films on VCR and DVD. When I ran across
make our own films and help people make films them (in Pt. Reyes Station in Marin County,
who don't have the equipment to do so ." . . Northern California), they along with their
fejffi The bus is set up with state-of-the-art Macintosh travelling companion Roger Webster, had just
MMaaSSSSgJ equipment, flat monitors, digital video cameras, a come from the Burning Man Festival in the
projector, editing equipment, and a major sound Nevada desert, and were heading up the Califor-
system. Couches fold down into beds for sleeping. nia coast to British Columbia. Between them they
L;~ Cv.- r UW"^ T^Wi&^f Alfonso and Tao are multilingual (6 and 3Vi had five cell phones. These days the bus is parked
languages, respectively) and are paying for the in Venice, California, where there are workshops
f^jj
-*"i trip by working as translators on their cell
phones. They make about $2500 a month each by
and meetings for filmmakers, photographers, and
other artists.

PPi
ON THE ROAD

Handmade Housetrucks
and Housebuses
Roger D. Beck
IYoger Beck built his first housetruck in 1969 and spent several years on
the road as a traveling artist, making wire jewelry that he sold at crafts fairs.

Many of the vehicles shown here were owned by Roger's friends; they often
travelled in groups, helped each other building, did crafts fairs together,
and were also times when we just kicked back and enjoyed a
"... there
simple Roger began shooting photos of houseboats and housebuses.
life."

"I my own enjoyment and put them in a

originally took these pictures for
photo album." Then in 2002, with encouragement from a friend, he
published Some Turtles Have Nice Shells, a 200-page handmade color
compendium of soulful road living in America. On these two pages are
photos from the book.

Below is Roger's website (to get this book), as well as Sharkey's huge website of
house vehicles:

www.housetrucks.com
www.mrsharkey.com
In the '70s, Michael was on the road in this housetruck (above three
photos). When he hit a new town, he'd find the fanciest
supermarket, drive past the front window a few times (so everyone
could see it), then park in the back of the parking lot (so as not to be
in the way), and open up to the public. People would pay 50C
admission, walk through the truck, and buy postcards (of the truck,
of course). At the end of the day hed have enough cash to buy
groceries and gas, and still have some money left over. Great gig!

Roger Beck's 1951 Federal five- ton is his fourth housetruck. He carried a 1940s Whizzer motorbike along
as a "dingy," and sold jewelry at art fairs. Roger says "I now dream about building number five and being
back on the road again and living a simpler lifestyle!"

183
ON THE ROAD

Grant and Elissa looking at a copy ofShelter Hi-tech rock climbinggear Bedroom in 30 s

Outdoor Adventures Flip-Pac

(jrant Cahill and Elissa Vaessen spend a months, I play." And he adds, "Mind you, he Steve and Sondra Winslow and their 4x4 Toyota
good part of the year camping, mountain pays me exceptionally well." Tacoma pickup truck fitted out with a Flip-Pac camper
biking, kayaking, and rock climbing. Grant, it Their rig is a '98 Ford Ranger with a shell shell. has a torsion spring and pops up in
Steve says it

turns out, is the traffic manager for a large that cost $100. Last year they went through 30 seconds. Costs around $3000. Steve and Sondra run
company in Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) and says 14 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces, took day-long, low-cost Colorado River rafting trips.
he has a deal with the owner; he works hard a tandem kayak out to the Gulf Islands
fiberglass
seven months a year: long hours, handling the (between Vancouver Island and the mainland), www.flippac.com
shipping, driving a forklift, etc. "For seven rode their bikes along the Scorpion Trail in www.coloradowhitewaterrafting.com
months, he owns my soul — the other five B.C., and went bouldering and rock climbing.

Patagonia to Alaska on Muscle Power Books for the Road

Last YEAR DROVE past two cyclists
I with sleep. They worked four years to save money Manifold Destiny, by Chris
heavily laden bicycles stopped by the side of for the trip. Things were fine for about a year. Maynard and Bill Scheller, 1998,
Highway One. Attached to the back of one of Then in December, the Argentine economy Villard, New York
the bikes was a high-tech-looking little trailer collapsed and they were stranded in Mexico Poached fish Pontiac, pickup ham
piled with stuff, and a sign on it saying without funds. They started going to Mexican steak, stuffed cabbage — cook it on
"Patagonia to Alaska —
No War!" Whoa! This firehouses asking if they could pitch their tent the road and on your engine! Why
looked interesting; I turned around and came nearby and they usually ended up with a place not? This classic book gives you 35
back to meet Silvia Monja and Alejandro to stay and food. When they entered the U.S. tested recipes, tells you how to

(Baldy) Barreiro, two charming, tough, at Nogales they were down to $4, and they wrap it in foil, where to place it on
resourceful and amazingly fit Argentinians found that guys at American firehouses different car engines, and how long
who had been on the road over a year. likewise provided food and shelter. to cook it. Out-of-print, but I got a
They left Patagonia a year ago and had so The next morning they asked me to come copy through Amazon.
far pedaled over 12,000 miles. They were with them on my bike for a few days and I was
carrying their shelter on the bikes; Saturday tempted, but alas too busy, but I rode to the Car Living Your Way, by A. Jane Heim,
night it had rained hard and they had a tent edge of town with them. As we headed around 1995. Touchstone Adventures,
and sleeping bags to dry out, so I invited them the lagoon, I decided to speed up and get far P.O. Box 177, Paw Paw, IL 61653
to come to our house. They hung up their gear enough ahead so I could take a photo. I A unique book about the culture of
and I made them omelets and toast. They ate pedaled real hard for several hundred yards short-term and long-term car living.
and ate! They'd been married seven years, and and looked back and there was Baldy right Explains how to live comfortably in
the bike ride was Sylvia's idea. It's amazing to alongside me, smiling, pulling at least 125 a car if you want to (or have to). There
meet people with this kind of spirit. They'd pounds of gear. are over 100 stories from all sorts of
just been through South and Central America, We shot the pictures, and as they pulled people living in cars, and tips and
then Mexico and now into California —
all on onto Highway One, heading for Seattle, then tricks, as well as a lot of reference
human power. People in all countries would Alaska, Baldy reached back and flipped on his info. A lot of the advice is aimed at
invite them in, give them food and a place to solar radio to a classical music station. single women living in cars. "For
some of you, it will take years to get
things ready to go. Start simple, start
slow, but go. 'Til then, as the Irish
say,'May the wind be at your back
and the sun shine gently on you.'"
^^
Roadside America, by Jack Barth,
»^J2& Doug Kirby, Ken Smith, and Mike
Wilkins, 1986, Fireside/Simon &
TL. Schuster

^B^jJ A wacky, chatty, fact-filled

America's roadside wonders and
book on

amusements.
ft?
A large info-filled website on house-

o/r j!
w^w buses and housetrucks:

www.mrsharkey.com
*N
5'-'V
LIVING LIGHTLY

PERPETUAL CAMPING
mimeo newsletter
In the early '90s I received a little While quite young, Bert and I decided comfortably. Issues vary: some have much about
called Message Post was tightly
in the mail. It (separately, before we even met) that buying vehicular dwellings and little about backpackables
packed with tiny print and had tons of info on what property was foolish. You can't really own land; or wickiups. Or vice versa. So, for a broad
Holly and Bert Davis called Living on Land Lightly. the government owns it and can kick you off any sampling, order several back issues. Our prices
Holly had written a great reply to one of my objec- time you do something that any of dozens of encourage that (and pass on postage savings):
tions to domes, i.e., that homes are not portable. government agencies disapprove of. Or, if you 1/$1; 6/$5; 13/S10; 30/$20.
Turns out that Holly and Bert and a bunch of rent, you pay for the hassles and anguish of those Brief history. In the late 1970s, a network of
uncounted nomads out there do utilize movable who do buy. portable dwellers developed in the Northwest.
homes, and Message Post (now called Dwelling We also noticed that much land, especially in Dwelling Portably (original name Message Post)
Portably,) is their low-tech, fact-filled newsgroup-by- the West, was not used (by humans) or was used began in 1980, produced mostly by Hank and
U.S.-mail. (No website here!) At right is a description infrequently. That inspired us to become perpetual Barb Schultz. About that time, Bert and I learned
by Holly of how they got started doing this, and campers: living in a place while it was desirable; of the network and moved to Oregon. We began
excerpts from their publications about lightweight moving on when conditions changed. summers
caretaking Dwelling Portably during
shelter in the woods. Unfortunately, most manufactured equipment whileHank and Barb were away working. Since
Dwelling Portably is $1 an issue (can you believe is intended for recreationalists who camp only a 1987 we have been year-around managers. There
it?), add 50<t if sending check or M.O. less than $6. few days a year, mostly during summer. Even have been two or three issues per year.
Hell, send these guys $10, they are doing something "four-season" tents: though you may survive in them Bert and I have built portable dwellings that
unique here — about low consumption of
talk year around, you probably won't be very comfort- are as comfortable as houses. In some ways they
planetary resources! Dwelling Portably, POB 190- able. So presently, to dwell portably for long aremore convenient, e.g., because they are small
hwk, Philomath, OR 97370 periods in comfort, requires much do-it-yourself. and well insulated, our body heat keeps them
In Dwelling Portably, doers reporton what warm during winters — avoiding the labor, mess,
works and doesn't, ask questions, and offer pollution, and hazard of a heating stove.
advice. Though readers vary widely in how and -Holly &. Bert Davis
where they dwell, most live as simply as they can

The Hillodge: Hillside Living / 1

t t >K t * I ball-tie the fron t wall plastic to
the posts, bottom as w ell as top (rather
SIMPLE DWELLING IS COMFORTABLE IN MOST WEATH PLAN
f rafter clothes ball than just set rocks/dl rt on the bottom),
The Hillodge Is designed for VIEW *" cords -* pin tie tie for reliability and to ving.
portable living year around on wall and floo with
plastic to block moisture and confine
steep slopes. A clea t
. .

any loose dirt or leaves.

front roof Odd/holed/
front wall, combined ;
vall^ uphill salvaged pieces may be used, overlapping
10x-»
cloth as necessary. For comfort and appearance
,25'
over- » /( A-posts^ 7 I add mats, rugs or drapes.
An insulated inner room can be built
tarp in various ways out of many different
materials: anything that can be kept In
position and will provide several Inches
*»"« of loft. We have used our Hillodge only
with an TIPS FOR ERECTING A HILLODGE during spring so far, and thus have not
overhang- I prefer southerly slopes during fal. needed an inner room. When I build one
ing roof, and winter, and easterly slopes during I plan to use several layers of clear
admits the spring and summer (for morning warmth). plastic for sides and top, suspending
f
For a site, choose a 10 by 2? foot them J-" to 1" apart with a succession of
low sun of area clear of high bushes or trees.
/Inter but ball-tles-with-tails. Such i

Uphill must either be steep, or else be made by tying a bulky knot

blocks the have fair sl2e trees to provide elevate*
in a short length of cord,
j
high sun of anchor points for the rafter cords.
erect, wrap the top layer of
summer mid- (Avoid large trees dangerously close.)
plastic over the bulky knot
days. A Downhill Ideally has no trees or tall
and tie the suspension cord
/double roof/ bushes close enough to block light.
Level and smooth a 6 by 18' terrace. 1
around the base of the bundle,
/walled outer letting the tail hang through.
Only shallow post holes are needed,
(shelter, 18" because cords will brace the posts. Then tie the tail to the next .
I layer of plastic in a simila
by 6' and 5' round and smooth the top of each post s<
that it won't puncture the roof plastic, manner. Etc. How I build
to 7< high, the ends of the inner room will depend
keeps out Carving a groove close to the top helps
on the materials at hand.
^rain and wind. to keep the rafter cords In place.
If a 6 by 18 Hillodge is not roomy
1

An optional, Seldom are anchor points for rafter

enough, rather than enlarging, I would
insulated inner room is warmed by body heat along cords ideally located. I use whatever
are available and then reposition each build additional shelters near by.
with ground-stored heat and (when the sun shines) rafter cord with an auxilliary cord (Leveling a site for a Hillodge twice as
solar heat. (Heating stove not needed in mild big would disturb 8 times as much dirt.)
pulling sideways. zris
climates.) Materials cost $30 to $60 in 1991. for hanging things Limitations of the Hillodge: The roof
athe than is not steep enough to shed snow, nor
The frame consists of only four posts, each with k cords. the rafter cords a the strong enough to support an accumulation,
Each post sets up independently, minimizing readjustments. If the rafter c :ris ust fa to and therefore should not be left up and
The roof consists of two sheets of plastic 10 x 25' (the (because uphill Isn't steep), untended when heavy snow is likely.
tie to the bases of branches (rather The
commonest size) uncut, which are simply layed upon the frame than around trunks, to avoid bruising),
plastic roof and front wall may not take
and tied out. An optional overtarp of cloth or light matting gales. The frame is not well suited for
and then brace to logs, roots, or bases areas which are both flat and treeless.
will extend the life of the plastic and reduce visibility. of bushes (to avoid bending the trees). The outer shell includes seams that will
The front wall and one end are formed from one 10x25 sheet For the roof, black plastic will out- admit insects unless carefully chinked.
of clear plastic, folded double. (Tips for erecting on page 3.) last clear, especially if no cloth over-
(A bug net can be hung in inner room.)
tarp. To tie out the >5=5m) instil Tho the frame, roof, and most walls
plastic, I use 1*-2" /(Si^ are simple, the end closures are irregu-
Storage and Sleeping diameter ball ties on V^^ball lar - and are left for the builder to
the corners, but spring- ft~ " , n , ,>
cord* ri work out. (Detailed Instructions would
I camp on an island in Maine. clamp clothespins on the
not only fill many pages, but might take
1 live there 7 months sides (where ball ti might form rain- ;
longer to read and understand than to
a year in a large green collecting pockets). Where clothespin-
invent for yourself.
ning, I roll the edg of the plastic a
tent. The tent sets on few times around a s •aight twig, ±»
Comparing the Hillodge with Wanda's
a poly tarp that covers Tleanto (in Sept'85 and Sept'86 MP):
diameter a few inche long; clamp to the
a thick mat of twigs The Tleanto' s roof is steeper and
roll; then tight. grip by wrapping i

stronger, and thus can shed snow or

and leaves. That trap around the clothe support an accumulation. The frame is
keeps the tent's pin I tie the ie-out cord through the self supporting, not requiring high
inside drier, I spring. anchor points; thus is not restricted to
hope. (The site steep hillsides or edges of groves. The
is wet.) front wall is higher, providing more
solar heating and more light inside,
I use + big especially high up. If south facing, a
plastic contain- Tleanto does not need a cloth overtarp
ers to store roof s upp r layer '
to prevent reflections of the sun.
tauter than low r layer to form
food, tools, air spaces b
The Hillodge" s frame (only 1+ posts)
en. For an overtarp is much simpler and lighter.
clothes, and I use any old drab-
ab- olored loth, pi
The rafters
are cords instead of poles, and thus are
books. On top of them, an air mattress and sleeping bag together, not hazardous if they break. The roof
provide comfortable seating and sleeping. proof, the cloth need not be. slopes the same direction as the land,
I work on and in boats, which enables me to spend five On the uphill side, just inward fro and thus is less intrusive and less
months a year in the caribe/troplcs. the edge of the plastic, I wrap a piec buffeted by wind. The inner room can be
There I use a 6xV' kid of string or strap around each cord, s
tent and a 3x6' air mat. Total cost: $38 at a big box store. placed at the front, with a full-height
that any water running along the cord passageway behind it. For the same width
With a nice floral bedsheet I thrifted, I sleep well. Off the
of terrace, it has more floor space. B&H
ground, I found no need for a sleeping bag. David, February

186
 . ) . J

The Snugiup: $20 Shelter Winter in a Tleanto

A naturally warm-and-cool shelter that needs no poles. PraDarlnp \o winter In
his winter. ¥« hav*
The Snugiup is a small enclosed dugout formed entirely of moat euppll • cached • lng th* sit* and cutt
earth and plastic. Thus it can be built even in areas that "•'11 wait to sat up and aova in
lack timber such as deserts and brushlands. The Tl anto li a Lik* t:
twlpl it ha two walla lng th* fly).
The roof and front wall are insulated by air spaces between *r S Or 81 bt
the layers. The other three walls and the floor are mostly find on* with th* other nl tributes)
soil, and act as natural, automatic heaters-coolers; absorbing Craig dug tvo ',<rr»c« Th* larger lower on* will b* th*
floor, the upper on* th* r ipport for th* roof poles
heat on warm days and giving it back during cold spells. In *• will cover th* c*lllng lth plaatlc in back but with
western Oregon winters: when occupied, inside is typically 65°; old *h**t* in front to l*t ool ature out. On top we will pll*
seldom below 50° even when 15°F outside. (We've not had any l**v*s for 1 ght b* b*tter but not plentiful).
Tto* front wall will b* four layere leer plastic spa
weather colder than that to test it.) apart with son* strips of bubbly plaatlc w* found t
The roof is flush with the ground, which minimizes padding wh*n shipping) Th* *nd wall* will b* stall
.

wind forces and facilitates concealment. that th* plastic of th* **st wall will haw*
The roof will not support much snow, but may corner anchored with *lastio straps so that
allow snow to slide off, depending on steepness to go In and
of roof and the type of snow. The ten will b« sbsped
Materials cost $10 to $20. the 1. .n-tobut otherwise eli
Erection Woodland T»nt fj.n LLL
requires an hour or so, NOT counting
site preparation which may take
several days (but can done
in advance of use). oth top,
tic
cloth over-roof other.

(suspension cords
are not shown)

all
dimensions
in feet
drawings
not to
same scale

ditch

jU roof baa.^

f clear and smooth

^ back vail
2

1
'
uphill

\ P71
nt wall"'
TLEANTO FRAME

6 ' d «» here \
f
12'
side wall 5'

lew el
\y floor My Family and I Now Live in TWO Tleantos
The new one is presently about 1+00 miles south of the

J if
TOP VIEW OF
deep here

SUE
j
^ 3'
first one. We migrate between, not so much for winter warmth
(the southern spot isn't much warmer then), as for a sunnier
spring and to be closer to the couple whose kids we board.
The new tleanto is much like the original (Sept' 85 & Sept
'86 MP) except longer: 36' total. (Actually there are two
separate frames joined end-to-end with covers overlapping.
_ nt wall from a It contains two insulated rooms plus some uninsulated areas.
I by I2J reet.
rolls 10 by 25 Usually two adults and three small children live in it;
Suggest Ions for build lng a Snugiup feet, simply cut In ha on occasion two additional adults. During the coldest weather
Cons ruction Is ei slest
; ball-ties along sides for warmth we all crowd together into one room. (One morning
For win -facing put ball-ties along fr I measured 22°F outside, 30° within the outer shell, and US
will be St. Fo
facln e will in our room.) We don't want a heating stove with the fire
during Dornlngs and c ring af hazard, fumes, smoke, work. During milder weather we spread
noons. An Ideal site has much foliage out. The tleantos are warmest where there is little wind.
overhead, but little foliage downhill. For ceiling insulation, I replaced the leaves with sheets
The Snugiup "s walls require firm soil
that will not collapse. Avoid soils with of flexible foam, which are quicker to put on and easier to
much sand or gravel. Roots are desirable keep in place. I am now gradually replacing the foam with
for reinforcement though they will slow bubble plastic (as we find it) which has not been bothered
digging. Digging is usually easiest insulation. (For summer us only, two much by animals (whereas the foam becomes nests if not
11 1 layers are iro ably enough for winter,
I1 yers may be desirable.)
protected). We take down each tleanto when we leave for the
Cover fl with plastl Add rugs, season, to avoid mouse/rat infestation.
drapes as d >Tl ed for comfort or decor. Another change: I angle the south wall with the top
Entry is by raising the front wall farther out than the bottom, so the sun doesn't reflect far.
plastic and du king under.
ch foliage s overhead,
(Once we were careless and attracted a hunter who was on the
If shade du slope below. Luckily, he was friendly.
from air ar 9 d< sired, form an over-roof ,
I have now lived in tleantos for most of five years and
from approp ely-colored cloth lOixlOj- am quite satisfied with them.
(need not be wi terproof). Suspend It
Wanda, California, August & Nov.
about 6" ab Stic. Put
Its front (
direct suns
nlll) edge s as to block
er when the
Jug Showers
sun Is high t to admit s un during
sun is low in the sky.
site, clear an area 10 by If extre Jiy, add a
2 feet. If much rain expected or If the second over roof of white c r reflective
soil does not drain well, shallowly dltc material, suspending It 6" above the
along the back (uphill) side of clearing plastic and aelow first over- roof.
Dig out the portion shown. Slant the The Snug is small Ins lde: floor 5
walls by 6 ft; he phi 3 to 6 ft. Therefore
most belongings t outside in
stashes or under tarps \

Wintering in a Snugiup.
In mid November I built a shelter like the one In
DP Calso shown in 1995-96 Summary- Index} and have been
in it since six plastic liners and two roofs. The
top roof is cloth; the under roof is cle Pi tic. Most days
the shelter stays warm enough to wear shirt and watch
cap, or nothing. During one freeze I wear more, but
stayed comfortable. This is with no The shelter has
stayed dry except for a little conden on the front wall.

187
LIVING LIGHTLY
PKEFAFMNQ TUE POLES
/<\ONQOLIAN
CLOUD {_) T (,e lattice

UOUStb

(" frontispiece^

MONGOLIAN CLOUD HOUSES

Dan Kuehn
In 1981, Dan Kuehn sent us an inscribed copy
of his new book, Mongolian Cloud Houses.
Although produced in the '80s, it was a book
born of the '60s, with the energy and vitality of
people who revered the earth and its resources
and were dedicated to leaving as small a footprint
and using as few resources as possible. At the
time Dan was living in a 13 '-diameter, 10 '-tall
homemade yurt in the woods. The book is a
guide to building that yurt. The instructions
are clear and the drawings are beautiful —
informative and friendly.

Note: In 2006, Shelter Publications republished

Dan's book, extensively updating and revising it —
adding new techniques and materials, a resources
section with suppliers and manufacturers, and a
photo section of both Dan's original yurts and
Mongolian gers. • About 150 pieces bamboo (I prefer Johnson The latticework is made in 4 sections, each of
Grass), 10-15' long which accordions up like a baby gate you'll
. . .

• 4 car tire innertubes (to cut into rubber bands) need about 700 rubberbands, which can be cut
• about 35 shoots young willow from car innertubes.
www.shelterpub.com/_mongolian/MCH-book.html •piece wood %" X5V2" x41"
www.mongoliancloudhouses.com • two 7-foot poles

TWE
The only materials I had to pay SAOI^EUOLE"
for were canvas, needle and F\!Nq
thread, safety pins, and
waterproofing, for a total of less
than $1 75. The rest was gleaned
from the woods, backyards, and
the local dump.

The first yurt I ever saw was

most wondrous —
I was so taken
by the quality of the space that I
decided to abandon my previous
plan to make a tipi my home.

. . . ltd be handy for you to invite a friend to the

. . . cut 20 young green
poles of willow or some yurt erection, particularly at the point of adding
other similar plant, about 12' long a well- . . . the smokehole ring and the first rafters. Other
made smokehole ring is a work of art. than that, you can do every thing yourself.

188
 TUE SAO\EUOLE COVE1V

You can sew your own skin, either by hand or by The main part of the Roof Skin is made by The Smokehole Cover is a dome sewn like half a
machine. For this 13-foot-diameter yurt, you'll sewing 8 "pie pieces" into a cone shape. is, 6 rounded triangular
beachball, that

need 33 yards of 6-foot-wide canvas. I prefer 12 sections with a circle at the top.
ounce untreated —
it's both strong and natural.

3KJN

Throw an edge of the skin up onto the roof frame To stretch the skin tightly, push the bottom hard for me not to sound prejudiced, so let
It's

so thatsome of it hangs in the smokehole ring. of each rafter up snugly against the canvas, me say right out that I prefer the comforts of
Then, with a 6'-longpole, you can maneuver the as shown here. life and that even though I consider myself a
roof into place. nomad, my goal is always to be as cozy and
protected from the elements as possible.

OTHEf\ 5!ZE5_

\ \ I

qCNEaAL_DI£f£NS10N5_

P) RoofMle

O lFWertofoh

I've learned the hard way that the quality of A: small woodstove / B: liner from floor to
the final structure can only be as good as the smokehole / C: fridge/root cellar / D: sleeping
quality of the raw materials, so choose your loft / E: multi-level floor / F: solar window
poles carefully.

189
IVING LIGHTLY

b*
teas NEVER HAVE LIKED THE BUSY-BEE ADULT WORLD MUCH. AND AFTER SPENDING MOST
d.yrTce

OF 1989 STUDYING BOOKS ON THE LIFESTYLES OF NATIVE AMERICANS, I RETURNED

TO MY CHILDHOOD HOME IN EASTERN OREGON WITH THE IDEA TO SOMEHOW LIVE IN THE
MOST SIMPLE WAY IMAGINABLE. THE BOOKS HAD TAUGHT ME THINGS ABOUT THE EARTH
AND US HUMANS THAT 1 HAD NEVER LEARNED IN ANY SCHOOLS. I REALIZED HOW
UTTERLY SMALL I WAS IN RELATION TO NATURE AND THAT TO LIVE ON THE LAND IN

HARMONY MEANT NOT EVER POURING CONCRETE ANYWHERE OR OVERUSING RESOURCES

OF ANY KIND.

I
S A KID I IN MY 20'S DREAMED
BUILT ENDLESS FORTS AND EVEN A SMALL CABIN. I

OF LIVING INGREW TO RESENT LARGE RENT AND

TIPIS. DURING MY 30'S I

MORTGAGE PAYMENTS WHEN REALIZED THAT THE SPACES WAS PAYING ALL THAT
I I

MONEY FOR WERE NOTHING MORE THAN UGLY WOODEN BOXES. SQUARE, UNORGANIC
COFFINS THAT IN NO WAY WHATSOEVER INTEGRATED WITH THE LANDSCAPE AROUND
THEM. THEY WERE HARD TO HEAT IN THE WINTER AND COOL IN THE SUMMER. AND A
FEW WERE EVEN FILLED WITH COCKROACHES!

|f ?<ACK IN OREGON I BEGAN WORK ON SOME BIG QUESTIONS: (I) WHAT WOULD THE
IL=^ BARE ESSENTIALS BE FOR A LIVING SPACE? (2) COULD SOLAR POWER RUN THE
NEEDS OF MY TINY BUSINESS? (3) WHAT DOES A HUMAN REALLY NEED TO LIVE IN A
CLEAN, COMFORTABLE MANNER? (4) COMPLETELY IGNORING SO-CALLED "CONVENTIONAL
WISDOM," AND STARTING WITH NOTHING, WHAT WOULD YOU NEED? (S) WHAT WOULD THE
SHAPE, SIZE, AND BUILDING MATERIALS CONSIST OF? (6) COULD A PERSON'S HOME BE
UTTERLY MINIMALISTIC AND EFFICIENT AND STILL LOOK AS ONE WITH THE LANDSCAPE?

T ^OR INSPIRATION IN THOSE BRAINSTORMING DAYS I OFTEN REFERRED TO THE

\? HANDMADE HOUSES AND 1973 SHELTER BOOKS, WHERE I FOUND ENDLESS NEW
IDEAS. I DREW PLAN AFTER PLAN, COMBINING SHELTERS FROM AFRICA WITH IRISH ROCK
HUTS. I IMAGINED TIPIS OVER HIDDEN UNDERGROUND ROOMS. BUT IN THE END 1 DROVE
TO THE WOODS TO CUT POLES AND BOUGHT A USED TIPI COVER AND SET IT ALL UP IN

A RENTED MEADOW.
*\uv kids Shane and Shilo spent two
^c! PENDING THE NEXT FEW YEARS IN THAT MAGNIFICENT CATHEDRAL OF LIGHT <*J delightfulsummers 'mthe tipi. During
C^ BROUGHT ME CLOSER TO THE LAND AND THE WEATHER THAN HAD EVER BEEN I
the winters was Kept busy SbovelincL
i

BEFORE. I RID MYSELF OF ALL UNNECESSARY POSSESSIONS AND LEARNED FIRST-HAND ALL Snow o-ff the tipi and trails. One winter
ABOUT THE OLD ADAGE "LESS IS MORE." TO RUN MY MICROMAGAZ1NE BUSINESS 1 the tempera-tore went to -2rp.
INSTALLED UNDERGROUND ELECTRICITY FOR MY OFTEN-USED COPY MACHINE. SOLAR WAS
TOO SPENDY. NOW MY ELECTRIC BILLS RUN ABOUT $IO PER MONTH. IN THOSE EARLY
YEARS I REMEMBER BEING ASTOUNDED AT HOW LETTING GO OF THINGS I THOUGHT I

table and chair

were used ih
the tipi. ftnd
because had i

tectricity was using "f

ny refrigerator donna
decided to buiW a floor
f)
that the t.pi -Fit over. ^*\ T0 Py/i
Then -the ins.de tipi xz*jy)
\iner was nailed to the
decK.maicinc^atipght
sea\ to Keep oot winter
winds. The fire pit idee\
ujas never bu\lt.>

190
 couldn't live without gave me a huge burst of energized freedom,
the tipi served as a wonderful home and taught me many valuable
lessons for the new structures to come.

/URTS AND DOMES CAUGHT MY ATTENTION NEXT.

ty
(^
LIKED THE
ROUNDNESS AND PORTABILITY OF YURTS BUT WAS DISCOURAGED BY
I

THEIR PR1CETAGS. UPON FURTHER RESEARCH DECIDED THE MASS-PRODUCED

I

AMERICAN MODELS LOOKED TOO STRAIGHT-EDGED WHEN COMPARED TO THE

AUTHENTIC ORIGINALS FROM MONGOLIA. PUTTING PENCIL TO PAPER DEVISED I

MY NEXT HOMEMADE HOME. MUCH LIKE A TRADITIONAL INDIAN SWEAT LODGE,

ONLY LARGER AND WITH WINDOWS AND A WOODEN FLOOR. EUROPEANS CALL
THEM "BENDERS." RED WILLOW SAPLINGS CREATE A WOVEN INVERTED BASKET
SHAPE WHICH IS THEN COVERED WITH BLANKETS, PLASTIC AND THEN BURLAP.

fHE HUT SERVED AS AN ULTRA-COZY, DRY, AND INEXPENSIVE

STUDIO/HOME FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS.
WOULD SPEND WHOLE DAYS
I

DRAWING MY JOURNAL THEN RETURN TO THE HUT AND WRITE NOTES

IN

AROUND THE SKETCHES. THOUGHT HAD FOUND THE ULTIMATE SHELTER.

I I

fHEN MY LIFE TOOK A RADICAL TWIST AND I WAS OUT TRAVELING

TO CREATE MY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL UNDER THE GENEROUS
SPONSORSHIP OF THE SIMPLE SHOE COMPANY. SINCE DISLIKED MOTELS AND I

CAMPED OUT MOST OF THE TIME DECIDED THAT WHEN

I
WAS BACK HOME I I

WOULD SIMPLY LIVE IN THE TENT! I DISMANTLED THE HUT AND ERECTED THE
TENT IN THE SAME SPOT. STILL MY FAVORITE SHELTER, TENTS ARE NOW MADE

TO WEATHER ALL FOUR SEASONS AND PROVIDE DRY AND EXCITING PLACES IN
WHICH TO LIVE. THE ONLY DRAWBACK WAS THAT THE UNDERSIDE OF THE TENT
FLOOR WOULD BEGIN TO GET MOLDY AFTER A WEEK SO it) HAVE TO EMPTY
OUT THE RUG, PAD, SLEEPING BAG, CLOTHES BAG, FOOD BOX, CERAMIC
HEATER, BOOKS, LIGHT BULB AND CORD AND THE WATER BOTTLE FOR A GOOD
ALL-AROUND HOUSE CLEANING!

191
LIVING LIGHTLY: Less Is More

SHnCK
tnt was great -fun
£J designing "the
smallest possible
Space -for all my
Viurn.ble belon.cymo,S
and marines
even 3 -tirn

space b€\ouj -the ^

rafters w/ as used,
ryf-ter 2 years i

£/nA had a -rhie-f

breaycin and $5000
v/\iorth d-f cameras,
TI <p VENTUALLY MY MAGAZINE ISSUES BEGAN TO OVERFLOW THE OLD
computer and capping
(fas? DODGE'S TRUNK SO I DECIDED TO BUILD A WOODEN HOUSE. A SHINGLE-
9oods were .stolen LOCKABUE
COVERED BEACH SHACK, WITH BED, TABLE AND BOOK SHELF. THE 6X10
DOOR
STRUCTURE WAS SO SMALL DIDN'T EVEN NEED A BUILDING PERMIT. TOTAL
I

COST $95.

/j\fter living for years in the round and on the floor Japanese -
e/^j 1
style, the oak desk and chair felt odd and the room too boxy,
i had a business to run though, phone messages to check, a website
to build and valuables to keep locked up. the following year added 1

on a 6xs bed/kitchen. a year later followed my instincts of wanting

1

to return to a round space and dug into the hillside and built an
undergound 8 ft. kiva-like structure with an openable skylight for
illumination. after some deep contemplations and having the shack
robbed decided to dismantle the wooden structure and scale down
i

enough to just the kiva space.

over a foot of earth on the roof the kiva is always at

ith

50—60 degrees. to enter you must bow down and crawl

through a short passageway, which is humbling and feels like what
one ought to do when coming into a room that offers shelter and WNGS YoUWON't THIN6S YOU WILL „
warmth from the elements. for fresh air simply tip open the i

INO AT MY HOUSE PtM DATrtYHOUSC 7

skylight and crack the door.
J\Ajashev/Dryer JLoilS O-f boofcS
FEEL THAT THIS
1, Small radio p^J
TIMES BY FAR THE BEST HOME iVe BUILT
IS
Ji.Hot ter heater
I

vaj a
THE MEADOW. EACH ITEM MY PARED-DOWN EXISTENCE
IN

IMMEDIATELY AT HAND AND NEVER LOSTI THE THIN BED MATTRE5S FOLDS UP
IS
3. Sink or bathtub 3. Hotplate frjy
4$, Stove / Refrigerator 4. Simple SoodsXjJ
5. Furniture I Art Supplies
Microwave 6. Sawdust toilet
Toilet 1. camera
TV.- Video -DV.D.
9. Stereo f, BaclcpacKjg
m Regular bed lf\ % Tents
10. Sleeping bag
11. 6ed linens C!^
ft. Harsh cleaners I. Ceramic heater
iy Vacuum \2.rJiodegradeab\e
A Freezer
H. Computer
if Soaps £ cleaners
1 water -f, iter ,
16. Lft\wnchair5 IboiVles —
H. chainsavu 1 Hammock
.Lawnmower (<jas) HandtoolS
ll Garbage cans . Push mower
20. FuTnace/ojooAs-fcove Bicycle
21.Sewing machine Peace

2V Mortgages! w
22. car ,(g) ^.Qvjiet ,

2j6.Tranquil.ty.
"i P " " ^ ^ -

192
E~NUq in "to 3 h
Inside then
Completely
covered with
d<rt, +his+iny
abode »s toa$ty
wa\m in winter
and cool \n+he
Summer.

„ utttvs a*tev -5
qears•'S3h
o-f bia
invasion
car Renter ants.
,They are eating
u-i-* — ' the p\ne wood \uaws
dn<i corn'mp in to .gather a^nd
the radio antenr>a\ yfcff^
INTO AN EASY CHAIR. I "VE LEARNED TO READ AND WRITE IN THE EVENINGS INSTEAD
OF STARING AT A TV. MY DIET HAS EVEN CHANGED TO THE POINT OF HAVING JUST
ONE HOTPLATE AND NO REFRIGERATOR. LIVING IN THIS ALTERED MANNER CAUSES ME
TO SPEND WAY MORE TIME OUT OF DOORS THAN WHEN \U STAYING IN A
1 Handmade Houses CONVENTIONAL HOME. THE OUTHOUSE IS A SELF -COMPOSTING 5-GALLON BUCKET.
2. Shelter (SEE THE BOOK HUMANURE). TO STAY CLEAN I TAKE DAILY SAUNAS IN A PROPANE-

Tihy Houses FIRED WOODEN SWEAT LODGE. THERE IS ALSO A BIG BUCKET ON THE ROOF OF THE
3.
DRESSING ROOM THAT CONTAINS A MO-VOLT WATER HEATING UNIT FOR AN
M~. hhjmanure OCCASIONAL GRAVITY-FED SHOWER.

5. Circle Houses IVING IN THIS MANNER FEELS RIGHT TO ME. HAVING SPENT SOME TIME IN

6. Evasion MY PARTNER'S HOME HELPING TO RAISE OUR TWO KIDS, I HAVE HAD THE

7 Walden LUXURY OF EXPERIENCING BOTH LIFESTYLES. IN THE MEADOW I DON'T USE UP SO

MANY OF THE EARTH'S RESOURCES. AND BECAUSE I HAVEN'T BOUGHT IN TO THE
8. 6eitv£ Nobody, IDEA OF MORTGAGES I CAN LIVE RELATIVELY FREE. FREE TO SLEEP IN IF I CHOOSE,

'/^^ OoinqMovAjhere READ BOOKS, WATCH NATURE AND LEARN TO CALM MY CONSUMER DESIRES, LIKE THE
GOOD BUDDHA

jfl

f
SAID'

SOMETIMES WONDER WHERE MODERN MAN'S CONCEPT OF A LIFESTYLE HAS

GONE. PEOPLE SEEM TO BE SO OVERWHELMED WITH TRYING TO KEEP
EVERYTHING IN THEIR LIVES AFLOAT. MAYBE THE ANSWER TO THEIR DILEMMA LIES IN

THE VERY WAY THEY ARE LIVING. IN THE BUILDING THEY CALL HOME. TO ME A
HOME SHOULDN'T BE A BURDEN BUT ONE OF LIFE'S ULTIMATE JOYS.

-D. PRICE

^/7ou'U notice
|jtrhe absence
o-f 3 square or a
level x never got
around to verting

d«pflC6 isthe author o-f HcwAbr^

a Journal of Your Lif^ Moonlig ht Chron -
icles: ft Wanderin g Artjs ts Journa l

and the ongoing toi -monthly journal

Woon ^q ht Chronicles availaUp at
$5 each. You can ord«r th-em from
Dan at BO* 10*?, JOSEPH flRSlSHG
VMUvmO.^oonU q htChronicleS.cotn
LIVING LIGHTLY

NATIVE AMERICAN SHELTER

194
 One of the least understood
facets of the history of Native Ameri-
cans involves the variations in their
by William M. Rieske dwellings and homes. The materials
used, the shapes and sizes were as
varied as the areas in which they
lived. Bark, wood, slabs, and planks.
Grasses and reeds. Sticks and straw.
Hides and skins. Ice and snow. Thatch
and mats. Earth, stones, adobe, and
mud. Logs and poles. Branches and
boughs and later, canvas, were all
used in many ways. Single and multi-
family dwellings were built in all

areas.Neighboring tribes often built

completely different types of build-
ings, although made of the same
materials. Bark, planks, adobe, and
matting were used for both small
dwellings and large complex units
housing many families. Poles and slabs
were used next to those built of
branches and poles or woven mats.
Stilts or elevated floors were used in
the far north, the northwest, the plains,
and the southeast. Domed units were
common in almost all areas, as was
the use of semi-cave shelters, under-
ground structures, and buildings of
stones and rocks. Tipis and wigwams
were made of many materials in
many areas.
Large complex structures were in
use many centuries before modern
toolswere introduced in America.
Native American skills and ingenuity
were used to build large, permanent
structures in many areas and it is

noteworthy to compare the similarities

to buildings in Europe, Asia, Africa,
and the South Seas.

-William Rieske

At age 52, Bill Rieske, "with limited

finances," dedicated the rest of his life

to studying "Indian America." With

his wife Verla working to support
him, produced a unique set of
Bill

84 posters on Native Americans.

Subjects ranged from rock art of Utah
to Navajo dyes to Eskimo masks and
artifacts. The unique map shown on
these pages (scaled down by 47%),
shows the rich diversity of native
dwellings in America.
In 1982, Bill Rieske was awarded
an honorary doctorate by Haskell
Indian Jr. College for his work on
Native American Culture. These
maps, priced at $6-$9 each, are
wonderful for schools. To obtain, write:
Historic Indian Publishers
1580 W. 3940 S, Apt. F-104
SaltLake City, UT 84123-1529
801-886-1384

195
IVING LIGHTLY

NATIVE Patwin (California) ceremonial

earthlodge had central post,

AMERICAN 4" earthen roof,

was sometimes
40' -60' diameter.

BUILDERS

NATIVE AMERICAN Bob Easton and Peter Nabokov produced

ARCHITECTURE Native American Architecture (Oxford University
Press) in 1989 and it remains the definitive
work on pre-white-man building in North
America. It shows the rich diversity of Indian
buildings throughout the continent and covers
ancient social customs, cosmological concepts,
and ritual life as they affected building design.
The book is lavishly illustrated, both with rare
vintage photos, and Bob's wonderful pen-and-
ink drawings, some of which are reproduced on
rcilKWUOKA l«WKI (ATTON
these two pages.

Salish (Puget Sound,

Washington) single-pitched
shed house had 2 rows of
posts, planks for walls and
roof; in 1 792 one was
discovered near Seattle that
was 380 yards long! Pit house roof-framing plans of Thompson
Indians and other British Columbia tribes

Delaware ceremonial Big

House of logs and split shakes
near Copan, Oklahoma,
40 'x 25 'x 18' (high)

Thompson Indian (southern British Columbia)

pit house (above and below)

Iroquois (Lake Huron and

upper New York State)
longhouses were from
40' -400' long, 20-30' wide

196
 Navajo "whirling-log" hogan with cribbed-k Hidatsa (North Dakota) earth lodge
Conical hogan construction detail walls and corbeled-log roof, was covered inhabited by Small Ankle, at
with 6" of tamped earth Like-A-Fishhook Village, ND, in 1878

Conical forked-pole hogan (male) Corbeled log roof hogan (female) Four-sided leaning log hoga

Prehistoric southeast dwelling: Adena (Ohio River Valley) circular

poles set in trenches, walls covered house, outward-leaning poles, Kickapoo wigwam frame,
with wattle and daub, thatched roof 20 '-70' diameter 20'x 14 X 9' high, as built today
in Nacamiento, Mexico and

Eagle Pass, Texas

Chickee (southern Florida) house. Note diagonal Mackenzie Delta Eskimo (Arctic) log-framed winter
bracing of corner posts at left. Palmetto thatch house with banked-up soil for insulation

197
 /
THE TIPI:
SERIOUS SHELTER
Robert Lewandowski
Of the three most critical necessities for life — food, water, and
shelter — shelter is the most urgent and immediate need during
the winter. A person can go without food for a month, water for a
week — but an unsheltered night in a Wyoming blizzard could
cause death by morning.
The elegant form of the tipi, perhaps the most beautiful of all

Native American shelters, derives specifically from its function: to

quickly provide a warm and comfortable living space, suitable for a
stay of an entire winter if necessary, in areas of heavy snows, high
winds, and sub-freezing temperatures. The tipi accomplishes this
task by surrounding a campfire, and then providing the proper
ventilation to remove the smoke. The fire provides warmth, light,
and heat shimmering fire and glowing coals also
for cooking; the
furnish entertainment, creating an atmosphere suited to either
quiet contemplation or animated storytelling.
The steep slope of the cone shape allows snow to slide off before
becoming a crushing weight, and causes the wind to blow past the
tipi forcing it down, but not over. The tipi is quick to pitch —
starting with the sun on the horizon, the campfire will be
cooking your food before the stars are out. At night, looking at
it from a distance, the tipi lights up like a flickering Japanese
lantern. Finally, at dawn, the whole camp disassembles and
disappears like frost in the morning sunlight.
Thirty years ago, I spent two winters at 9000 feet on
the Colorado Continental Divide in a tipi purchased
from Nomadics Tipi Makers. Their thoroughly well-
designed, handcrafted tipi allowed me to survive
extreme conditions in comfort, both physical
and spiritual.
Tipis have integrity.

Nomadics Tipi Makers

17671 Snow Creek Road
Bend, OR 97701
541-389-3980
www.tipi.com

198
 I LOVE BARNS. They're built for practical reasons
(they have to work!), with economy, and attention
to siting and weather. And, guess what? They're
beautiful!
In a barn, you can see the framing — the
posts, plates, braces, rafters, purlins . . . and they
are invariably perfect. The architecture of
economy.
Whenever I drive in the country, I'm on the
lookout for barns. Usually they're deserted or at
leastno one's around and I go in and sit on the
straw and admire the view, then shoot photos.
They're my cathedrals.
Here are a few of the barns I've run across.
Barn lovers: We're working on a book on North
American barns. If you can shoot photos of barns in
your area, please contact us.

&
 The barn shown in the three

was
pictures on this page

j*jj owned by Randy and Luanne

iSj Queen. The roof is covered
jfi with hand-split shakes, and
ED the siding is roughly milled
: HH cedar planking.

BARNS OF
WASHINGTON
In 1973, MY SON Peter (then 12) and I headed north from San Francisco to
catch the trans-Canada train to the East Coast. (See pp. 146-151 — "Nova
Scotia" — for the latter parts of this trip.) We got on the train in Oakland, and
disembarked in Seattle to take a detour to Spokane, where the 1974 World's
Fair was being held. We got a room in a nearby boarding house, ate at hippy
restaurants, and spent a few days at the fair. We then rented a car to drive
back to the coast and catch the train for Vancouver. We headed for Seattle,
west on Highway 2, and soon discovered it was a good choice: it was farm
country, and there were barns along the route. (One of my favorite things to
do is to cruise the countryside looking for unique farm buildings!) Farmers
would see me shooting photos and tell me about other barns in the area.

When we got over to the main highway (Route 5), decided to detour west
I

to theOlympic Peninsula, through Sequim, and the picturesque town of Port

Townsend. Photo-wise, this was a great choice, for this was dairy country,
and there were beautiful barns along the (busy) highway.
The hayloft, with close-up of rafters, purlins, and hand-split roofing shakes

The rafters are 53-long

clear cedar poles, cut at a
high altitude (where rings
are tighter). It is 55'6"
wide, 76' long. Posts are
also poles (although the
purlins are dimensional
lumber), meaning much of
this barn's materials was
produced without a
sawmill. You can tell

the scale of the barn by

Peter standing in the
opening at the other end.

-< Previous page:

Barn in countryside
north of Toronto
 A well-constructed log barn. The gambrel
roof afforded the farmer more headroom in
the loft (as opposed to a straight gable roof).

201
CALIFORNIA
FARM
BUILDINGS

Mendocino-style, no-overhang shape that th

development unsuccessfully tried to copy in i

IE
'^ i

HI

HHhmhu^^h i

Mend. Sonoma County

202
Horse barn with wings south of Big Sur
Mendocino County

203
 ROUND BARNS

Round barn in Oregon. Nailed-together truss framing

(two photos below) radiates from silo in center.

Round barns are rare. They are more

than rectilinear barns,
difficult to build
and subdivided inside they produce pie-
if

shaped rooms. The most famous round

barn in America is the magnificent stone
Shaker barn at Hancock, Massachusetts.
Eric Sloane, in An Age of Barns, says there
was a saying that the round barn was
designed "to keep the devil from hiding in
the corners." Here are some round (and
octagonal) wooden barns in America.

204
^^*~^^

**>**'

I 1
3ARNS: Round Barns

COWBOY CATHEDRAL
Driving south through eastern I spent a couple of hours there
Oregon, I stopped in La Grande (alone), studying the framing and
one morning to shoot pictures of shooting pictures. In a while a
some small homes. An old man pickup truck pulled up and three
was out watering his lawn and we young people came in. They were
started talking. I told him I was all horse riders, from the local
interested in buildings, especially area, and had come to see the
barns, and he said, "Well, then barn. They knew the history of
you should go see the round the building and we talked about
J
'
barn." He said it was a large
V- its perfect condition, over a
structure, built 100 years ago, hundred years after being built.
near the small town of Frenchglen One of them (Mike) said, "It's just
in southeast Oregon. He brought .
I- •
like they left it yesterday."
out a picture of it from his house. It looked beautiful!

headed south and several hours later came to the Malheur

I In June, 1872, 23-year-old Peter French set out for Oregon from
Wildlife Refuge and followed some small signs to the barn. When I Sacramento, California with 1200 head of select shorthorn cattle, six
first saw it, it looked surprisingly small, probably because it fit into Mexican vaqueros, and a Chinese cook. Crossing the Sacramento
its surroundings so perfectly. From a distance it appeared to be a River at either Redding or Chico (it's speculated), they drove north-
small conical shape, almost hovering above the fields. When I got up ward into the Catlow Valley in eastern Oregon. There, French met
to the barn was awestruck. It was huge, and perfect, sited at the
I a prospector named Porter. Down on his luck, Porter sold his small
end of a flat meadow, just on the edge of a sloping-up hill. It was a herd of cattle to French. Along with the cattle went Porter's
thrill to stand inside under the circular geometric framing. The squatter's rights to the west side of Steens Mountain and his
carpentry was top quality, and the space was inspiring. "P" brand.

20 '-wide paddock used for

working horses during
 Further explorations in the area led to the discovery of a rich
where melting snow from the west side of Steens
valley to the north,
Mountain meandered 40 miles south to Malheur Lake, producing
lush grass — the Blitzen Valley.
French's operation expanded rapidly, as he acquired more land,
more cattle — and more horses. With backing from California cattle-
man Hugh Glen, the French-Glen Livestock Company was formed.
Native hay was cut and stacked, fences were built, drainage and
irrigation of the valley began, more vaqueros and cowboys were
imported, and hundreds of wild horses were captured and broken for
freight teams, haying, and — buckerooing.
At its encompassed 200,000
height, French's ranching empire
acres and 45,000 head of cattle, one of the mightiest cattle empires
west of the Rockies. In the late '70s or early '80s, French built three
round barns for breaking horses in winter months. The one shown
here is the last, and it's One hundred feet
a magnificent building. in
diameter, the conical roof framed with a 35-foot center pole of
is

juniper (about 40" at bottom, tapering to maybe 28" at top), 14

surrounding juniper posts, and then a third wall of posts at the
perimeter, about 8' high.
French married Emma, the beautiful daughter of his partner Hugh
Glenn. French built her a large, well-furnished "white house," with
spectacular views, and the Donner and Blitzen River flowing past the
Fisheye shows Note two different
front door. Yet Emma, who was said to be
roof framing. sections of framing.
"flirtatiousand worldly," left French for the
bright lights of big-city San Francisco.
French was a little man with a big
moustache, highly efficient in running
his ranch and tough in dealing with
homesteaders. The day after Christmas,
1897, French got into an fight with
homesteader Ed Oliver. Oliver shot him
in the head, and Peter French was dead at
age 48.
Peter French was not only a skilled rancher.
In reclaiming the valley's wetlands for pasture and haying, he
alsoenhanced the habitat for migratory birds, which still arrive in
profusion in the spring and fall.

"[A cowboy's] . . . work started led his chosen mount to the rack

early each morning and lasted past where saddles were kept, or to where
the early dark. Riders had few he had left his saddle along a fence.
chores to do at the home ranch; If he were doing hard riding, he
such things were for the cooks, a would need another horse by noon.
roustabout, or the newest man on After Peter French had been in

the job. A wrangler arose at dawn Oregon a few years, he had as good
and brought the horse herd into a a string of cow horses as existed
corral. After breakfast the riders anywhere. As with cattle, he bred
went out to pick their mounts for the cow horses up until they were
the day. Each one had a string of fitted to the job. Old-timers who
horses varying from eight to rode them described the P Ranch
fifteen, depending on how many saddle band as good-sized for cow
coltshe was breaking. Experienced horses, with fine life and both
and regular riders always had to strength and durability. Purebred
break out a bunch of young horses. stallions gave the size and speed,
The individual rider decided and the native cayuse provided the
what horse he wanted to ride and endurance and orneriness. Many of
roped him, the choice depending on them needed to be broken all over
the work to be done that day and again every morning, when a little

the qualities of the horse. If he bucking was expected by range

were to be branding, he would need riders; in fact, a little bucking was
a horse used to roping; if he were the mark of a horse's readiness for

going to ride with other men, he the day's work. Normally a cayuse
could ride and train a half-broken never pitched long, just a few jumps
horse; if he were going to patrol a to see, perhaps, if the rider himself
section of the country alone, he were ready for the day's work."
could use an older horse, past its
Photo: Joe Van Wormer
Cattle Country of Peter French
peak for herd work — and safer. He by Giles French, 1964

207
 KEEPING
THE
TRADE
ALIVE
In SPRING, 2003, 1 made one last photo trip for this book and
drove up to the countryside near Eugene, Oregon to photograph
the cob house of Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley (p. 84-85). On
the way, I stopped off to see my friends Bill and Judy Pearl near

Medford. As we drove down one of the backroads near their

house to have breakfast at a cafe, I noticed a barn under construc-
tion; it looked just right. Judy had built a number
said the builder
of barns in the Medford/Ashland area, them timber all of
frames, all mortised and tenoned together. Hmmm sounded —
interesting, so after breakfast made my way back to the barn
I

and met builder Christoph Buchler, who was nailing up siding.

"Is it all pegged together?" I asked. Yes, he answered, the
entire structure had been assembled with wooden pegs, no nails
or bolts in the framework. Every post and beam was marked,
with Roman numerals chiseled in during pre-
assembly in Christoph's yard, then used to
erect the frame in place (on land owned by
Joe and Mary Ellen De Luca). (See the two
photos at left, photo at right, and one below it.)

The numbering system could also be used for

moving and reassembling the barn in the
future, should it become necessary. The barn
was 36' by 36'.
I didn't see any power tools lying around

and it turned out that all framing and sheath-

ing was done with hand tools (no Skilsaws or
nail guns). In addition, all the lumber was
from the immediate area and consisted mostly
of fir trees that were dying from either beetles
or drought. It had been cut with a bandsaw
mill in the woods, so a minimum of fuel was
used in getting the lumber from the tree to
the building site. This was unique in 2003!
While Christoph worked on the siding,
two men were applying metal roofing (with
drill guns). It was a beautiful building, it

smelled good, felt right, used local materials,

and was tuned into the environment.
I asked Christoph about his background. "Logging," he said.
"I've always worked with wood. Furniture, buildings, you name
it — wood." He started building mortise and tenon barns in the
Medford area 1983 and this was his tenth.
in
When I asked why no power tools, he said that the simplicity
of it all appealed to him, that he didn't have to depend upon
electricity and further, that he was also doing this "... to keep
the trade alive."
 ^^"W
[ULc-^
Jt.
5 f

m '"*
w? y ...-J-

k' >^ *Jr*""^"«Bi

f

0T" MP* \
:

^ i
 *mA
t? &
'

" .
i \ < ... :./'/'' ' :U-'.ir

St '
1 s

"9% 1
.
'
<
M *

* 1

'1 '
!\U-

K. lift \
s
I

IsMst §d
£ ~ 5S ^

& ?& f*** &^

-, d? <g*
*
GAMBREL BARN ^ n
Xhese plans are for a 24-by-32-foot gambrel-roof barn of simple construc-
tion. Short lengths of lumber can be used and no large or heavy timbers are
required. The haymow of this barn has a capacity of 15 tons of loose hay. >o
r x
Drawings from Fundamentals of Carpentry — Volume 2, Third Edition, by
Walter E. Durbahn & Elmer Sundberg. Reprinted by permission of American
Technical Society.

mZ >

c>
-<
-i

. JV^'

6 COW STALLS

LITTER ALLEY

Framing < 8 HAY BEAM

Scale %2 "
= l'-0"

Previous two pages:

Left: John Welles' mandala-

likephoto of timber- frame
horse barn in western
Connecticut. It is huge! 431

feet long, 56,000 square feet

All timber is fir. Built by
Benson Wood Homes,
Walpole, NH.
Right: Nailed-together barn
in the Sacramento Valley
near Winters, California,
unfortunately going the way
of many old barns.

2-2x6 PLATE -

Side-wall framing Above: Rafter bents are laid out on floor of haymow.

Point A = peak of roof. Note that the 8'0" and 10V" rafter
Eave detail: 2 x4 lookouts nailed to lengths are also shown on cross-section. The upper and lower
rafter at angle great enough to carry rafter bents are held in place on floor with 2 x4 blocks. Note
roof water away from sides of barn how each rafter forms the third side of a right triangle.

212
OLD BUILDINGS

a-
l. <:

f.
ffvYj

^JFtI
v\0

£2 1 J&a&P
3LD BUILDINGS

s^W^*
I
W.'.-. ;*T

;?2Z£~g%,

*£*&&&.
-•
'*<^*^i "^ V-. 4&
it it****

."1 V.' " .-i^Cn •. -.vnv^A'.

- . *.* f:

?-1 '-'
*,
STONE STRUCTURES
OF NORTHERN ITALY
Werner R. Blaser

Werner Blaser is an architect, photographer,

writer, and author of numerous books on architec-
ture, engineering, and related subjects. In 1977, he
published Der fels ist mein Haus = The Rock Is My
Home, a tri-lingual paperback book of exquisite
black and white photos and drawings of stone
structures in Italy, Switzerland, and Ireland. Here
are three photos of stone buildings in Northern
Italy and a few quotes from this unique book.

What is so worthy of imitation in these secular

stone buildings isharmony of the interior, the
the
load-bearing structure, and house corpus. All the
dimensions are scaled to man, so that man and space .

form a unity.

Here . are people

. . who eke out an existence high
. . .

ibove the vegetation line and have no alternative but

to use stone for their houses Everywhere there is
. . .

unity between the architecture and the stone.

. on Alp Selva and San Romero we find the beehive-

'ike drystone trulli, which are round corbel dome

structures built over a spring to serve as milk cellars. The

orbel domes are constructed of ring-shaped layers of
stone which diminish in diameter until the vault is closed.
)LD BUILDINGS

View east toward Tibet from Pheriche (14,200'), Khumbu

NEPAL-EVEREST 1996
Jim Macey
During summers I have worked as a spent 10 days traversing the Tibetan plateau,
"packer," packing mules in the Sierra Nevada returning to Kathmandu, Nepal, where we
mountains. In 1996 our pack station crew flew in a Russian helicopter to Lukla (9200')
was invited by a Nepalese mountain guide to a in the Everest region. From Lukla we packed
Buddhist shrine near Dingboche (14,107'),
take a pack trip in the high Himalayan moun- to the base region of Mt. Everest. Our gear
Khumbu (Everest) region
tains of Nepaland Tibet. In the fall of 1996, was packed on yak/cow hybrids while
under the guidance of Jagat Man Lama, we we walked.

Yak/cow (zopjo) pack animal returning from 'jfl

Lobuche (16,164), Khumbu

Buddhist prayer stones, Pack stock returning from

.

^^r~
m
&->^w!3n

a mm ;;..**

Along path from Tengboche Monastery

Tengboche Monastery Mt. Everest on approach to Mt. Everest
(12,369'), Khumbu

At left and three photos above: Summer herders' cabins and

stone corrals near the foot of Khumbu Glacier, elevation: 15,000'

216
 HPh^j^H

^ #m - Hulfl^^E

Wlk *
' if
i .S
:

mm
if ^A ft v^j
;

n
Swiss-built suspension bridge on the trail to Namche
Bazaar, a Nepalese/Tibetan trading center (all freight

transported by yaks) near the Tibetan border

View toward lowlands along trail into high Himalaya, Prayer (water) wheel on the trail from Lukla (9200') to Namche Bazaar
above Tengboche, Khumbu region

217
>LD BUILDINGS

DISCOVERING
TIMBER-FRAMED
BUILDINGS
Richard Harris, A.R.A.

Central open trusses of medieval halls

Roof trusses with trenched purlin Timber-framed buildings: bays and frames

In the early 70s, met I Richard Harris at the

Architectural Association in London —
a unique
architectural school, with teachers and students
from all over the world. At the AA, architecture was
explored and discussed in all its varied forms, from
space-age fantasies to the vernacular.
Richard was at that time a graduate student, doing
beautiful drawings of 16th-18th century houses,
cottages, and barns. In 1978, Shire Publications Ltd.,
a publisher of books about English building, crafts,
and farming (www.shirebooks.co.uk), published
Richard's Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings, a
small book illustrated with these wonderful pen-
and-ink drawings. These days Richard is the
Director of the unique Weald and Downland Open
Air Museum of Historic Buildings in West Sussex,
England (www.wealddown.co.uk) you are ever in
. If

London and it's worth the

interested in building,
trip to see these structures. (See pp. 22-23 ofShelter

for photos of buildings from the Weald Museum.)

The purpose of this book is to show how beams were

put togetherto form buildings. Buildings —
at least
those which survive today — were not home-made but
were produced by carpenters who had served a long
apprenticeship to learn the skills of their craft. Creating
a building from trees is a bit like alchemy. Instead of
turning base metal to gold, the alchemist-carpenter had
to turn trees into beams, into frames, into buildings.
The secret of this magic was the craft tradition. This
gave the carpenter a series of clear steps by which he
could find his way through the maze of difficulties he
faced in each new building. Each step gave a key to part
of the process. Any change in these essential steps would
upset the balance of his craft, but around them he was

www.shirebooks.co.uk able to create the unique character of each building.

www.wealddown.co.uk A Wealden house -Discovering Timber-Framed Buildings

218
 Horse-powered grain mill from Vdmosoroszi. Horses drive the huge wooden cogwheel around a central
shaft which propels the mill stones. Originally built about 1800.

HUNGARIAN
OPEN-AIR MUSEUM
In 1991 went
I to Budapest to meet with two of our authors. A travel
agent had contacted before the trip knew of my interest in buildings and
I

offered to drive me to the nearby Szentendre Open Air Museum. The

museum opened in 1974 and contains some 80 houses and 200 farm
buildings from different regions of Hungary. It was a quiet afternoon,
hardly anyone there and as we wandered through the streets it seemed Plan of mill. Cowshed and cart shed from Kispaldd, northeast
like we had stepped back into the 18th century. Stones at center, bottom Hungary, mid-19th century

-•— -

A woodshed for firewood from Kis

Hungary, mid-19th century

A house from Redics, western Transdanubia, mid-19th centi A folding table and seat

A house from Vockond, western

Transdanubia, mid-19th century

^^*n^P
)LD BUILDINGS
THE

OPEN TIMBER ROOFS

THE MIDDLE AGES.
ILLUSTEATED BY PERSPECTIVE
AND WOEKIIS'G DRAWINGS OF SOME OF THE
BEST VARIETIES

Cljurrj) ftoofs;

RAPHAEL AND J. ARTHUR BRANDON,

arrtjilrrts,

Description of Terms
Bay. — The space between two
trusses.

Braces. —
Curved pieces of timber
tenoned into the main timbers of
the roof, and serving to stiffen and
tie them together.

Collar-beam. — An horizontal
piece of timber placed high up in
the truss, and serving the double
purpose of a stiffener to the
principals and a tie to prevent then-
spreading outwards.

Hammer-beam. — An horizontal
piece of timber lying on the wall-

Hammer-beam roof plates, at right angles with the wall

into which the principal rafter and
strut are tenoned.

King-post. —
The strut which
rests on the collar-beam, and into
which the upper ends of the
principals are sometimes framed.

Tie-beam. — An horizontal piece

of timber extending from wall to
wall, into which the ends of the
principals were framed, and which ^XSp** Little

served, as its name indicates, as a Welnetham

tie both to them and the side walls I If
Church, «
Suffolk

The drawings and text on this page are from The Open Accompanying each illustration in the book are
Timber Roofs of The Middle Ages, by Raphael and construction details, including roof span, dimensions
J.Arthur Brandon, published by David Bogue, k \ of tie-beams and rafters, spaces between trusses,
London in 1849. There are lovingly rendered, " -\ etc. The book was reprinted in 1999 by
detailed pen-and-ink drawings of the roofs of Algrove Publishing Limited, Ottawa,
various small churches throughout England, Ontario, Canada.
the majority of them in Norfolk.

220
 HE simplest and earliest description of
Roof was, doubtless, that formed by
two rafters pitching against each other;
it must, however, have soon become

apparent that this mode was open to a serious

objection, namely, that the rafters had a tendency
to spread and thrust outwards the walls on which
they rested; this led to the introduction of the tie-

beam, which, in conjunction with the rafters, gives

us that simple form of Roof which has been
handed down to us in the earliest records we
possess of any coverings to Buildings, and which,
with some modifications, is still in very general use
amongst us; and it must be admitted, that, in
those cases where the Roof is intercepted from
view, as, for instance, when concealed by a vault,
no better construction can be adopted.

>• St. Mary'

Church,
Wimbotsha
Norfolk
9"
Span of roof = 21'

NDEED MUCH has been done, much

written and said on this interesting
good that has been
subject; the
wrought by the revival of a purer
taste in Architecture, and a recurrence to better
principles, is but the harbinger of the good yet
to be achieved. Architecture has at length
roused itself from its slumber; or, to speak more
correctly, has burst from the thraldom in which
the vitiated taste of Puritanism had held it;
it has risen, Phoenix-like from its ashes, to

accomplish once more that beauty and

perfection which made our Churches such
worthy "monuments of love divine," such
glorious works of fine intelligence.
Amidst the many beauties that these Sacred
Edifices present to the admirers of Medieval
Architecture, none are more striking than the
taste and skill exhibited in the formation of the
Roofs; and, indeed, there is no portion of a
building, whether Ecclesiastical or Secular,
f Starston
Church, requiring more skill in its construction, or that
Norfolk is more ornament and decoration.
susceptible of
Many of our Churches and Ancient Halls still
attest the truth of this opinion by the evidence
they afford of the matchless skill of the
carpenter's art.

Limpenhoe Church, Norfolk

0"
Span of roof = 17'

221
LD BUILDINGS

WILLIAM COOPER, Limited, 1

Horticultural provi&ere

M
SUlLLIAM 0JOPER,
'<?*}<,> LIMITED

In the '70s in
walk-up used bookshop in London
an obscure little

I
BtSBP -W-S
found a treasure: a little red book
with gold and black lettering on the
cover:
William Cooper,
an illustrated catalogue of
Ltd., of ". . .
one
Horti-
liilliife
cultural Buildings, Garden Frames,
Poultry Appliances, Rustic Work,
Iron Buildings, Heating Apparatus &
c. . .
." There is no date, but I'd guess
itwas turn-of-the-century.
The Cooper company manufac-
tured portable greenhouses and
plant frames, as well as chicken
coops, duck houses, rabbit hutches,
rustic furniture,and a variety of
which were pre-cut
full-size buildings

at their London plant and shipped

to customers at home and in the
colonies. Here are a few of the
greenhouse and plant frame (for
starting seedlings) designs that
seem as relevant today as they were
100 years ago. We plan to reprint
the entire book in the near future.

J 4

Out ofolde feldes, as men sayeth,

Cometh all this neue corn fro yer to yere,
And out ofolde bokes, in good feyth,
Cometh al this newe science that men lere.

-Geoffrey Chaucer

222
WILLIAM COOPER, Limited,
Iborticultural proviDcrs

Cricket, Lawn Tennis, or Golf

Pavilion, with Verandah.

Stable and Garden Barrow.

)LD BUILDINGS
MOREOVER...
We've been working on this book for a year and a half now
and we're approaching the end. What's frustrating is that we
have a lot of great material left over (actually, the makings of
another book). Today I just ran through our files of unused
material and pulled these few things out, shown on the
following five pages.
Please note: If you have any material to contribute to the
next book in this series — photos, drawings, advice,
stories,
building adventures, insights, excitement — please get in
touch with us.

Below: Charcoal ovens near Ely, Nevada, built by Italian stone masons,
called carbonari, in 1872.They are the same general dry stone (no mortar)
construction as the trulli of southeastern Italy, which are said to date
back 5000 years. They were used to produce the fuel to run the smelters
and mills in nearby Ward, Nevada. Although the doors are now missing,
the stonework is in perfect condition, 130 years after being built.

$&.

*M«K
- -^*w* . -
* ..:'.

^rt 1
%'^-jMJi
1^. V ': ;-:•. "

m&
W"
• •&2&M:

i
H

'Wei

; '
&*.
lOREOVER...

WUmk
4
%
:

^^feSS®S^^S
/guess / /iai/e been building shelters all my life. I built tree houses and cave dwellings and huts from
whatever was available. From 1 968 to 1 980 1
owned a farm in the Sierras of central California.
Recycling was very important to me during those years and I built my house and barn for less than

*'' s
$2000 using discarded and salvaged materials. In 1980 1 moved to the island ofRarotonga in the South
T Pacific where there is little to recycle or salvage, but plenty of sand and rock. I decided to build a new
^^HHnpHi^^^^^^^H shelter for my growing family which would be as maintenance-free as possible; a real challenge in the
tropical climate near the ocean. Rainfall exceeds 130" per year, salt corrodes, hurricanes blow hard, and
fire destroys. So I built my latest shelter of concrete. It will not burn, rust, wash away, or corrode.
Building a concrete house is inexpensive, it lasts forever, requires little maintenance, but is very hard
work, as we did it all by hand.
E
. MMllti.iui,, wkM r^J -Richard Wachter, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

;JtJ

Window detail, Santa Cruz, Californi Interior of ferro- cement dome in woods near Belmont, New York
Bedrooms

We a_ll dvoell in a. house oF one room— the vJorld With FVmaument Fot-
its irooF— a-nd a>e sailing, the celestia-l spa-ces Without lea-vma. a~ t»-a-clc

-John Mu'n-
fOREOVER...

Tuscarora, Nevada Poured concrete/rock walls, Tuscarora, Nevada

Towers

Talent, Oregon Some town in Oregon San Anselmo, California

230
tOREOVER...
Godfrey when wet and raining. Well Atkin Eric Jr. in Port Ange-
I did Lots of sculpture She was born on the
les.

Stephens there, and eventually when deck of my 34' gaff-rigged

they kicked me out of the Wharram Catamaran,
In 1964, I met Canadian
place when creating the Tompatz, which I put over
artist Godfrey Stephens
Pacific Rim Park, and run- the distance of a circum-
in Yelapa (near Puerto
ning an asphalt road in nav of the world on, sailing
Vallarta), Mexico. We had
and to me Ruining the mostly without the Bloody
driven there from SFO in a
place, Pay parking from Seagull engine. Being
'60VWvan. Godfrey had
the wardens office, you Driven into the sea by the
painted murals and was
know the horrid march of land people's progress, I
carving wooden sculptures in
Humanity to the edge. finally got sea legs and
the little village and living in
Ironically, the Park people have built quite a few boats,
a $5-a-month palapa shack
got wind of the Wild and have barely looked
looking down on the blue
Carver guy living the, back since the Kayak. The Ching Ting "(Dragonfly" in Cantonese), a boat slammed
Pacific Ocean. He was ready
to-me, perfect life, Lots of You must be interested together to get sea borne again after the wreck of the first Mungo
to head home to British
Free love coming around in in sailing boats because of
Columbia, so returned to the
the summer you know. your Shelter books and the ballast ready to saw up and venerable Old ship for
States with us. We've kept in
Just a wonderful period, old collectors items, the pass through the underwa- mine, I declined.
touch off and on through the
1968 to 1971. The parks Dome books 1 and 2 . . . ter window hole, to drop Oh Lloyd this is turning
years. He is a true artist and
bought, or rather gave me My 36' steel sloop is buried into the Incredibly built into a wild story . . . have
wild spirit (and sailor of the
the price of a Klepper Arieus under the sands off Punta hollow keels and dump the a friend Bruno Atkey who
world's seas). Here's an email
sailing Kayak which folded Marquez, Baja del Sur. My lead "Saw Dust" on top and builds Wonderful Houses
from him a few years ago.
down into two bags, for an second sail to Mexico on tiger torch it solid, drop a out of driftwood and
abstract red cedar sculp- same boat lived aboard for steel lid, weld tight, then shakes, they are NOT
ture, which Jean Cretien 8 or 9 yrs. and came back, no oxygen gets in to cause hippy dippy but real ele-

presented to Princess and went through a slew of corrosion, the stantions gant simple structures,
Anne when she pulled the different craft and finally are stainless steel like the The Indian Long House at
silk off the Bronze Placque at great difficulty wangled BullCap and the Rails all Hesquiat Just in from
Inaugurating the new money from my Art, the around coast guard style Estevan Point (on chart)
"Pacific Rim Park" (which only way I have ever Solid pipe NO wire, all and the Buckland Farm
the publicity led to some worked, and got this fine Stainless recycled, i.e., the complex resort at the old
Great future Commissions) Hull Ron Pearson built for exhaust system is Stainless Cougar Annies, right on
and Lloyd you should have himself,y'know another piping from Island Farms the beach! He would be a
seen the incredible shacks child,and the boat went dairy, Milk used to course good guy for you to foto-
the Freaks built along the on the back burner. Having through those shiny pipes! graph for a feature or a few
beaches and Driftwood- spent time & Money on Easily taken apart with big inserts in another Book,
Dear Lloyd thanks for . . . choked Bays, any way, I my Master welders labour Nut Joiners this is a sail hey and please put some
the letter, and the web later built a Herringbone converting and cutting all boat, but it is built with Boats in, they are a lot
stuff, and especially your shack 7'x 11' right on the the things not liked about lovely lines for a steel hull, better built than most
cousin's miraculous cavern outside of Wickaninnish the unfinished hull, to be and tough as a working houses and have Lines that
and fitted rock work floor. Island, a MOST perfectly as best as can be from tug. In Cabo once aboard fit the Most powerful ele-

Where is that beach shack beautiful Beach, some- what we have to work Mungo, there was the ment. Enough! Megan has
you sent with the first times we (My Wild Girl with. Itis40'l.o.a.x 12' famous 40' double ender filed a lot of my crazy his-
letter? any way, when
. . . and me) wouldn't see beam, and with the Twin the "Joshua" which tory . . . gotta go to bed.
returning from Many years another Humanoid for Keels draws about 4'4". Bernard Motessier had Hope to resume contact
on the road, I went to a months, we had a Daughter Steel pilot house African sailed around the world with you old amigo, Yelapa
remote Wild Pacific beach, Tilikum, who is 26 now Queen canopy, so strongly 1% times non-stop, etc. was a long time ago . . .

Wreck Bay (Florencia Bay) and just bought her first the main
built.it braces It was wrecked there but
between Ucluelet and Sailing boat, a William Gallows on which the relaunched by friends -Godfrey Stephens
Tofino, west coast of Van- Blocks are secured for side from Port Townsend, they godfreystephens@mac.com
couver Island in what is sheeting to a 900 square wanted to trade that www.godfreystephens.com
now Pacific Rim National foot (rip stop U.V. -pro-
Park, it being a very Wild tected Tarp material 1200
Tlaook, Maryanna, Godfrey, and Cos in front of Godfrey's boat
place, Like Calif, coast, but sq.ft. for $300 cdn.!) fully
no people. Built a Battened Asian LUG
Plazarium, with carved sail, on a 12" diameter

yellow cedar, classic Haida- Unstayed solid fir mast,

style pole holding the ridge with the twin Fins & Skeg
pole up, ships' debris, flot- can sit on a three point
sam & Jetsam, a 10-gaUon landing when the tide out,
oil drum with a hole Bottom serviced without
chopped into it, and an old expensive weighs, the Skeg
drain pipe from the Dump is hollow and circulates an
for a chimney, and poly- enclosed heat exchanger
thene plastic, gets a good, which has no salt water
almost hermetic seal, running thru the engine
when it melts around the which is a 56 h.p. Isuzu
chimney pipe!, to be done Diesel (new) and new Lead

232
BOOKS

1 ^
1 BS k '1
\*?i\ 1 i
K V*
|nJ*f * k<4
J </»

oof Ij
I
| z z M -
1
11
?
3
1 *nM
lo2|p ^H
-

1 ~ i i
Bt I

1 5 '

f
•
1' ' 1
^El I
1
I I*'
1
' ?!

LJL; i Kj v 9 fca
41

VV. I
BOOKS ON BUILDING
The Top Three Books on Our List

These three books: Built By Hand, Dwellings, and Micro Architecture are
extraordinary and unique, as well as timely. They are in a class by themselves.

We have a library of over 800 books Built By Hand

on building, collected over the last 40 Yoshio Komatsu; text by Bill Steen,
years. Most of them are on homes and Athena Steen, and Eiko Komatsu
small buildings, handmade and owner- 2003; 472 pages; hard cover
built. Here are reviews of some of the $50.00
best. (I'm not reviewing those books Gibbs Smith Publishers, Layton, Utah
already mentioned in other parts of There has never been a photographer
Home Work.) A few things to note here: of buildings like Yoshio Komatsu. He's
1. This list isn't inclusive: there are been shooting photos around the world
plenty of other wonderful books on for 25 years now and this stunning
building — we can't cover them all. book is the result. It's a spectacular
2. I haven't covered books that are photo journey, like a film, around the
already well-known, but chosen planet, giving you rare glimpses of
those I think are outstanding, and shelter in every corner of the earth.
that you may not know about. The photos are absolutely wonderful.
3. A number of these are out of print, Text and editing are by straw bale
but with online searching, most of gurus Bill and Athena Steen, and Eiko
them can be found. Komatsu. This is like an updated,
expanded, technicolor, improved-upon
Architecture Without Architects. Wow!

Micro Architecture Every architect should own this book.

Edited by Kiyoko Semba and Kesaharu Imai There is no other book like it. It con-
World Photo Press, Tokyo, Japan tains thousands of photos, as well as
2003; 478 pages; soft cover; $55.00
Available in U.S. from Ursus Books and
Prints, Ltd.,
212-627-5370
New York.

ursus@ursusbooks.com
drawings, imaginative collages, and
unique layout.
buildings
yurts, treehouses,
It covers mostly small
— homes, barns, sheds,
— and just
tipis
about anything visual that caught the
photographers' and editors'
eyes. The layout is imaginative
i 4 i
and stunning. The book makes
the reader wonder how anyone
could gather so much informa-
tion, and then assemble it into
a cohesive whole. In addition
-Mil
to architects, I'd recommend
this book to builders, designers,
photographers, and
artists,
anyone fascinated with the
visual world. Unique and
inspirational.

Dwellings
The Vernacular House World Wide
Paul Oliver
Phaidon Press Inc., NY
2003; 288 pages; hard cover
$59.95
Paul Oliver is a scholar with soul. In the

early '70s, he published Shelter and

Society, which was a major influence in
our compilation of material for Shelter.
He was formerly head of the Graduate
School at the Architectural Association
in London and is now Chair of the
Master's Course in International
Studies in Vernacular Architecture at
Oxford Brookes University in Devon,
England. Dwellings is about handmade
buildings by indigenous people of the
world, some of whom still thrive,
others whose traditional ways of life
are threatened. The photos, mostly by
the author, are wonderful, and the
accompanying text is perceptive and
informative.

234
The American House
Mary Mix Foley; Drawings by Madelaine
Thatcher
Harper Colophon Books, New York
1981; 300 pages; soft cover
Although out-of-print, this book is well
/# * '..ft Hi .

g
worth tracking down. It covers over II I ,
I 111
'

300 American houses, from early / fc ;

|; Jf (Ill I I

American vernacular architecture

imported from Europe, to Georgian, Cajun Cottage, Louisiana
Greek, Victorian, and Beaux Arts styles,
to Modern architecture. The pen-and-
ink drawings are extraordinary. Here's
what the Chicago Tribune said about it:
"The most comprehensive, lucid, and
best-illustrated guide to U.S. house
styles ever published. It covers every-
thing from 17th-century huts to the
Inclusivist baloney of Venturi and
Rauch, and belongs on everyone's
ready-reference shelf."
French "Raised Cottage," French Vertical Log House
New Orleans, Louisiana Mississippi Valley

Banua Toraja
Changing Patterns in Architecture and
Symbolism Among the Sa'dan Toraja,
Sulawesi, Indonesia
Jowa Imre Kis-Jovak, Hetty Nooy-Palm,
Reimar Schefold, Ursula Schulz-Dornburg
Royal Tropical Institute, The Netherlands
1988; 136 pages; soft cover
$32.50
The Sa'dan Toraja are a tribe living in
the highlands of South Celebes, Indone-
sia.Their soaring and elegant houses
and rice barns were documented by a
photographer, architect, and two anthro-
pologists in 1983 and this striking
book the result. The buildings are on
is

stiltsand held together with pure join-

architecture. This book combines photo-
ery (no nails). They are often decorated
graphs and drawings of construction
from bottom to top, and the soaring
and technical details with descriptions
roof forms with upswept ridgepoles are
of the social and religious significance
spectacular examples of vernacular
of the Toraja buildings.

The Beauty of Straw Bale Houses

Athena and Bill Steen
Chelsea Green Publishing Company,
White River Junction, Vermont
2000; 116 pages; soft cover
$22.95
This is a small book with beautiful
color photos by the authors of the best-
selling(120,000 copies) book, The
Straw Bale House (see pp. 74-81). It
demonstrates what the authors have
learned in their work using natural and
local materials: that homes built this
way can be creative and beautiful. As
well, they feel good: "... the walls sur-
rounding us day in and day out need to
embrace us, our dreams and our pas-
sions woven into their very fabric."

235
)OKS ON BUILDING

Early Mexican Houses

A Book of Photographs and Measured
Drawings
G. Richard Garrison and George W. Rustay,
with preface to the newedition by David
Gebhard '
r
Architectural Book Publishing Company, AIVR.O
\
K r
i
-b-6"
Stamford, Connecticut
Inc.,

1990; 174 pages; hardcover

$49.50
In the late 1920s, architectural drafts-
men George Garrison and George
Rustay set out with camera and pen to
document select examples of "minor
domestic architecture" in Mexico. Their
book was published in 1930 and was
more recently reprinted. It is entirely
graphic (no text other than the foreword
and preface) and contains black and like those in a hand-lettered 1932 copy
white photos, along with wonderful of Architectural Graphic Standards we
architectural drawings showing per- have in our library.) The book was
spective, elevations, floor plans and intended to be useful for architects as
details. (The drawings are very much well as engaging for the general public.

The French Farmhouse

Elsie Burch Donald,
Illustrated by Csaba Pasztor
Little, Brown and Company, London
1995; 200 pages; hard cover
Describing the old farmhouses of dif-
ferent regions of France, this book is

profusely illustrated with over 100

photos and some 300 line drawings. It
explains how farmhouses were built
and furnished and describes the life
that went on within. The first half of
the book covers materials, construction,
and peasant life, while the second half
covers farmhouses in 26 regions in
France. Of interest to anyone interested
in European folk building, and especially
to those interested in buying a house
in France.

Houses by Mail
A Guide to Houses From Sears, Roebuck
and Company
Katherine Cole Stevenson and
H.WardJandl
The Preservation Press, Washington, D.C.
1986; 366 pages; soft cover
$27.95
Between 1908 and 1940, Sears, Roebuck
offered pre-fab houses from special cat-
alogs. Over 100,000 of these were built
inAmerica. This heavily illustrated
guide shows 447 different models, each
with a rendering of the house, along
with floor plans. There are a lot of
books out there on early American
house plans, but this is the most useful
I've seen, a treasure trove of ideas for
designing small homes. The floor plans
are tiny (you'll need a magnifying
glass),but it has allowed the authors to
pack in a great deal of info.

236
 The Houses of Mankind
Colin Duly
Thames and Hudson, London
1979; 96 pages; soft cover
$5.00-$10.95 used
A more descriptive title for this small
book would be The Tribal House. In any
event, it's a gem. The focus is on tribal
domestic buildings, and on how their
design and decoration are influenced by
social customs and religion. It is some-
what like a small version of Paul Oliver's
Dwellings (see p. 234), with carefully
chosen photos that will appeal to any
lover of vernacular architecture, along
with well-researched descriptions of
the forces that produced the designs.

Dogon meeting house, Mali,

Africa. Access is guarded by
two female figures on posts
facing each other.

Japanese Joinery
A Handbook for Joiners and Carpenters
Yasuo Nakahara; translated by Koichi Paul Nii
Hartley and Marks, Publishers, Vancouver, B.C.
1990; 240 pages; soft cover; $29.95
800-277-5887
pbdesk<s>hartleyandmarks.com

Japanese wood joinery is a master craft dating

back to the 7th century. It is imbued with rever-
ence for not only the carpenter's craft, but for
"the spirit of the tree." In Japan, the beauty of
wood in a building is considered as important as
structural strength. This profusely illustrated
book includes more than 100 splicing (tsugite)
and connecting (shiguchi) joints, with details and
step-by-step instructions for cutting and assem-
bly. Both very simple and highly complex joints
are included. In some cases modern simplifica-
tions of more difficult traditional joints are pre-
sented. The drawings are wonderfully clear and
instructive.

Japan's Folk Architecture

Traditional Thatched Farmhouses

Chuji Kawashima
Kodanshha International, Tokyo
1986; 260 pages; hard cover
$48.00
A comprehensive, graphically exquisite
book of the minka, or traditional
Japanese farmhouse. This book could
be the prototype for any book on
regional, vernacular architecture. There
is a map of Japan, showing the differ-

ent minka styles for each region of the

islands and more than 400 clear black
and white photos and accompanying
pen-and-ink drawings. The building
materials —
earth, wood, and stone —
come from the mountains and forests
that surround the houses. The designs
are said to have originated in Japan's
prehistoric past. They vary from the
steep thatched roofs of the north, with
its heavy winter snows, to small low

buildings in the south that have raised

floors to maximize ventilation and
minimize flood damage. The author is
an architect who has spent over 50
years studying, drawing, and photo-
graphing Japanese farmhouses.

237
30KS ON BUILDING

Lehman's Non-Electric Catalog

Lehman Hardware arid
Free from
Appliances, Inc., One Lehman Circle,

Kidron,OH 44636
www.lehmans.com
888-438-5346
Hundreds if not thousands of items for
home, garden, and farm. "We offer every-
thing you need to live without reliance
on electricity." A huge selection of
kitchen tools (hand-cranked milkshake-
making blender, cast-iron cookware,
apple presses, food dryers, etc.), garden
carts,composters, froes (for splitting
shakes), water pumps, Bag Balm (for
chapped hands as well as goat udders)
and on and on. The catalog is a delight
to leaf through, especially in this elec-
tronic age. not only essential for
It's

homesteaders and owner-builders, but

can be useful to anyone living any-
where who is interested in doing (at
least some) things the old way where
the result is well worth the effort.

The Living House

An Anthropology of Architecture in
South-East Asia
Roxana Waterson
Watson-Guptill Publications, New York
1990; 264 pages; soft cover
$16.00- $40.00 used
How people shape buildings and build-
ings shape people. This is a scholarly
work by an anthropologist about
indigenous building in South-East Asia.
It examines "... ideas and beliefs
Conical houses of Managgarai people, West Flores Island, Indonesia.
about buildings which are regarded as
Circular roofs reach to ground.
powerful, sacred, or alive." It covers the
role of kinship in house design and how
social relations define the uses of
spaces within the house. There are a lot
of great photos, including a number of
archival black and whites (some dating Minangkabau (matrilineal society) Islamic school. West
back to the turn of the century) that Sumatra, Indonesia. Note both traditional thatch and
are unique. galvanized metal roofing.

Lucarnes
Yves Brondel
Editions H. Vial, 8, Rue des Moines,
91410, Dourdan, France
Phone: 011-33-1-64 59 70 48
Fax: 011-33-1-64 59 52 96
h.vial@wanadoo.fr
1 993; 144 pages; soft cover

Lucarne the French word for dormer,

is

and unique book with beautiful

this
pen-and-ink drawings shows about 100
different dormers on French buildings.
(A dormer is a window rising out of the
roof and lighting the room inside.) Text
is in French, but the drawings speak for

themselves and are a great reference

for both builders and architects. The
dormers are divided into groups, the
most typical being those with gable
roof and flat front faces, but others
shown have rounded, peaked, or geo-
metric roofs, and there are a number of
charming "eyebrow" dormers.

238
Primitive Architecture
Enrico Guidoni; translated by Robert
Erich Wolf
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., NY
1987; 224 pages; soft cover
$30-$120used
A very wordy, scholarly book with over
100 illustrations of the architecture of
societies that "... have remained outside
the large, highly organized political
entities intowhich the modern world is
organized." There are examples of about
200 building techniques, with wonder-
ful photographs. The author empasizes
the role of architecture (building) in
the social, cultural, and economic
development of people in transition
from hunter/gatherer existence to
and finally to urban life. Great
villages
archival photos.

A Roof Cutter's Secrets

To Push or Pull a Wall Split-Pitch Tail Kick-Up
To Framing the Custom Home
Will Holladay
Journal of Light Construction
1989; 340 pages; soft cover
$32.50 (from Journal of Light Construction
or Builders Booksource — see p. 240)
Will Holladay is a master carpenter
specializing in framing. He has written
(and illustrated) this clear and useful
little book on framing a wood-frame King-Pin Octagon Beam Tower
Long 2x4 nailed
house; walls, all aspects of roof framing or on edge to
flat -
Spider strap tor
me underside ot
(including cutting, hips, valleys, dorm- the ratters serving
ers, etc.) as well as great tips on fram- as a shear strip

ing circular towers and stairs, arches,

bays, and skylights. The author intends
this for the experienced carpenter, but
it could also be useful for an owner-
builder who wants to know how the
pros work. Drawings and photos by the
author; a fine and useful book

A Shelter Sketchbook
Timeless Building Solutions
John S. Taylor
Chelsea Green Publishing Company,
White River Junction, Vermont
1997; 164 pages; soft cover
$18.95
This is a comprehensive little book,

with over 600 simple pen-and-ink

sketches by the author, an architect
inNew Hampshire. The focus is on
indigenous buildings all over the world,
in which "... the unselfconscious uti-
lization of common
sense can yield
elegantly simple, practical, and time-
less solutions to the most basic needs
addressed by human shelters." It is

divided into three sections, covering;

the environment (sun, wind, cold,
water); human needs (sleeping, cooking,
eating, bathing); and the building itself
(roof, walls, floor, doors, windows). The
author's goal is to inspire builders to
utilize the vast and rich wisdom of folk
architecture in designing for today's
world. An excellent first book for any
student of architecture, and for anyone
building their own shelter.

239
)OKS ON BUILDING

Traditional Chinese Residences

Wang Qijun
Foreign Language Press, 24
BaiwanzhuangRd., Beijing, 10037, China
www.flp.com.en
2002; 108 pages; soft cover
$29.95
Books on Chinese architecture are rare
(think, by contrast, of all the books on
Japanese building and architecture);
books on vernacular Chinese even rarer.
This unique little book covers develop-
ment of traditional Chinese residences
from 7000 years ago (matriarchal soci-
eties) up to the Quin Dynasty (1644-
1911). It covers a number of house
designs from different provinces in
China, including cave dwellings, earthen
on
buildings, fortified villages, houses
stilts, and Mongolian The color
yurts.
photos are consistently good, and the
residences shown are often unusual
and not seen in other books on build-
ing. Text is minimal but informative.

Houses on the water, Zhouzhuang,

Suzhou, Jiangsu Province

Tropical Bamboo
Marcelo Villegas
1990; 176 pages; hardcover
Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., NY;
a 3rd edition was published in 2001 by
Villegas Editores Ltda, Bogota, Colombia.
When we went to press, 3 used copies
were available from www.abe.com, for
$45-$65.
Illustrates the many uses for bamboo:
country houses, bridges, corrals, water
pipes, furniture and instruments. Bam-
busa guadua is a species of bamboo that
grows in the Old Caldas region of
Colombia; it is called by natives "the
gift of the gods." Included is the inno-
vative and elegant work of Colombia
architect Simon Velez. The color photos
are excellent and the book is an inspira-
tion for anyone working with bamboo.
All photos were shot in Colombia. Hey,
Rizzoli editors: Reprint this book!

Orchid nursery in Caldas. Structural supports Hundred-year-old three-story bamboo coffee-

are called "chicken legs." dryingplant on river bank in Caldas, Colombia.
Note heavy tile roof.

Two Publishers Chelsea Green Publishing Company 186 Allen Brook Lane, Williston, VT Sign Power
We recommend that you check out the Post Office Box 428 05495 Kiyoko Semba and Kesaharu Imai
websites and/or get catalogs from the Gates-Briggs Building #205 www.jlconline.com World Photo Press, Tokyo
following two publishers, both of White River Junction, Vermont 05001 bookstore-csiaihanley-wood.com Bernard Maybeck: Artisan, Architect, Artist
whom publish many wonderful books www.chelseagreen.com 802-879-3335 Kenneth H. Cardwell
on building and the related arts; info@chelseagreen.com Hennessy and Ingalls, Los Angeles
800-639-4099 Searching Online
Gibbs Smith publishes books that are
In addition to Amazon, try:
Cabins: A Guide to Building Your Own
smart, stylish, and sophisticated, on a Nature Retreat
Builders Booksource www.abe.com
variety of subjects, including building David and Jeanie Stiles
Builders Booksource is an excellent www. fetchbook. info
and architecture.
source of building books.
Firefly

Gibbs Smith, Publisher More Great Books

1817 Fourth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710
P.O.Box 667, Layton, Utah 84041 Hey, space is limited! Here are a few
www. buildersbooksource.com
www.gibbs-sm ith.com more. (I often think of Ken Kesey's line
serviceisbuildersbooksite.com
alisomsigibbs-smith.com in the '70s: "Take what you can and let
Orders: 800.843.2028
800-748-5439 the rest go by.")
Phone: 1-510-845.6874
Chelsea Green Publishing Company The Cob Builders Handbook
publishes books on sustainable living: Journal of Light Construction Becky Bee
straw bale, cob, rammed earth, cord- JLC has a great website of no-nonsense Groundworks, Murphy, OR
wood, as well as books on treehouses, books for contractors. Also, check out How to Build Low Cost Motorhomes
circle houses, and over a dozen books their $99 CD-ROM containing an
Louis C. McClure
on renewable energy. indexed 17 years of the magazine. Published by Ben Rosander

240
 APPENDIX

Shelter's
Worldwide
Headquarters
Our production studio is built out of recycled wood from a nearby

Navy base. on a half acre of land, along with our home, various
It's

outbuildings, and a vegetable garden. Due to digital technology, we

not only can prepare a book for the printers right here, but we're
hooked into the rest of the world. It's what writer Gene Youngblood
forecast in the '60s, as "The Electronic Cottage."

Drawing by David Wills

ABOUT 1965 Hitchhiked across country,
learnedI had more in common with

THE AUTHOR younger generation than my own,

came back and quit insurance
What Led to Doing This Book business, went to work as carpenter.

1947 12 years old, helped Dad build concrete block 1966 Moved to Big Sur to work on
house Sacramento Valley, Calif. My job: shovel-
in ob building large post/beam house
(30' long, 8' x 22" used-redwood
ing sand, gravel, cement into concrete mixer. One
morning, got to nail down roof decking. This I liked! beams) on 400-acre ranch. Lived in
chicken coop on ranch.
1952-1954
Teen years,
worked
summers as
carpenter, San
Francisco docks;
rough carpentry
shoring cargo
on outgoing
ships. Learned
what could
I

from other
carpenters.

The '60s Magical cultural revolution that changed world going on. Mostly misunderstood
these days. Artistic underground in San Francisco, early '60s. Beats fading artists of old
world/hippies joyous, open, sharing/entirely different mindset. Wonderful few years
(before "summer of love"). Non-conformity, dropping out, experimenting, searching,
expanding awareness, looking for better ways to do things. Loving, exciting community
on Haight Street, San Francisco, world headquarters for a few years.
All these things not so much new as being discovered for first time by millions of
young Americans:
astronomy • astrology • meditation • Beatles/Stones • Dylan • domes • LSD,
Gurdjieff Ouspensky • Zen Buddhism
• •
marijuana, mescaline Monterey Pop
•

Tarot Kabbala I Ching dolphin

• • • Festival • Rolling Stone Whole Earth•

consciousness Dune & Strangers in a

• Catalog The Owner-Built Home • The
•

Strange Land building your own house

• • Tassajara Bread Book viewing earth •

1960 After two years running USAF newspaper in organic gardening • ecological awareness • from space Edmund Scientific catalog
• •

Germany, returned to Mill Valley, California, went political activism • self-sufficiency •

L. L. Bean catalog chickens by mail •

to work as insurance broker in San Francisco. In poetry rock and roll the blues • Native
• • from Murray McMurray/and on
spare time converted old carport into a post/beam American culture Ali Akbar Khan • • and on . . .

sod-roof studio. Did all cutting with hand saw.

Shallow-rooted succulents planted on roof, white
blossoms in spring. Liked building process, smell
of wood, creating with own hands.

1963 Next project more ambitious. Used-wood,

timber-frame house designed by architect friend
— Japanese/Bernard Maybeck influenced. Post/
beam frame, some lO'-high poured concrete walls.
In over head, but got started and learned on job.
Owner/builder perspective in learning to build.
Have tried to maintain this outlook in reporting.

1967 Built post/beam homestead Big Sur. Developed

water system 600' from uphill spring, built house of
recycled 2'x 14" DF beams, 8'x 12" railroad ties for
posts, shakes split from deadfall redwoods, terraced
one-acre hillside, grew fruit/vegetables.

1968 Buckminster Fuller influence, started building

geodesicdomes in Big Sur.

242
 1969 Got job coordinating
building of 17domes at
hippie high school in
Santa Cruz mountains.
Experimented with geodesic
domes of plywood,
aluminum, sprayed foam,
vinyl. Kids built own domes
and lived in them. School
became focus of media
attention.

1974 Built stud-frame house using recycled

lumber, doors, windows. Goal was to get
shelter up quickly and have it be aesthetic
and practical. Works great for us. Relief
somehow to discover old ways can work best.

'80s, '90s Published series of fitness books,

including Stretching by Bob Anderson.

Left: First Whole

Earth Catalog
Right: Domebook 2

1969-1970 Worked as Shelter editor for Whole Earth Catalog.

1970 First book published, Domebook One.

1971 Published Domebook 2 —
sold 175,000 copies and I was
in publishing business. 34 years 1994 visited
later: In

%l sod roof house built in 1960 (see

1971 Bought half-acre lot small Northern California coastal pic on p. 242) and met a happy
town, built shake-covered geodesic —
dome featured in trio living there: Jeff,

and baby Jesse.

Miranda,

Life magazine.

2002-2004 Got back into the shelter (publishing) business. Operate

out of recycled-lumber production studio in midst of vegetable
garden, hooked into whole wide world via four Macintoshes.
I continue to travel and hunt for interesting shelter, maintaining
layman's viewpoint; I love doing it!

Cameras
Olympus OM-ls, full set of lenses

Minox GT 35mm/f 2.8 Leitz fixed lens

Canon EOS A2E, 28-200 mm Tamron zoom

Fujifilm 4700 digital 4.3 megapixel, incredible little camera
Nikon 5700, 5.0 megapixel, 35-280 zoom

1972 Decided domes didn't work, took Domebook 2 out of

print, disassembled and sold dome. Went in search of other
(non-dome) ways to build —across U.S.A., Ireland, England -
and Shelter (1973) was result.

243
AND FINALLY.
with other carpentry, plumbing, and living, I'd look for the simplest
electrical tools (and two dogs). He method around.
did soup-to-nuts — foundation work
— and took every- Home

^fe-
to cabinet work as Art? Be Sure
thing to the job. It's a great idea for That's What You Want to Do
a young builder — remodeling, If an artist makes a painting (or
additions, things up — learn
fixing sculpture) that doesn't work out, it
to do it all yourself, keep it portable can be tossed. Art's a field where you

so you can go anywhere in the can try things out. But a building is

'
*¥$ ;
"' '.
^;al country. Work for people as a so big and complex and expensive
builder, not a contractor. Do the that you're going to be stuck with it,
***PWBi IH^Bri tftidi plumbing and wiring too. There's a maybe rationalizing unnecessary
^^^^•* » great demand for solo builders like complexity. Yes, there's the other
this, you'll always have work. side of it: Lord knows a lot of people

< ""
.
-~ "**«** ^">*» - • -
" create delightful unconventional
Outside/Inside shelters. Look at my cousin Mike . . .

*„•"- n$. I've watched lots of couples building

their dream homes. It's surprising Choking Up
the number of times in which the guy Burton Wilson told me this story:
•
*wr^ Stir: .«£* 4F _ - i --^ -
has an abstract idea what he wants ayoung guy was working as a
to do, is thinking of what it will look carpenter's apprentice. One day the
like from the outside and the carpenter noticed the kid was choking
woman is thinking of what it will be up on his hammer while framing,
like inside, how it will function for with his hand about about 2" up
the life lived within. It's good when from the end. "Hold it," said the
B8HBsS«CJMB design decisions start with the carpenter. He took his pencil and
latter, the design from within. Many put a mark on the hammer handle at
couples break up when building a the base of the kid's hand. Then he
home, primarily because the job is took his saw and cut the handle off
more complex than it needs to be. at the mark. "You didn't need that
part of the handle," he said.
A house without love
is not a home. So True
-Hank Williams Sign at the San Marin Lumber
Company in the '70s (and boy, did
Local Materials this resonate with me!):
In the early '70s, after I gave up on have time
If you didn't to do it right in
domes, my son Peter and I got on a the first place, how come you have the
charter flight to Ireland, crossed the
time to do it over?
Bnrn and vegetable garden in Connecticut Irish Sea, and started hitchhiking to
visit friends who were living in a Either you is or you ain't;
small town on the Thames near Either you can or you cain't;
It's now early October 2003 and JVIy perspective is that of an Reading. Coming across Wales, we Either you will or you won't;
we're close to finishing Home Work. I owner/builder, not architect or got a long ride with a salesman;
Either you do or you don't.
have a big sign on my layout table professional builder. In fact I don't when he learned I was interested in
saying "You don't have to include it trust experts. (Don't trust people building, he started pointing out -Rufus Thomas
all!" and I've been trying to adhere with behind their names!)
initials buildings and showing us that each
to that. Accordingly I have tons of I've come around to looking for the was built of materials from near the I got to go to the top of the Golden Gate
material left over, the makings of simplest way to build as possible. site. "You see the slate roofs, there's Bridge on a warm August evening in 2000.
another book similar to this one — For me, where I live, for speed, a slate quarry nearby ..." and then, We went up inside the South Tower, then

sometime in the future. economy, and practicality, it's meant "Now the roofs are tile, because climbed a ladder to the top. What a thrill,

With this book, we're going back stud construction with mostly used there's clay in the soil here ..." As we growing up in San Francisco, then getting to

to our roots: books on building. wood. travelled throughout England, it was the top of this beautiful bridge! This is the
We're betting the farm on this one, striking: the thatched roofs in view looking towards Marin County.
and if it works, we have at least Architecture Norfolk, land of marshes and reeds;
five years' worth of building books Pretty much all the new homes I see the sandstone walls in the Cotswalds,
planned. (See Coming Attractions, being built these days, especially in where the light tan colors blended
p. 245.) the wealthy Bay Area, are disasters. perfectly with the surroundings; cob
How can there be so much bad in Devon; flint in Sussex . . .

Please note: If you have any material

architecture? Don't get me started . . .

to contribute to the next book in

Don't Make a Trip
this series — photos, drawings, The Nomadic Carpenter I
It

got involved in two building trips

stories, advice, building adventures,
Lew, who now our webmeister, that lasted for about 12 years:
insights, excitement — please get in is

scanner (and cover designer) was, a heavy-timber post and beam

touch with us.
few years back, a carpenter. He frameworks, then rebounding to
Since I believe in filling up as much carried all Volkswagen
his tools in a ultra-light geodesic domes, before
white space as possible, here are a few van so he could do just about any job discovering simple and conventional
last-minute thoughts that didn't seem onsite. Small table saw, planer, chop stud frame construction. If it were

to fit elsewhere: saw, Skilsaw, Sawzall, jig saw, router, me, and I were building a house
and several portable drills — along nowadays and I had to work for a

244
CREDITS
Director of Production and Builder of this Book: Rick Gordon Software:
Art Director: David Wills QuarkXPress, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Word, Nikon Scan,
Contributing Editor, Cover Design, Scanning: Robert Lewandowski Gretag-Macbeth ProfileMaker Pro, Compass Profile XT
Photo Shoots: Janet Holden Ramos
Photo collages inspired by David Hockney
Proofreading: Bob Grenier
Layout inspiration from Micro Architecture, ed. Kesaharu Imai,
Printing: C&C Offset Printing Co., Ltd., Shenzen, China;
World Photo Press, Tokyo
115 gsm multi-matte art paper,
disk-to-plate process With Help From:
Photo Processing over the years: Isidro Amora Bob Easton Lesley Kahn
General Graphics Services, San Francisco
Cafe Roma, San Francisco Louie Frazier Mike and Leda Kahn
Chong Lee, San Francisco Elise Cannon Jack Fulton IanMacLeod
Professional Color Labs, San Francisco
David Carriere Molly Heriza, Kit Wong, Mary Sangster
North Bay Photo Lab, San Rafael, California
Karen Cross Benny Chan, Esta Chan, Bill and Athena Steen
Marin Filmworks, San Rafael, California
Patrice Daley & the folks at C&C Offset Charlie Winton
Rick, Lew, and David
This book was assembled by using: Thanks to the three builders who got me started:
Hardware: Lloyd Kahn, Sr. • Alec Fulton • Bob Whitely
Macintosh G4 and G3 computers, Nikon CoolScan 4000-ED film scanner,
Agfa ArcusII flatbed scanner, Epson 2200 Stylus Color Pro printer, Sony Artisan monitor, Gretag-Macbeth Eye One spectrophotometer

PHOTO CREDITS
All photos by Lloyd Kahn, except those credited 68. Both photos: Burton Wilson 224-225. Jim Macey
already, and: 71. Lester Walker 228. Middle left: Joel Lundberg; top right:
2. Top: Bob Gamlin 73. Bill Steen Richard Wachter
3. Top right: Janet Holden Ramos 75. Top right: Bill Steen Middle left: Godfrey Stephens;
4. All photos except middle right: 78-79. Bill Steen bottom three photos: Chuck Alexander
from Louie Frazier 86-87. Patrick Ironwood 232. Godfrey Stephens and friends
5. All photos except lower left: 88-89. Kelly Hart
from Louie Frazier 91-93. Drawings
Oscar Hidalgo
8-9. and white photos:
All black Credits, unless credited on pages:
94-96. Cookie and/or Rand Loftness
Janet Holden Ramos 2-9.
126. Middle, lower left: Jack Fulton Louie Frazier
10. Leonard McLeod, Michael F. Bush 12. Lower David Wills;
127. Top right, third down on right: Jack Fulton left:
11-13. Michael F. Bush, Barry Comber lower right: Ian MacLeod
128. Top: Jack Fulton
14. Leonard McLeod, Michael F. Bush, 13. Ian MacLeod
130. Middle from Maxine Page
right:
Nic Embleton
134-139. Steve Kornher 25. David Wills
15. Lower left: Ian MacLeod, others by
140-142. David Greenberg 26. Three drawings: John Silverio
"passers by"
172. Center, lower left, lower right: 66-69. All by Bob Easton
21. Mickey Castle and others
Jack Fulton 70-71. All by Lester Walker
John
26.
28. All by
Silverio
Bill Coperthwaite, except top:
176. Rolling Homes photos: Jane Lindz 90-93. All from Bamboo —
The Gift of the Gods
178. Top two photos: Rod Cathcart; 99-101. Eiko Komatsu
Dan Neumeyer
29. All by Coperthwaite, except
Bill
center left: jean soum 113. Map by David Wills
bottom and second down on right:
left,
179. Right, second down: Ole Wik 128. Map by Michael Kahn
unknown photographers; 180. Top right: from Air Camping, Italy 186. All from Dwelling Portably
third down on right: Daniel Taylor-Ide; 181. Two Powerwagon photos: H. L. Baggett 207. David Wills
lower right: Lloyd Kahn 182-183. Roger D. Beck
38-39. All from Karen Knoebber 184. From Nomadics Tipis
42. Top left: jean soum 190-193. D. Price
44-51. jean soum, except top
All: left, page 51 198. From Native American Architecture and
Jean Michel Auriol Nomadics Tipis
54-55. Richard Perez 208. Top left, bottom right: from Christoph
56. Enrique Sancho Aznal Biichler
57. Garry Crawford 209. Allphotos from Christoph Buchler
59. Top left, lower left: 210. John Welles
Janet Holden Ramos; 216-217. Jim Macey
two middle left: from Renee Doe 218. From Discovering Timber-Framed
67. Lower right: Burton Wilson Buildings

245
NEW BOOKS FROM SHELTER PUBLICATIONS

'MM

Wonderful Houses Around the World

By Yoshio Komatsu; illustrated by Akira Nishiyama
Paper: ISBN-10: 0-936070-34-X; ISBN-13: 978-0-936070-34-6 $8.95
Flexi: ISBN-10: 0-936070-35-8; ISBN-13: 978-0-936070-35-3 $14.95
7%" x 10" 48 pp.
For over twenty years, Yoshio Komatsu has travelled around the world,
shooting photos of unique homes built out of natural materials. (See
his work on pp. 98-105 of Home Work.)
Wonderful Houses Around the World shows ten houses, accompanied
by drawings of family life inside each house, and highlights what the
children in each family do in their daily lives. This is a wonderful book

for children in North America, showing them the very different homes
and activities of their contemporaries in other parts of the world.

Stretching the Skin

Slrrlihinq thr Skin

Mongolian Cloud Houses: How to Make a Yurt and Live Comfortably LUXURY EXTRAS
By Dan Frank Kuehn
ISBN-10: 0-936070-39-0; ISBN-13: 978-0-936070-39-1; $16.95
7" x 9" 160 pp.
Friendly, easy-to-follow drawings take you step-by-step through the
process of building a portable 13 '-diameter yurt out of bamboo or
willow, and canvas. Also included is the most up-to-date (2006) info
on ready-made yurts, yurt building and covering materials, yurt web
sites, and unique photos of present-day Mongolian herders and their

nomadic dwellings. (See his work on pp. 188-189 of Home Work.)

The appendix contains a wealth of information he's assembled on
yurt designs, ready-to-erect yurts available from a wide variety of
manufacturers, plus tools, material suppliers, yurt books, and videos.
A wonderful last-minute addition is a section containing photos of
modern-day gers in Mongolia.
 SHELTER
PUBLICATIONS
Lloyd Kahn is the editor-in-chief of Shelter
Publications, an independent and eclectic
publishing house based in Northern California.
In 1965 Kahn quit his job as an insurance
broker in San Francisco and went to work as
a carpenter. In 1968 he became the "Shelter"
editor on the Whole Earth Catalog staff, and
started gathering information on handbuilt
housing.
Over the years he has built four houses
and continues to photograph buildings and
interview builders. Home Work summarizes
the best of his discoveries over the past 30
years. He and his wife Lesley live and work in
a small town on the Pacific coast north of San
Francisco, California.
Shelter's first books, published in the early
'70s,were on dome building, followed in 1973
by the book Shelter, which covered handbuilt
housing around the world, as well as young
American builders of the '60s and '70s. In the
next two decades, Shelter produced a series of
fitness books, includingBob Anderson's
Stretching,an international best-seller, two
running books by Olympian Jeff Galloway,
and a weight training book by legendary
bodybuilder Bill Pearl.

Shelter returns to its roots: the art and

craft of building. Shelter operates out of a
production studio built of recycled lumber
and set in a vegetable garden. Although located
in a country setting, Shelter is hooked into
the world with four Macintosh computers. All
aspects of book production are done on-site:
writing, editing, design, proofreading,
scanning, graphics preparation, and assembly
of electronic files for printing.

Note: Builders of the Pacific Coast is Shelter's

firstmajor building book since Home Work. It
contains 1200 photos of buildings along the
Pacific Coast of North America, from north of
San Francisco up to Vancouver Island, British
Columbia, Canada.
Home/Building/Architecture
$26.95 U.S. i--"
/
^H

^S EC |j: iw^H
ac^'v'^^fiij^flH

/ " *r^^ *
1 "^^
2&
&M "IS Vim
gi»^_.

*t

*atSBP
:

1 i&i

WmMii

±^~
--
i II
-
;-*

^ "**« ^M2^
.

52695

"